Q1(a) DRAFT Hampshire County Council, Hart District Council and Yateley Town Council

Q1(b) DRAFT ANSWER Hampshire County Council delivers 2966 services under the following headings

Business (312), Education and Learning (75), Health and Social Care(398), Housing (191), Legal Services(9), Policing and Public Safety(85), Transport and Streets(198), Community and Living(254), Environment(685), Council, Government and Democracy(337), Jobs and Careers(14), Leisure and Culture(387) and Social Issues(21).

Hart District Council delivers many services under the following headings; business, community and living, the environment, planning and leisure. These include affordable housing, benefits, collecting the council tax, refuse collection and recycling, bus tokens, cctv, community safety, dog wardens, tree protection, grant finder, environmental health and the register of electors.

Services provided by Yateley Town Council include; the cemetery, ponds, streetlighting, bus shelters, grounds maintenance (including sports pitches), leisure facilities i.e the bowling green and tennis courts, community halls, grants to groups and charities.

Q2(a)DRAFT ANSWER: All 3 councils can be accessed online, by telephone or in person.

Q2(b)DRAFT ANSWER: Hampshire County Council is based in The Castle in Winchester.

Hart District Council is in Harlington Way in Fleet.

Yateley Town Council is based on Yateley Green on the Reading Road in Yateley.

Q2(c)DRAFT ANSWER: Information points for all 3 councils are based at their offices.

Q2(d)DRAFT ANSWER: Yateley Town Councillors do not hold surgeries but all meetings include time for public participation. Councillors can also be contacted directly by email or telephone.

Q2(d) ANSWER FROM THE LIBERAL DEMOCRATS

22 of the 27 council seats in the parish are held by Liberal Democrats, who used to run two surgeries each on a monthly basis. These were advertised fairly widely, but we once went for over a year without a single resident attending either surgery. When we did some consultation we found that despite our advertising some had not heard of them, but the far wider comment was "why would we wait up to a month for a surgery when we can email, phone or write to you straight away". It was clear that surgeries were not valued in this area. Instead, therefore, we continue to distribute community newsletters which always include contact details for all councillors in the relevant ward(s).

Q3 dRAFT ANSWER: There is an LSP for Hart District. The Partnership Members can be found in the Appendix of the website by clicking Hart Local Strategic Partnership. All these members have a local presence. There are five thematic subgroups but no local sub-groups. The thematic groups are as follows:

• Community Safety
• Affordable and Safe Housing
• Environment
• Transport
• Health and Wellbeing

These same thematic priorities have been adopted as 5 of the eight topics for the Yateley Parish Plan. In the Yateley Plan 'Environment' has been renamed Heritage & Conservation.

 

The local issues currently being addressed by the Hart LSP are:

• Non-smoking policies for work premises and vehicles
• Healthier food options in partnership catering facilites
• Employer supported physical activity programmes
• Reducing flood events and reducing environmental pollution
• Lobbying for an 'infrastructure first' strategy in the emerging South East Plan
• Promoting an equality and diversity policy
• Maximise new affordable housing within the LPA's powers
• Widen provision of affordable houses for key workers
• Investigate alternatives for supplying more affordable housing
• Form and integrated transporation working group to ensure people can get to essential services
• Integrated transport working group to report on realsitic achievable methods to reach objectives.

Q4 DRAFT ANSWER: The Hart Community Strategy was published in June 2005. The Strategy does not mention Yateley, by name, or any local parishes. The environmental proposals to reduce flooding and pollution could be significant for Yateley which has been subject to both in the past. The Thames Valley Basin Special Protection Area for Wild Birds designated under European Directives is not mentioned in the Community Strategy. It amy have been concluded that this is a matter for the Local Development Framework. If so this would be a pity since the SPA needs local management and support by local people within the adjacent communities to respect this special environment.

Q5 DRAFT ANSWER: The Local Authority intends that each of the Parish Plans developed in Hart will feed into future versions of the Hart Community Strategy, which is seen as a 'living plan.' Hart arrange a Parish Plans Forum which recently, for example, gave an officer presentation addressing the SPA issue in our answer to S4 Q5 above. The Hart Parish Plans Officer normally attends the Yateley Parish Plans Steering Group monthly meetings. Hart has published on its website a guide for preparing Parish Plans. Hart have not imposed a prescriptive format in parishes, owing to the diversity of size and character of parishes in the district. Hart encourage 'free form' planning, but the Yateley Steering Group has resolved to produce its Parish Plan using the Market Town Health Check methodology.

