Supporting Local Councils with Peer Learning and Networking A Local Council Profile: Great Staughton

Bob Jewell, Chair of the have four buses per day to and two Parish Council at Great buses to . Staughton recently hosted a Peer Learning How does the Parish Council operate? event in his village as We have a Parish Council of nine, a mix of part of a men and women. We deal with planning Cambridgeshire Local matters using electronic communication Councils Stakeholder unless there is significant disagreement or Group meeting. In this interview he talks major interest. This allows us to focus our six- about what makes the community there weekly meetings on wider community issues. special. The Village Hall and the Playing Field are both run by charitable trusts but the Parish Council Tell us a bit about Great Staughton, Bob... has representatives on each. Great Staughton is a small community in the south-west of , about 8 miles Does the Parish Council have any staff? from Huntingdon. About 1,000 people live in We employ our clerk, Jo Russel, for just 7 the village and we’ve an electorate of about hours a week but we will pay overtime if 700 people. The Parish Council precepts required. We also contract a person to carry £19,000 via council tax billing and we’re out basic village maintenance for us. always conscious of the need to justify what we need money for. What’s your relationship with your District and County Councillors like? The village underwent significant Both our councillors have changed in recent development about 40 years ago with lots of months as a result of ward boundary changes, young families moving in, meaning they have but our new councillors have been very keen grown-up with the village. There’s an excellent to attend parish council meetings when they article on the history of the village on our can and their support is crucial in escalating community website: issues that are not within the Parish Council’s https://greatstaughton.com/about/history-of- powers to resolve. We believe the relationship great-staughton/ between the different tiers of local government is highly important and we do our What facilities does the community have? best to nurture it. We have a church, a GP surgery, a butcher’s shop, two hairdressers, two pubs, a primary What do you find you spend your funding school including a pre-school, the village hall on? and a playing field with its own pavilion and a In addition to the clerk’s wages and the children’s play area and skate ramp. The money we spend on grass cutting, we make a football pitch on the playing field is actually number of grants to local organisations – the used by a team from a neighbouring parish - Pavilion charity receives £2,000; the Village Little Paxton. Hall charity £1,000 and the community magazine ‘Life’ (now in its forty-second year) One of the things we are quite proud of is receives £500. that, at a time when County bus services are being cut, the service into and out of the We do manage to lever in some additional village has actually improved and we now funding to support parish projects. For example we were granted £22,250 by Amey

Cespa, allowing us to make major And, finally, on the subject of community-led improvements to be made to the village hall activity, tell us more about the Great with respect to its heating, insulation, doors, Staughton Community Land Trust… windows, toilets and decorations; money from Back in 2011, our Village Plan identified a the Big Lottery improved facilities in our need for affordable housing for local people. A children’s play area and we’ve also received housing needs survey was undertaken on our smaller amounts from Tesco’s token scheme. behalf by Cambridgeshire ACRE through its Funding applications are written by a number rural housing programme. Negotiations with of different people within the village. Huntingdonshire District Council, meetings with the Community Land Trust East, Charity How do you engage your local community? Commission involvement and legal difficulties I’d say we’ve got quite an engaged community all followed, but in March we formed a for a small parish as around 60 people Community Land Trust (CLT) to build and regularly turn up to our annual parish manage eight properties on the Charity Field assembly. We use the local community on Perry Road, which has been designated a magazine to promote the event as well as a ‘rural exception site’ for planning purposes. In leaflet drop and we invite all local community total it is planned there will be ten properties organisations to have a two minute slot on the on the field, but two will be sold as market agenda to promote themselves and to report housing to assist in financing the scheme. back on their activities. Our CLT has 80 members who each paid £1 to Public attendance at our regular parish council be part of the Trust and to have a say in its meetings tends to be more issue-driven. running. It is intended that all the properties will first be made available to those who have We used funding from the Transparency Fund strong connection with Great Staughton and for Smaller Councils to improve our then to those from surrounding villages. This community website. will form the basis of the allocations policy operated by the housing association. We hope What about wider community-led activity..? building will begin in 2019. Those who live in Great Staughton play a massive part in making it the vibrant Interviewed May-2018 community that it is. We have many groups including Girl Guides, a Horticultural Society Cambridgeshire ACRE thanks Great and a Women’s Institute. A group of Staughton Parish Council, and particularly volunteers also runs a completely self-funded Bob Jewell, for hosting our first peer learning Youth Club. event as part of Local Council Stakeholder Group proceedings. We hope more local We’ve not been so successful with our councils will join in our September event – Neighbourhood Watch Scheme which has see the Events page of our website: fallen by the wayside a little, but our http://www.cambsparishes.wordpress.com. Community Speedwatch Scheme, which is being driven forward by a member of the Cambridgeshire ACRE facilitates the Cambridgeshire Parish Council, is very successful and is Local Council Development project. The project’s aim is tackling an issue that’s of great concern to to improve the lives of local communities by having vibrant, dynamic and effective Town and Parish Councils. local people. The project is funded by Cambridgeshire County Council; Defra and through the membership fees paid by local We’re investigating setting up a Timebank councils to Cambridgeshire ACRE. scheme as we see this as a good way for people to come together and help each other by exchanging knowledge, help and skills, ultimately building a stronger community.