A radical new way of involving south Cumbrian communities in local government decisions begins on Tuesday, June 5th, with the first ever Grange and Cartmel Community Board meeting.
Grange and Cartmel is one of five areas of Cumbria piloting the idea of community boards which are designed to improve on existing local government and other public services such as police and health by being more responsive and accountable to local people and by devolving power, influence and resources to a truly local level.
Grange and Cartmel will be the first community board up and running in Cumbria when it meets in Cartmel Village Hall on June 5th at 6pm. The meeting is open to everyone.
The community board will be led by the county councillor for Cartmel Ted Walsh, and Bill Wearing, member for Grange.
South Lakeland district councillors from the area have been invited along with parish and town councillors from the board area's parishes of Haverthwaite; Colton; Staveley-in-Cartmel; Lower Holker; Allithwaite Upper; Lower Allithwaite; Cartmel Fell; Grange-over-Sands and Broughton East.
The first meeting will include a presentation and question and answer session with Peter Clarke, Cumbria Primary Trust's lead on community engagement, on the future of acute medical services at the area's Westmorland General Hospital. The agenda for the meeting is attached to this release.
Ted Walsh said: "This is a great opportunity for people living and working in our board area to have more say and see directly how the available resources are used in our community.
"The new community board and its meetings will be structured around public participation and making best use of input from parish councils and the young people of our area amongst others.
"Our meetings will be in the local village halls and schools making them accessible to everyone: you won't need to go 30 miles in order to see how a decision is made or how it came about: you could call it a local government revolution.
"We will be looking for plenty of public involvement, particularly during these formative meetings where we will be feeling our way, finding out what people want and how we can best make our community board work."
Community boards are also being piloted in Keswick, Barrow, North East Copeland and North Allerdale.
These first experimental boards will help decide exactly how the system will work if it is introduced as part of the switch to single unitary local government for the county.
Cumbria County Council proposed a unitary council for the whole of Cumbria in response to a Government invitation to come up with ways of creating a more efficient system of local government which would make better use of public money.
The county council proposed a system which would see Cumbria County Council and the county's six district councils replaced by a single tier of local government delivering all services from highways to housing and education to leisure. The Government's Department of Communities and Local Government rated Cumbria's bid highly in its initial assessment and in July ministers are expected to make a final decision on whether Cumbria can proceed towards fully-fledged unitary status in summer 2009.
Running the pilot schemes will provide vital information on areas such as: size and resources; the work of councillors; how to engage marginalised and hard-to-reach groups; the relationship between community boards, neighbourhood forums and local committees; how to respond better to community action plans; and partnership working with businesses, voluntary organisations and town and parish councils.
Ends
Media enquiries to Justin Hawkins, Media Officer on 01228 606334
Notes
Follow the link below to view the Grange and Cartmel Agenda
Follow this link to view the Grange and Cartmel Agenda