As well as keeping in touch with residents, Neighbourhood Forums help people to make useful links with public services, businesses and other voluntary and community groups. Forums sometimes rely on one or two people who know a lot about the area. That’s OK – until those people move away or stop being involved with the forum… In any case, relying on personal contacts may mean the Forum doesn’t have a rounded picture of what’s going on locally and who to talk to about it.
How well do you know your neighbourhood? And how does your forum keep, and update, information about the area and the people who help to shape it? The kind of people it’s useful to know might include:
Residents’ associations and community groups, including associations in sheltered housing; local faith groups, clubs and societies of all sorts; voluntary organisations, social enterprises, community centres and local youth clubs.
Key public services – your Council District Office and contacts for waste management services, environmental health, highways engineers, libraries, leisure centres and the local planning officer; the Police and the local community fire station.
Local landlords and housing bodies – housing officers and repairs contractors, local housing associations, council officers who regulate houses in multiple occupation; private landlords and lettings agencies.
Schools and colleges – headteachers and principals, chairs of governing bodies, secretaries, citizenship teachers and Parent Teacher Association.
Health and social care – health centres, GP practices and children’s centre.
Businesses – local tradespeople and traders’ groups; large businesses in the area including supermarkets; landowners including organisations like Railtrack and British Waterways.
Making Better Places to Live – Neighbourhood Planning
Some Neighbourhood Forums have started to use their local know-how and widespread links with local residents, public services and businesses to make the basis for a local neighbourhood plans. These can be informal documents that have value because of the organisations which sign up to them; or they can be statutory Neighbourhood Plans which set out local spatial planning policies for the area. There are special rules, made by Parliament, which must be followed if you want to make a formal Neighbourhood Plan.
Advice and guidance on ways of making better places to live through community planning and through the formal Neighbourhood Planning process can be found following the link below: