Stinchcombe Parish Council Meeting

12th February 2025

Again, it was a pleasure to attend Stinchcombe Parish Council meeting last week along with SDC Cllr Braun and GCC/SDC Cllr Cohen. Here are my personal notes.

Normal meeting formalities. No parishioners present to speak at the public forum. :(

The Chair ran through many of the actions from the previous meeting (which I missed, apologies given). A new format for the minutes makes action points really easy to spot ensuring items don't slip through the cracks.

There was a really informative run through of feedback from the Council's various working groups (Most of agenda #9 was covered here). It's is great to see so much activity going on around the parish. Backing papers here.

There were a few questions on the SDC and GCC Councillor reports.

Three planning applications were reviewed but no comments made.

A detailed discussion on the excellent feedback received from the recent Parish survey. Details in the backing papers.

These new format meetings and the supporting backend system and new web site make it far easier for everyone to keep informed about all of the Council's activities.

The main reason that I started this blog was because, generally, residents told me that they often had no idea what went on at local council meetings and they thought there was a lack of proper engagement.

In the past the journalists from the local press used to attend these meetings to gather intel for news stories. This no longer happens and meetings became poorly advertised. Minutes were published only long after the event. No backing papers were released to the public. Residents cited difficulty obtaining straightforward answers to straightforward questions.

The new systems implemented here at Stinchcombe (even though it's early days) sweep many of those concerns aside, which I think is fantastic. 10/10