Following on from the successful work undertaken by the Chard Community Plan Steering Group in 2023, Cllr Richter and Cllr Hussey with Chard Town Council Officer support have been working with a number of local Chard Businesses, organisations and Chard residents to consider how to take this key piece of work forward. Key contributors were Watch project and WBW solicitors.
Two public meetings were held in February this year. As a result of these February events The Community Plan for Chard has started to develop.
Community Plan for Chard – Action Plan Implementation
Update
The Action Plan, stemming from the Community Plan consultation can be found below and is also on some of the volunteer & local organisation Facebook pages. If it is not on your page then, please, copy it from here and spread the word to show your support for the community of Chard.
There are some notes in the Action Plan that illustrate our Steering Group approach. The document is deliberately short, to the point and identifies matters for short and longer term action.
The Steering Group is still in the early stages (but evolving) and comprises representatives of many local organisations, including the local Council, and is operated on a non-political, facilitated basis. Funding is going to be difficult in the current local authority climate, but we will be looking at various sources.
High on the community agenda is communication, none more so than how the community can feed into their Action Plan development. Please bear with us on this as we develop a permanent mechanism.
Finally, as a demonstration of the positive effect these Action Plans can have, we can do no better than quote some recent feedback from a Steering Group participant.
“Thank you everyone for a wonderful evening on Tuesday. It was so good to walk around Chard and see it through different eyes and it was great to chat and catch that really positive vibe.”
What a difference a local group can make! At this Action Plan stage, we hope to engage rather than consult. Look out for opportunities to take part.