Attleborough Development Partnership Minutes Tuesday 4 October 2016 2.00pm 4.00pm Attleborough Town Hall, Queens Square, Attleborough, Norfolk, NR17 2AF Chair: Tim Mills (Breckland Council) Attendees: Board Members Richard Doleman (Norfolk County Council), Tim Mills (Breckland District Council), Tristan Ashby (Breckland District Council), Charles Campion (JTP), Tony Perkins (Attleborough Town Council), Rona Boggia (Old Buckenham Parish Council), Phil Mileham (Breckland Council sub-group chair), Gina Lopez (Attleborough Town Council), Craig Neilson (Ptarmigan Land), Chris Hey (Norfolk County Council Education), Marcia Solloway-Brown (Besthorpe Parish Council), Alec Byrne (Norfolk County Council), Tig Armstrong (Norfolk County Council), Elizabeth Burrows (Neighbourhood Plan Group), Iain Dunnett (NALEP) Officers Sarah Barsby (Breckland Council) Guests Minutes Natalie Thatcher (Breckland District Council) Apologies: Tony Watling (Besthorpe Parish Council), Colin Kilby (Business Rep) Item Minutes/Actions Arising The minutes from the previous meeting were agreed and the following actions were discussed: The Cabinet paper has been agreed, at the Breckland Council meeting on 30th August, for funding and support. The independent chair recruitment panel have met with the consultant to talk through the process and they will come back with a proposal for advertising. They are hoping the process will take 8 weeks from now plus the time to put a contract in place. The earliest point a chair could be in place is for the December meeting however, it s more likely to be for the February meeting. The Planning & Inward Investment sub-group have not yet met but dates will be circulated for their first meeting by the end of the month. Page 1 of 6
The comms protocol had received no further comments or amendments after the meeting. The final version was re-circulated. More information on the link road should come out soon, however, discussions are still ongoing. A list of comments from town councillors was circulated to the board. Since the last meeting, the County Council have continued to work on the detailed design for a limited range of measures that are required from the evidence given. A number of issues have emerged since this detailed look. The design work has continued but the biggest issue was with accesses to local residences on junctions and this has evolved the design. The ongoing work has been shared with several members of the Town Council to keep them informed on the progress. The Rectory wall and trees is still an ongoing concern and the exploratory work on this will continue. It s an ongoing process but there is still the full intention of coming back with a range of options. A formal update will come to a future meeting, as well as to the focussed review groups. Richard to come back to the Town Council with simple reasoning for the delay to help with understanding. The solutions need to progress as they are necessary given the housing development that will occur prior to the building of the link road and the money is time limited. It was suggested that these discussions are taken to the Projects sub-group and Town Council discussions and are then brought back to the next board meeting in December. RD RD Agenda Item ADP Logo A selection of logo s were put together for the group in advance of the meeting and thoughts on the draft designs were requested. These will be fed back to the designer. Thoughts: Any design to do with housing doesn t particularly lend well to the development group The logo s presented are very generic and nothing specific to Attleborough The town signs/coat of arms was suggested Attleborough is a historic town and parts of the town sign has links to the heritage comms can speak to the heritage group for info The 2 nd logo presented looks like a factory, but the first one was liked by some It was requested that some consideration goes into accessibility i.e. getting the contrast right so people can read it, particularly the Page 2 of 6
older population None of the logos say what it s about Black or a bold colour and lighter colour was suggested It was noted that a member of the board is visually impaired and can t see green The colours on the town sign are predominantly red/blue The logo must look ok when printed in black and white too Would like to have initials as an identifier for people to use as well that compliments the full logo Thoughts on fonts: Stick to a font that allows for case sensitivity It was requested that no more than 2 fonts are used ADP Website The board agreed they wanted a website that didn t appear to be a Breckland site, having its own domain name and identity. From Breckland s point of view, it s easier if it s linked to our website, but an alternative is a microsite that is linked. The board agreed that the site shouldn t have the Breckland logo at the top if at all possible, but have the ADP logo instead. Possible domain names were discussed. It was suggested that the abbreviated title is used as the web address, rather than the full title of the partnership, as it s easier to search and is catchy. A shorter domain is also easier to use in social media. A list of available web addresses will be circulated by email for a quicker resolution. SB The GTDP web pages were used as an example and are simple with not many pictures etc. It is possible to put pictures in though and it was suggested that putting some Attleborough pictures on the home page would give it a better look/feel. The logo was requested to appear on each page of the site. The colour scheme of the pages can also be reflected on the site once a logo is agreed so an identity is brought together. It was confirmed that the site could be evolving and amendable as time goes on. Basic information will be added to start with and support was offered for some members, perhaps from the communities group, to go through possible improvements. It was proposed that the board look at the website for the Greater Norwich Growth Board, as they have further info on projects and what is actually happening, which has a different feel to it and will catch people s attention. It was questioned whether ethnic groups would be able to translate the web pages, however intrans can be set up to translate upon request Page 3 of 6
