Chance for Whitchurch and Prees residents to improve area

Access to Whitchurch Railway Station for people with disabilities, and the Whitchurch and Prees Youth Opportunity Fund, will be just two items on the agenda when the next meeting of Action: Whitchurch and Prees local committee is held on Wednesday 26 March.

The meeting will be held at Tilstock Bradbury Village Hall starting at 7.00pm, and all local residents in the area are invited to attend.

The meeting will give people in the Whitchurch and Prees area another chance to meet with local councillors, get involved in decisions affecting their community and help decide how the committee spends its budget.

It will also be combined with the Tilstock PACT (Partners and Communities Together) meeting.

More than 100 people attended the most recent Action: meeting in Higher Heath on 17 January which, for the first time, was combined with the Whitchurch PACT meeting. Issues discussed were parking and grasscrete in Whitchurch, The Square in Prees, and Shropshire County Council’s budget proposals.

Tom Biggins, Shropshire County Councillor for Whitchurch, said: “Action: Whitchurch and Prees is giving local people a real chance to say how they think services and facilities in the area could be improved. The meetings held so far have offered some valuable suggestions about how and where the committee should spend its budget.”

Gerald Dakin, Shropshire County Councillor for Prees, said: “A number of important issues have already been raised and discussed, but we are really keen for people to come to our next meeting to tell us what else they think we could or should be doing to improve the area.”

The Action: Whitchurch and Prees meetings have a committee of county, district, town and parish councillors drawn from the area, and a small budget which the committee allocates in response to issues raised by members of the public.

Action: Whitchurch and Prees is one of five local committee pilots that have been meeting in Shropshire for the past year.

The Shropshire Council Implementation Executive recently decided that, following the success of the pilots, each should continue for at least another 12 months, and that six further local committees should also be set up.

17 March 2008