In spring this year we gathered suggestions from consultation at ward committee meetings, an online survey, a dedicated e-mail address and responses from parish councils. There was information on the Sustainable Communities Act and how to get involved at every ward committee meeting in April in the form of a presentation or slides during the surgery. We also wrote to each parish council and to community groups to get their ideas. We got over 300 suggestions.

The Full List of suggestions (19 page .pdf document, 92KB)

After being sent to other council departments and the Executive Members the full list has been short-listed to 48 suggestions split into 5 themed areas:

• Environment: Energy
• Environment: Recycling
• Housing, Planning, Land Use and Ownership
• Revenue, Taxes and the Local Economy
• Transport

The selected short list of suggestions (5 page .pdf document, 84KB)

Having read through all the suggestions from residents, parish councils and community groups the Executive noted that some suggestions were similar. They combined these suggestions to form another list of 14 proposals.

The Executive’s combined list (1 page .pdf document, 52KB)

Report to the Executive

On Thursday 18 June a Citizens’ Panel of more than 50 residents met to talk about the short-listed schemes and to tell us which of the suggestions they supported.

We had another online survey which concentrated on the short-listed schemes. There was also another opportunity for residents to comment on the full list and the Executive’s combined list. All of these list were available to download or could be requested from the Neigbourhood Management Unit.

We analysed which suggestions you thought we should take forward and comments from residents. This information is the basis for a report which will go to the Council’s Executive meeting on 21 July for a decision on a final list for submission.

Executive Report for the meeting 21 July 2009

The next steps

After the Council's Executive meeting on 21 July seven proposals will be submitted to the Local Government Association. These are;

• Returning packaging to supermarkets (ID 68); supported by Citizens’ Panel
• Retension of business rates locally (ID 122); supported by Citizens’ Panel and Without Walls Executive
• Re-regulation of buses (ID183); supported by Citizens’ Panel
• Generating energy by community renewable sources (ID 295 & ID123); supported by Citizens’ Panel
• Bringing commercial waste in to Council recycling targets (ID130); supported by Citizens’ Panel
• Retaining council house income (ID153); supported by Citizens’ Panel and Without Walls Executive
• Ensuring that all landfill tax and Landfill Allowance Trading Scheme penalties are returned to local authorities for investment in further recycling, reduction, re-use and repair measures (ID 184); supported by Without Walls Executive.

During this process we will add a lot of information and details to each suggestion as well as a 6,000 word brief for each suggestion.