I had a really interesting and informative trip out to Burntwood last Friday with County Councillor Sue Woodward and Wayne Mortiboys the District Commissioning Lead. We had a look at a range of things that are in the pipeline (a new GP health centre on the site of Greenwood House, a proposed extra care facility on the former Oakdene Day Centre site) as well as looking at some of the issues and challenges (access to Chasewater, the future of the vocational centre, poor highway surfacing at High Street, Chase Terrace).
What came across really clearly to me is that our locality approach is one of the keys to our future. We went to Springhill Children’s Centre and met Katy, one of the mums (who just happened to be dressed as a fairy, complete with wings!) who had set up a mums and toddlers group. She wasn’t commissioned to do this. It was her idea, her enthusiasm and her hard work that got this off the ground. I didn’t know that Katy existed, but Sue Woodward did. We need to be really good at using the knowledge that people like our local members, our District Commissioning Leads, and our locality based staff have of our communities to identify the thousands of people like Katy and to give them the little bit of help they need. Not to start commissioning them, because we often end up, inadvertently, creating dependency and burdening people with bureaucracy. But to give them just enough support to get them off the ground and to help them with the problems they have along the way.
Another example of how locality working can make a real difference was in evidence at full Council last Thursday. Council were discussing the annual report on our local community fund which gives all of our councillors £10,000 to spend each year on community projects in their division. It is fascinating to see the range of initiatives supported, and how effective small sums of money can be at getting projects off the ground. But the scheme works really well, and the money we put in generates more than double the amount in matched funding, not to mention the hours of volunteer time put in to deliver these projects. The highlight for me was a project in County Councillor Derek Davis’ area. The village of Chadsmoor never got a war memorial after the end of World War 1, despite over a hundred men from the village having given their lives for their country. Now, a hundred years later, with help from the Community fund, the fallen of Chadsmoor are finally getting a fitting memorial to their sacrifice.
So by combining local knowledge, local commitment and a little bit of help from ourselves we can make a massive difference.
Anyway, sermon over, I am now looking forward to a well deserved two week holiday in the sun. I am a big believer in the value of holidays to recharge the batteries so you can look forward to me returning full of energy and ideas in April!