A sustainable community Vision
The Vision for Sustainable Communities
"Sustainable Communities" are characterised as communities which have:
- A flourishing local economy to provide jobs and wealth
- Strong leadership to respond positively to change
- Effective engagement and participation by local people, groups and businesses, especially in the planning, design and long-term stewardship of their community, and an active voluntary and community sector
- A safe and healthy local environment with well-designed public and green space
- Sufficient size, scale and density, and the right layout to support basic amenities in the neighbourhood and minimise use of resources (including land)
- Good public transport and other transport infrasructure both within the community and linking it to urban, rural and regional centres
- Buildings - both individually and collectively - that can meet different needs over time, and that minimise the use of resources
- A well-intergrated mix of decent homes of different types and tenures to support a range of household sizes, ages and incomes
- Good quality local public services, including education and training opportunities, health care and community facilities, especially for leisure
- A diverse, vibrant and creative local culture, encouraging pride in the community and cohesion within it
- A "sense of place"
- The right links with the wider regional, national and international community
In 2003 the Welsh Assembly signalled a green light for greater asset transfer to communities. The strategy and vision which is driving this is called "Making the Connections".
What does it mean to Abergavenny?
Bryn-Y-Cwm Community Forum (Still more work needs to be done to ensure grassroots participation. The community centre is one emerging route.)
Developing and capturing community participation is the only sure way to recognise and respond to community need.
The County Council recognises the need to bridge this gap and so the Bryn-Y-Cwm Community Forum came into existence. Although a local government invention the group has an impartial Chair and Vice Chair who set the agenda in collaboration with the sub-groups and The Secretary, Tom James employed by MCC in The One Stop Shop.
As the COMMUNITY FORUM matured, several Sub-Groups emerged that bring a very real sense of local ownership and focus to the exchange between the citizen and the service provider. Work undertaken reflects the sustainable communities vision above and makes recommendations designed to bridge gaps in service planning and citizens health & wellbeing.
The Forum makes a valuable contribution to the decision-making process and to ensure more voices are heard at an early stage we encourage more willing people to represent their community of interest, or place. The "community centre" represents potential to be the focal-point of community-action and with a view to reduce the level of support currently sustained by staff at the One Stop Shop, gives the Voluntary and Community Sector greater opportunity for ownership and responsibility for the interface between the Public and Third Sectors. Ownership in its purest sense is accompanied by risk and this is exactly where the maturing Third Sector wishes to be because in this space is where the greatest rewards are waiting to be harvested.To get involved with the work of the FORUM, or specifically in a focus group, please email tomjames@monmouthshire.gov.uk
Elected Members are kept in the link with work undertaken coming to them via agreed local government process. The work which comes out of the sub-groups is a consultative tool which Members may wish to reference when representing the views of their constituents within a broader context of the wider community.
Sub Groups:- Rural Issues; Young People; Environment; Transport; Waste.
Please consider the difference your voice could make to the direction that these sub-groups take.
The Transport group are first to produce a definative piece of work presently making its way through "the sausage machine" ...Dick Cole referring to government process
To join any of these sub groups speak to Tom James at the One Stop Shop.
"OUR COUNTY, OUR FUTURE" - THE COMMUNITY STRATEGY FOR MONMOUTHSHIRE states....
"BY 2019 MONMOUTHSHIRE WILL BE A HAPPY, DEVELOPING, PROSPEROUS, JUST, CARING, HEALTHY AND TOLERANT COMMUNITY".
THIS altruistic SHARED-VISION, CAN BECOME REALITY WHEN CITIZENS ARE KEPT AT THE CENTRE OF DECISION-MAKING. IT IS HERE THAT THE FORUM RECOGNISES A DUTY-OF-CARE IN IT'S RESPONSE TO ISSUES SURROUNDING, OR ARISING OUT OF THE AREA ACTION PLAN:- THE TWO-PART REGENERATION STRATEGY RESPONSIBLE FOR SHAPING OUR WELL BEING, FOR THE FORSEEABLE FUTURE.
ACC Ltd stands alone in it's ability to choose the best shared-practice and learning in order to put it back into the social economy of Abergavenny and surrounding district.