Q6 ANSWER

a. 61.3% in 2005, 57.9% in 2001

b. 2.3% above

c. Frogmore & Darby Green 22.7% (2003) This was unusually low - normally around 30%

Yateley East 34.2% (2004)

Yateley North 32.3% (2003)

Yateley West 32.5% (2004)

d. Lower

e. 13 out of 17 (only Yateley West ward was uncontested)

f. Yes, in February 2006.

Q7 ANSWERS

a. 17 town councillors, 8 district councillors and 2 county councillors are all elected from the community of the parish of Yateley. Between them they are on countless committees. There are also quite a number of unelected residents who play a very valuable role in a wide range of issues.

b. 27 councillors, dozens of others.

c. Some are very active, some less so. How do we measure this?

d. (see b above)

e. (see b above)

Q7 NOTES: Researching the answers to S4 Q7b, Q7d and Q7e is a massive task just to work out what the 27 councillors are on, let alone the many residents who also sit on local government committees and other bodies. Perhaps we should start with YTC... In anycase this worksheet is not the best place to answer this question. The short answer is that councillors representing Yateley sit on a very wide variety of committees up to County level. Many local residents also sit on local government committees where this is encouraged

Q8 DRAFT ANSWER: Yateley residents have considerable opportunity to influence community and land-use strategies at both the District and Parish levels. The Statement of Community Involvement, published by Hart in April 2005 explains the consultation process for the Local Development Framework, and how ordinary people, individually or via local organisations, can comment on and make contribution to the planning process. At the Parish level ordinary people have every opportunity to join the eight Parish Plan Topic Groups, and to comment on any page on this website. Surveys, exhibitions, workshops and meetings have been arranged over the last five years as public consultation for the Yateley Village Design Framework, and are planned for the on-going community planning process. The opportunity has been there, and is there, to play a full part in the planning process, but the question remains as to how many individuals or groups will avail themselves of that opportunity to participate

Q9 DRAFT ANSWER: There is now no residents association. The Yateley Residents Association was very active in the 1970s and early 1980s, then controlling the Town Council. This role has been taken on by political parties, with the Liberals in control. The resident's association went into decline following the emergence of party politics at the local level.

 

The Yateley Society was formed as a registered charity in 1981, adopting the model Constitution of the Civic Trust to which it is affiliated. The Society's original three charitable object clauses were to promote high standards of planning in the Civil Parish of Yateley, to educate the public in the geography, history, natural history and architecture of Yateley, and secure the preservation, protection, development and improvement of features of historic or public interest in the parish. The Society works closely with the Campaign for Rural England, and various other environmental charities. There is a monthly talks programme which features the Society's own extensive local history research, and that of others. All meetings are open to the general public. In 1996, in response to the proposed designation of Yateley Common to form part of the Special Protection Area for Wild Birds, the Yateley Society added a fourth charitable object clause to promote and enhance biodiversity in the civil parish. This amendement also reflected the Society's involvement in Public Inquiries supporting Hart District Council, English Nature and the RSPB, opposing housing development which would be contrary to the UK law actioning the European Directives. The Society also organises monthly work parties to assist the County Council Rangers to manage Yateley Common. The work parties are open to anyone and are popular with young people wishing to pursue the Duke of Edinburgh's Award and other similar schemes.

Q10 ANSWERS: The answer to this question is essentially the same as the answer to Question S4 Q8 above. In the past year there has beeb public consultation on the Issues and Options for the Local Development Framework; plus continuing consultation on Phase 1 of the YATELEY VILLAGE DESIGN FRAMEWORK. This public website was launched in November 2005.

Q11 DRAFT ANSWER: As explained in answer to S4 Q5 above Hart District have a Parish Plans Officer dedicated to developing community involvement and co-ordinating building capacity in communities in the District. Yateley Town Council, with financial assistance from Hart, funds and provides officer space and salary for the part-time Yateley Parish Plan Project Officer.

 

Hampshire County Council also plays a very active role in assisting communities with community planning, and financing those plans. Hampshire County Council has a Market Towns Officer who assists with the Market Towns Health Check, by encouraging their up-take by communities and co-ordination assistance by the County's Economic Department in answering the statistical parts of the questionnaire. As explained in the answer to S4 Q8 above Hampshire County Council have been instrumental in assisting the local community in Yateley to develop the Yateley Village Design Framework, and to a large extent fund Phase 1 implementation. The County Council are now funding a consultant (W S Atkins) to convert the YVDF Phase 2 into a Supplementary Planning Document including taking care of the sustainability and strategic environmental appraisals. The County's Landscape Planning & Heritage Department coordinates project management, and assists the community to achieve their objectives with respect to spacial planning.