Melton’s community strategy DECEMBER 2003 CONTENTS 1. Introduction 2. Information about the borough of Melton 3. Purpose of the Community Strategy 4. Melton’s Community’s priorities 5. The strategy • Community Development • Leisure and Culture • Jobs and Prosperity • Education and Training • Mobility and Transport • Housing • Environment • Health and Care • Safety and Protection 6. Suggested actions 7. What happens next? 8. Membership of the Melton Community Partnership. 9. Abbreviations 2 1. INTRODUCTION This is Melton’s first community strategy. It is the first time that we have tried to create an agreed view about what the borough of Melton should be aiming for and the best way to get there. It brings together the needs and hopes of local people and the organisations that work in the borough into a shared vision. The vision explains where we want to be. We want to enhance the quality of life for everyone in the borough of Melton to achieve a sustainable, prosperous and vibrant community…. a place where people want to live, work and visit. The strategy explains how we can all help to achieve this vision. Partnerships, organisations and the community have achieved a great deal in the borough of Melton. Most local people think that Melton is a good place to live, but there are still things that can be improved and this strategy can help to co-ordinate actions and carry them through the current decision-making processes. This strategy is all about: • making things better in the borough of Melton; • taking account of local views; • improving the quality of life; and • co-ordinating partnerships. Please read on. 3 2. INFORMATION ABOUT THE BOROUGH OF MELTON MAP HERE The borough of Melton is in the north-east of the county of Leicestershire and centrally located within the East Midlands Region. Melton Mowbray is about 28 kilometres (17 to 18 miles) from the large cities of Leicester and Nottingham and the towns of Loughborough and Grantham. Profile • The area of the borough is 48,138 hectares. • 47,866 people live in the borough of Melton (2001 census). • Melton Mowbray is a historic market town which provides most of the borough with day-to-day services. • There are train stations at Melton Mowbray and Bottesford. Direct train routes run through Melton Mowbray from Leicester, Stansted Airport, Liverpool, Birmingham and Cambridge. • There are regular bus services to Nottingham and Leicester. • The borough is linked with the national road network so is within reasonable distance of the A1, M1 and East Midlands Airport. The borough of Melton has rolling countryside and is famously known for its Melton Mowbray pork pies and Stilton Cheese. There are a number of major manufacturing and engineering firms, and has a successful small business sector. 4 3. PURPOSE OF THE COMMUNITY STRATEGY What is the reason for having a community strategy? • A community strategy is a document that sets out the needs and hopes of a community. It should represent the overall views of the community. • Developing a strategy allows organisations that work in the community and the community itself to work together towards a common goal to improve quality of life. Who put the strategy together and how? • We, the Melton Community Partnership (MCP) have developed the Melton Community Strategy. (The MCP is a Local Strategic Partnership (LSP).) • We were set up in May 2002 and are made up of representatives from organisations that work in the borough of Melton (including public, private, voluntary and community groups.) We have come together in a partnership arrangement to work closely with each other to make the best use of the resources each organisation has. (The members are shown on page 33) • We have developed the strategy from: 1. MCP partners contributing to a daylong session to identify the important issues in the borough. 2. A first draft of the community strategy was produced in May 2003 and sent to over 150 organisations/individuals for comment. 3. The results of the consultation were used to develop the second draft of the community strategy, which was published in August 2003. This draft was subject to wider community consultation, this included; • Draft sent to over 350 individuals/organisations for comment • Public Drop-in sessions held in 5 places in the borough • Article and questionnaire in the local newspaper • Questionnaire available on www.meltononline.co.uk • Three ‘themed’ focus groups • One ‘joining-up’ focus group with key local organisations. 4. The comments received have influenced the development of this final version of the Melton community strategy and its associated action plan. A statement setting out the consultation comments received and the resolution reached by the MCP on each issue is available as a separate document. • The Melton Community Strategy is supported by a separate Action Plan. The Action Plan builds on the objectives set out in this strategy and is the key ‘delivery mechanism’ of the community strategy. The Action Plan will be reviewed and monitored annually. • The Countryside Agency’s Market Towns Initiative has been developed to help revitalise market towns, which meet the needs of the local people. The initiative is carried out by completing a healthcheck with help from local people to appraise 5 the strengths, weaknesses, future demands and opportunities of market towns from which an action plan is developed to help draw funding into the area. With support from the Countryside Agency and the East Midlands Development Agency (emda), the action plan will help to revitalise Melton Mowbray and the rural hinterland. The process by which the Market Towns Initiative and the Community Strategy are carried out is comparable and therefore the Melton Community Strategy now embraces the Countryside Agency’s Market Towns Initiative and the two are being run as a joint programme. What will this strategy and the partnership do that has not already been done before? We were set up to do the following things. • Produce a community strategy which explains what local people need and how they would like the borough of Melton to be in the future. • Encourage local people to get involved by developing ways in which people in the borough can be given the opportunity to express their needs and wishes for their areas, comment on the draft strategy, and be involved in putting it into practice. • Co-ordinate partnerships by considering all existing partnerships to see how they can work together more effectively. We are a strategic partnership, which means that we examine the broadest viewpoint and try to find solutions that will improve things at all levels. We are also looking at what local people need and want for their area. It is only by recording and respecting these views that our work and that of the community strategy can be successful. Short-term realism for long-term aims • We cannot achieve everything at once so the process to achieve the vision will be ongoing. • Internal structures of many organisations are complicated and therefore working across organisational boundaries needs a great deal of negotiation and a lot of effort, but people work together better when there is an agreed sense of direction. • We can concentrate on working towards an agreed vision and action plan and thereby improve the quality of life of people who live in Melton. What will happen as a result of this strategy being written? • Now we have agreed the vision and what we are going to do to achieve it, we can start to work to put the proposed actions into practice. • The needs and hopes of people who live in Melton will change over time so we will review and update the community strategy and action plan accordingly. 6 • A wide variety of agencies and organisations are responsible for putting the community strategy into practice, with as much help as possible from the people who live in the borough of Melton. • We will use the Community Strategy to start to carry out the actions that have been identified. Where will the money and resources come from in order to carry out projects? • The wide representation on the Melton Community Partnership allows us to have a strong voice that will, for the first time, begin to represent the views of the Melton community. The community strategy will provide the vision and agreed actions for the future, which have been approved by the wider community and us. This will increase the chances of funding applications being successful for future projects. • It is expected that pooling some of the financial resources of MCP partners can pay for projects that benefit many sections of the community and areas of the borough. • As the Melton Community Partnership is a Local Strategic Partnership it is able to influence and access Sub-Regional Strategic Partnerships funding. • Through the Market Towns Initiative, a Project Manager will be employed to co- ordinate the implementation of the action plan. The Countryside Agency, the East Midlands Development Agency, Melton Borough Council, Brooksby Melton College and Samworth Brothers are funding and supporting the Project Managers post for three years. How will we know if things are getting better? The Audit Commission has developed a set of local Quality of Life Indicators (QoL) indicators, they measure a wide range of issues that affect local areas. The indicators that make up the set have been chosen because they provide a wide variety of information which can reflect quality of life, rather than the ease of their data collection. The indicators include economic, social and environmental issues. This strategy will use these indicators, plus others that are widely used (such as Best-Value indicators which are used by public services to monitor their own progress), to help monitor our progress in achieving the overall vision.