Achievements in 2017

2017 has been an eventful year for Tilehurst Neighbourhood Plan. Over the summer we conducted a successful photo competition on the theme of “Tilehurst: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly”. This had two aims:

  • To build community awareness of the Neighbourhood Plan and engagement with our website.
  • To gather input from residents about what they like, and don’t like, about the Parish.

We were very successful with the first aim – receiving over 100 entries and many visits to the website to vote.

Whilst there were few surprises in the feedback, it did help build our picture of the benefits and challenges of living here. One side-note of interest – we continue to come up against the reality that for many people ‘Tilehurst’ means the Triangle, Water Tower etc. This emphasizes the need for us to work closely with neighbouring areas. We are starting a series of fun quiz activities on the website to build on the momentum and explore community perceptions. We have started with a quiz on boundaries that is enlightening and very popular.

Another strand of our work this year has been developing draft Vision and Objectives statements. The community engagement and data gathering we have been doing over the past months has been very helpful. In the Vision and Objectives statement, we bring this together and summarize the direction we have heard from the community.

We continue to work with West Berkshire, keeping them informed of our progress and ensuring that we stay aligned with the bigger picture needs of the region.

We also continue to pursue funding opportunities to ensure we have the resources to support the creation of a robust plan before taking it to a referendum. This will include a major survey in 2018 and possible use of consultants to fill gaps in our knowledge and expertise. Funding for this year’s activities has come from Tilehurst Parish Council.

Looking to the future

We expect 2018 to be our most eventful yet. We will add more detail to the outline Neighbourhood Plan we created in 2017, filling in the detail beneath the Strategy and Objectives. At an appropriate point, we plan to survey households in the Parish to make sure we have adequately captured the wishes of the population and integrated them with the development needs of the area. We will continue to gather evidence, build out our data framework and establish deeper communication with our neighbours and other interested parties.

We need your help!

As we get into detailed development of the Neighbourhood Plan we are going to need people with a wide range of skills, knowledge and interests to help. If you are interested in playing a part – no matter how big or small – in defining the future development of Tilehurst then please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

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