We held the first meeting to get community support for the proposed Neighbourhood Plan for Histon & Impington last night. Maybe 40 or 50 people turned out on a miserable evening, they shared lots of good ideas and several strong themes.
We shared lots of ideas and the wordle above is a quick, and rather unscientific snapshot, of the important themes which came out. Clearly there’s the idea that we are a village and we seem to be rather obsessed with the Guided Bus! But several other themes come out and we will be looking at them over the next weeks.
One interesting fact did emerge and that is that ta similar exercise took place in 1976 and that much of what was said then is still valid today. We will digitise the document which was prepared then and make it available on-line.
You will recall that we asked the facilitators to highlight emerging themes on the night. These are:
Community
- Police Station open times
- Single source of information (website)
- School capacity issues
- Doctors’ waiting times
- Facilities for young parents
Economy
- Ideas for shared workspace and start ups
- High speed broadband 4G
- Shared workspace
- High business rates
- Parking to make shopping centre more viable
- Loss of employment
Environment
- Car access for outsiders, the High Street as a ‘destination’
- Green space for casual use
- Tree planting scheme
- Biodiversity
- Air pollution/noise issues
- Central green space lacking
Recreation and leisure
- Many possible activities identified but not the places to do them
- Youth activities and facilities for young adults
Highways and access
- Station Road safety issues
- Guided Bus stop required at Gatehouse Road and larger car park
If nothing else these are useful agenda items for the relevant Parish Council committees.
