Welcome to the Chard Community Plan 2023. It is with great pleasure that the steering group publish this plan, which has been put together as a result of a community survey and a range of engagement events. Areas of specific interest have been investigated, researched and views sort to enable this plan to come together. We accept it is not perfect and does not address everything that needs to be done to improve Chard. However, it does represent a great number of views from those who chose to get involved, identifies some key areas for improvement and some proposed actions.
The process by which this report and action plan has been produced is as follows: A steering group was set up from people who expressed an interest through the Chard Town Council website and was a mixture of Councillors and members of the community with particular areas of expertise. A survey was developed in collaboration with Smart Communities and published for completion in March 2023.
To assist those who didn’t have internet access or needed help in completing the survey, three in-person engagement events were also held. A total of 539 people completed the survey. The survey findings were analysed, and the findings placed into this report.
Steering Group Members are; Serena Wootton (Chair), Cllr Andi Grief-Page (Vice Chair), Cllr Dave Bulmer, Cllr Banah Crook, Claire Edmonds, Roz Hall, Cllr Jenny Kenton, Ryan Parr, Cllr Claire Richter, Louise Tompkins and Andy Webb.
The steering group was ably and patiently supported by Beverley Newman and Tim
Bickham of Chard Town Council.