rather than by default. One member of the board always puts the vision first in their websites and suggested that this is a good idea to do for ADP. Having the meeting papers available on the website makes distribution easier and once the automatic emailing system has been fixed, you can sign up for subscriptions to the site to give you alerts to changes on the website be it news, papers or new meeting dates. SB is to let the board know when this is working again and will talk through the system. SB Neighbourhood Plan Update The plan is now at the point where only a few pieces of information are now needed to finish it off. The town council is frustrated and a little concerned at the delays that keep cropping up. There is a possibility that the longer the delays go on, the more costly it will be with consultants etc. There may well be a queue for the examiners stage of the process, so the aim is to get the plan into the queue, ready for it to go. There are a few procedural matters to iron out before going to the final stage, but these need to be done before it goes to the examiner stage so that it doesn t get held up at a later stage. One member of the board stated that they have always found the Breckland officers very helpful but would like continued support for the end result to encourage the finished product. The local residents didn t really understand the neighbourhood plan originally but in the end it was hugely supported and they were particularly encouraged by the linear park, which is a green space walkway that goes through the town. It captured the imagination of the residents. It was asked that Breckland consider this when accepting planning applications. Ptarmigan confirmed they are very supportive of this and would love to include it as part of their development when they put their planning application in to the council. Highlighting items like this to the board is the smart way forward and it will be thought of when looking at school plans too. The projects sub-group will also pick up things like this. Ptarmigan/JTP Outline Planning Application The planning application has progressed and a number of meetings have taken place, with the County Council, Breckland Council, Highways Agency and Network Rail. Ptarmigan are actively pushing forward with the planning application and although things have been moving slowly so far, it seems to be coming together now. Their hope is to submit the application in spring/summer next year. There is the possibility of bringing forward a further presentation, at a later meeting, perhaps the next one but if not, the one after. The project team will be meeting again soon and plan to come back to the Page 4 of 6
stakeholder group within the next few weeks to re-visit what the scheme is about and get into some further detail, working towards an outline planning application. The workshop will be held in November. The intention is for some press/media, followed by some information for the public, with an exhibition in the spring prior to application submission in early summer. Likely attendance at the workshop will be the Town Council, partners on the board and business reps perhaps. Around 50 people are to be invited and it will likely be a weekday afternoon. Findings from the workshop are to be reported back at the next board meeting. Agenda Item AOB An update was given on the strategy for primary and secondary schools in Attleborough. Two primary schools feature in the strategy, with planning permission for a 630 place school on recently acquired land, south of the town which is just about to go out to tender. The other new school is actually an infant school which is being relocated and expanded. This will have 420 extra places and is now at stage 3 of the process (where stage 4 is planning permission). 13m pounds is being invested into the education facilities. The County Council are working with the High School, on a masterplan and looking at growing schools and a joint early capital scheme using money that both parties have acquired. In Old Buckenham the Chapel Road/Chapel Green school will be relocated and enlarged, and work will start within weeks on site. Old Buckenham would also like the scheme to incorporate a traffic survey at both ends of the village as traffic at school times is chaos and there are no safe crossings. They would like some official surveys done to compare the effects after the new school has been completed. It was confirmed that the transport assessment scoping will be done with any large development project and the concerns will be picked up in this scoping process, considering a large amount of the development is on the Old Buckenham side of Attleborough. The Parish are asking for one safe crossing over the main road to avoid any bad accidents. The board were asked if they would consider having room in the meetings for public participation. It was discussed and confirmed that on a quarterly basis the public will be invited to ask questions. The 2017 meeting dates were agreed, as long as the town hall was available. If additional dates are needed, these can be arranged or moved as necessary. Name cards were requested for the meetings NT Page 5 of 6
Date of Next Meeting The next ADP Board Meeting is the 13 th December 2016 2pm. Page 6 of 6