Loggerheads Parish Plan

FOREWORD

A Parish Plan can be a most useful and important document, and I am confident that ours - the Loggerheads Parish Plan - will lead to significant and exciting improvements for our residents.

The Plan was first discussed at public meetings held 14 months ago in each of the 4 wards that make up Loggerheads Parish Council. Residents had the chance to debate the Parish Council’s intentions and long-term aims and to help shape the project structure.

Volunteers were drawn from these public meetings and, since then, this group of volunteers has worked tirelessly over many months to deliver the Plan as you see it today. In fact, the Plan is a very condensed summary of a much more massive body of data which will prove invaluable in the future.

This information was drawn from the most comprehensive survey of public opinion ever held in our community, which gave every resident the opportunity to express their views on all aspects of life in the area. In January 2008, questionnaires were hand delivered to, and collected from, every house in the Parish – and then began the mammoth task of inputting these data into a computer model. Believe me, this was no mean feat given the fantastic response by residents – 1,806 adults completed the questionnaire, representing 50% of the total in the area, and averaging nearly one per household. The coding and analysis of these questionnaires has been monumental.

On behalf of the Parish Council, I want to say a BIG thank you to all the members of the Parish Plan Committee, and all who contributed to its work – including those who tramped the streets on winter nights posting and collecting questionnaires, and those who sat hunched over their computers punching in data.

My thanks also go to all of you who took the time to fill in the questionnaires, providing the information on which the Parish Plan is based – the response clearly indicates a very high level of interest by the community.

This Plan will help to shape and inform the Parish Council’s strategies for the community, with regard both to its own activities and its representations to other local authorities, including Newcastle Borough Council and Staffordshire County Council.

It is our intention that the Parish Plan will regularly feature on the Parish Council’s agenda so that the working groups tackling the issues arising from the plan have a forum to update, debate, and progress their projects. The Parish Council meets on the 4th Thursday of the month and because we cover four wards we hold the meetings at various venues - please check our notice boards for details. These boards are located at Knighton Village Hall, Rock Lane Mucklestone, Hales Club, Memorial Hall Ashley, Bus Shelter Red Bull and outside the Co-op Loggerheads.

The Parish Plan will also inform the activities of local voluntary groups, and will provide the basis for funding applications – the detailed information for which is otherwise notoriously difficult to find.

I am very pleased to say that we have such a strong community spirit in our villages and many residents have a passion and desire to move our area forward. We need now to ensure that the Parish Council, residents working groups, public services, and Borough and County Councils all work together for the benefit of the community and a brighter future for our parish.

Ed Martin, Chairman of Loggerheads Parish Council

Attachment: 

Loggerheads Parish Plan 2008.pdf