CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE RECENT SURVEY RESULTS ON THE
COMMUNITY 21 WEBSITE

March 2012
Our sincere thanks to all who took the time and trouble to complete the survey; you will be pleased to know that some clear and significant community viewpoints have been raised. Your Council, in association with volunteer groups, has already been active on a number of these issues but there is still much more to be done. It is for this reason that the Parish Council is developing a Community Led Plan which will set out a clear vision for our community and identify how the key issues raised in the survey can be taken forward.

However, it is a ‘Community’ Led Plan and as such it must be developed in full consultation with the residents of the Parish. The survey is only one part of the this process and later on 20th and 21st April we will be holding a consultation event - Wisborough Green Past, Present & Future – to start, collectively, to work out how the issues that were raised in the survey can be addressed, helping our village become an even better place to live. More about this later, but first I would like to share with you the key points arising from the survey. If you would like more information about the full results then please look at the Community 21 website which is linked from the Village website. Alternatively, the full report will be available at the consultation event.

Key Messages from the Survey

Living in Wisborough Green
You feel the best things about our village are the traditional village setting, the Green and other open spaces and low levels of crime. The things to improve are traffic issues such as speeding, and parking , public transport and the availability of affordable housing .
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Energy Costs
The cost of this is a substantial issue with 26% of respondents saying they spend more than 10% of their household income on heating their homes . This is very often due to the type of building and the fact that as a village we do not have mains gas, but there are initiatives and schemes available to help reduce costs and we shall be exploring these further at the consultation event.

Community Facilities
These are a vital element of living in Wisborough Green, with the Post office/ stores valued very highly, as are the Church and our Public Houses. Another key facility is the Village Green and although the majority of respondents thought that it was well cared for there was concern raised about the state of the children’s play area and the need to ensure that the Green can be used by the whole community.

Housing
You indicated strong agreement for the need for more housing in the village over the next 15 years, especially smaller and starter homes. Your views point to a clear preference for smaller developments, ideally on brownfield sites, providing a balance of housing and maintaining strategic gaps. The strategic gap is the undeveloped land between the centre of the village (Settlement Area) and the outlying housing.

You are also concerned about the pressure on infrastructure, traffic and parking and the retention of the character of our village.

Public Transport
Used by 20% of respondents, our bus services are somewhat inflexible and becoming more limited. Therefore a community solution needs to be found.

Employment
In the village, a significant 28% of households have someone working from home. The key issues here are broadband speeds and mobile phone reception.

A number of other valuable points were raised by the survey and are available in the full report. This is simply a flavour of the key issues which will be discussed further at the consultation event, but so far, to summarise, the important areas you feel that need to be addressed in the Community Led Plan are:

• Protecting our traditional village setting and open spaces.
• Addressing speeding and traffic management issues.
• Dealing with housing needs on a careful and balanced basis.
• Acting to improve public transport
• Improving communication either via broadband speeds or mobile phone signal quality, or even via our Village publications.
• Taking action to help alleviate high heating costs.

The next stage of the Community Led Plan consultation is to develop ideas and plans to help address these issues. Your views on what should be done are vitally important, partly because ‘many minds are better than one’ and partly because community support is vital if we are going to make progress. We also want to look more closely at possible development sites and also determine what is important for us to retain to keep our ‘traditional’ feel.

We are very pleased that the school and playgroup have agreed to play an important part in this event, as the young people of the village are the future and creating a good community in which to grow up has got to be at the forefront of our minds. It will be great to see and hear their views on Wisborough Green of the future.

So you and all the other members of your household are personally invited to ‘Wisborough Green Past, Present & Future’ on Friday 20th and Saturday 21st April 2012 at the Village Hall. Please put these important dates in your diary and watch out for further details in the Ad Vincula magazine, on the shop railings and notice boards in due course.
Please come along – it need not take long- and have your say on the important areas affecting our community and which we should tackle together over the next few years.

The world has moved on since we last carried out a survey and we now have the facility for questionnaires to be completed online, a process that will make the analysing and reporting of the results a far easier process for us. So we would encourage everyone who has access to the internet to use this facility. If you do not have internet access or you don’t feel comfortable using it, ‘pen and paper’ is still very much OK. Please complete the form and submit it by 16th December. If you have filled in the paper version there are collection boxes at the shop and all three pubs or use the Parish Council letter box at the Village Hall. There will also be Parish Council representatives at the Village Market on 8th December who will be on hand to collect surveys and answer any questions about the survey and Community Led Planning process.

The online facility has been provided by working closely with Action in Rural Sussex and Brighton University, utilising their online community planning tool called Community 21. This provides us with a website of our own that will enable us to develop our Community Led Plan by fully engaging with our residents. Not only has it facilities for online questionnaires it also provides us with an opportunity to map the important assets in our community and to encourage greater discussion around important issues. The use of the site will develop further as we progress through the Community Led Plan process.

If you complete the questionnaire online you will be asked for your postcode. This is purely to ensure that your questionnaire responses are attributed to Wisborough Green and not connected to your individual survey results. The Parish Council does not have access to email addresses. Please be assured that ALL DATA WILL REMAIN ENTIRELY UNATTRIBUTABLE TO ANY INDIVIDUAL. Filling in the questionnaire online allows you to see the emerging results so you may wish to return to the site at regular intervals to see how the results are changing.

We would like to receive one completed survey from each household in the Parish. We would appreciate it if the person who fills it in also involves other members of the household so we get the views of all sectors of our community. Please do not miss this opportunity to have your voice heard and influence future changes in your community. The more people who take part at this stage the stronger the plan will be.