October 2012 Update
The Parish Plan Steering Committee has been reviewing the input from the Questionnaires, which have been returned, and have concluded that Ropley is in a very different place from other Villages who have been through this process!
Reading other Parishes’ plans shows that the most common issues that they need addressing concern the provision of infrastructure, e.g. Recreation Grounds, Village Halls, etc.. In Ropley we are already well catered for with a variety of infrastructure which has been provided in the Village and which has been maintained and updated as needs dictate. In this regard, we can all be proud of the efforts made by others so far.
So what are the key issues that were raised?
It is clear that the greatest demand in Ropley is for the services provided in the Village to be both more varied and for there to be more of them. For example, the Plan responses indicated that:
- a wider range of events could be held in the Pavilion, the Village Hall and, perhaps, the Church etc., and
- there is a wealth of individuals who are prepared to volunteer their services to assist in helping others and to help keep the Parish looking neater.
The Steering Committee has drawn up a list of the 10 most mentioned issues and will now be contacting other Groups in the Parish who are more able to respond to the issues raised, as quickly and as efficiently as possible. This process will take more time to get appropriate engagement and, as sub-projects are allocated, the Parish Plan pages will be updated regularly on this website.
Once again, thanks to all of you who have let us know your thoughts and to those who have made sure that Ropley has adequate facilities to cater for our various needs.
Alan Parsonson
April 2012 Update
Over 40% of Ropley’s Parishioners returned a completed Parish Plan Questionnaire and we now have a fair representation of views by location within the Parish.
The Steering Group is now in the process of sorting out those ISSUES which can be addressed and will allocate these to various TEAMS who will be best placed to work on them. These TEAMS will identify actions which should be implemented to address the issues, and deciding who will be responsible for those actions, how much they will cost and how long they will take. These “ACTION PLANS” will then form the bulk of the Parish Plan. So please bear with us while this work is undertaken. The ISSUES will be publicised on the this web site and we will be asking for volunteers to work on the TEAMS in addition to the “obvious” stakeholders of some ISSUES.
What is encouraging is that we have over 100 households which have volunteered to help with various “housekeeping” issues around the Village. In particular there has been overwhelming support for help should we have an extreme weather event.
Alan Parsonson
January 2012 Update
In May 2010 the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister announced that “The time has come to disperse power more widely in Britain today.” Within this initiative the government proposed that local communities take more control of their lives and to have a strong voice in what needs addressing (and what doesn’t need addressing) in their own neighbourhoods whilst engaging with other organisations (e.g. County Councils, etc.) to take the actions appropriate for the local community.
To ascertain what are the appropriate actions, local communities have been encouraged to seek input from the majority (if not the whole) of its residents and to summarise the outcome of this process in a formal document – The Parish Plan. However, this Plan is not a snap shot of what is needed now but is a living document to be regularly updated in order to reflect the changing needs of the community.
The Ropley Parish Plan Steering Group adopted processes to identify the issues which are currently cause for concern for the community and, because these processes could not engage with ALL parishioners, it has translated these concerns into a Questionnaire which has been distributed to all houses in the Parish of Ropley. The questionnaire has been designed to be as simple as possible to complete and also allows individuals to raise matters not raised in the research processes. So far just under 300 completed Questionnaires have been returned to the Steering Group.
Once the completed questionnaires have been fully collated a number of specific actions will become evident. It will then be necessary to identify groups of individuals and/or clubs or societies who will take responsibility for addressing specific issues. They will keep the Steering Group informed of what actions will be taken, when and how much it might cost. Only then can a final draft of the Parish Plan can be produced and published to the parish.
Obviously, the Steering Group will ensure that feedback will be given as and when appropriate in the process and will, after publication, seek regular reports from those responsible for the various actions to ensure that issues are addressed as agreed, including securing grants.
In due course a review amongst the parish will be carried out to find out if improvements have been achieved and to identify new issues requiring attention. It is planned that this website can be used for this process in the future.
Alan Parsonson
