There is a Great Gransden Neighbourhood Development Plan Steering Group Meeting on

Wednesday 31 March 2021 7-9 pm via Zoom

• Renewable Heating Project - JK.

• Facebook postings - DW.

• Local Green Spaces - DWP

• Sand Road Industrial Estate ownership.

• Village boundary - DWP.

• County Broadband - JB.

• Community action plans.

• Views.

• Other work to complete.

• Societies Fair.

• Landowners.

• Employers/businesses.

• Parish Council.

Present: David Prest (Chair) DWP, Anne Constantine (Sec.) AC, Nigel Day ND, Jonathan Bonnett JB, Stephanie Beaumont SB, Martin Davies MD, Andrew Pett AP

Apologies were received from Fiona Coulson and Jostein Kristensen

2. Declarations of Interest in the agenda of the meeting

AC declared an official interest as Chair of the Reading Room Committee in the County Broadband item to be discussed under AOB as CB offers free broadband to village halls as part of installation projects to households in rural villages. MD and SB also declared this interest as Trustees of the Reading Room.

The minutes were approved as a correct record.

There was no attendance at Open Forum

5. Update on actions from previous minutes

• Renewable Heating Project

• Facebook postings

6. Local Green Spaces

DWP requested more justification for the proposed LGSs. It was felt that the Riddy was the only one that was rather light on justification. Two other sites were mentioned but these cannot be included until the landowners have been consulted and have agreed. In some cases there was insufficient evidenced public support. If members feel strongly about other sites, they need to email their support and justification to DWP. The corner of Fox Street and West Street was felt to justify inclusion.

Action: Emails to DWP about other sites that justify inclusion as LGSs with evidence. ALL

7. Village boundary
Action: All to endeavour to find this out from friends etc. ALL

Action: DWP, ND, AC to meet again to finalise the proposal and the map and initiate conversations with owners of certain properties on the boundary.

8. NDP document

Sections still to complete are: Local Green Spaces; village boundary, a separate extract from the policies of the community action plans in a table; photographs, formatting. Does there need to be more on Views?

Action: ND to complete the formatting.

9. Consultation

The Societies Fair should be feasible in late June/early July. It was agreed that it should be outside as far as possible and could therefore take place at the Reading Room.

Action: Provisional bookings to be made for the Reading Room and the village marquee SB

Confirmed that the dates of 26 June and 3 July have been provisionally booked.

Action: ND to put the supporting documents on the website.


11. Next Meeting: Wednesday 31 March via Zoom

The steering group has now (with EB's help) set up a FaceBook page. Visit www.facebook.com/GreatGransdenNDP, like it and follow it!

David Prest, the chairman of the Steering Group working on the NDP for Great Gransden, gave a presentation to the Parish Council last September. A copy of the slides is now available on this website, in PDF format.

Feedback to the Neighbourhood Development Plan (NDP) consultation indicates that low and unreliable broadband speed is a common problem in Great Gransden. Significant improvements could be achieved with the implementation of full fibre broadband and so the Steering Group for the Great Gransden NDP is examining the setting up of a Community Fibre Partnership with the aim to offer everyone in the village the opportunity to access to SuperFast Fibre broadband in their home or business.

What is a Community Fibre Partnership?

Full fibre broadband connections offer the fastest and most reliable speeds available, and the government is committed to a vision of a full fibre Britain. As part of this commitment in March 2018, they announced a £67m Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme. Additionally, from May this year, premises in harder-to-reach places in the UK are eligible for extra funding under the Rural Communities scheme.

Community Fibre Partnerships are when two or more residents and/or Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs) get together to combine Broadband Vouchers towards the shared cost of installation. Rural premises with broadband speeds of less than 30Mbps can access vouchers worth up to £3,500 for each SME and up to £1,500 per residential premise; for those with 30Mbs already, the figures reduce to £1,500 for a business, and £500 for a home.

Great Gransden NDP Steering Group has registered for a Community Fibre Partnership to extend the potential benefit across all residents in the village. The more homes and business we involve in the Partnership, the more can be contributed to the installation cost to each premise from the Voucher Scheme.

The first step is for us to provide Openreach with a list of addresses that would like to be included in the scheme. If you would like to be involved, the information we need from you to register your interest is: Name, Postcode, Address, Landline Number, and whether you are an SME or residential property.

There is no financial obligation or commitment at this stage.

How are Openreach involved?

Openreach work with local communities to build a customised fibre solution to bring fibre broadband to homes and businesses, and this would determine the expected achievable download speeds. They put a joint funding arrangement in place, which means they contribute some of the costs and our Community Fibre Partnership funds the rest.

They will build the most affordable solution to meet our need and will advise on other grants we might be able to access from local authorities or the Government.

There is no requirement for residents to switch broadband provider.

What would be the costs?

Once we have registered the interest of everyone who would like to be involved, Openreach will calculate the costs involved in getting better broadband to these premises, and assist with the application for vouchers. The cost to each resident and business can only be confirmed after this stage is completed and it would be split across all participants.

Next steps

If you would like to join the Partnership, or have any questions, please email your details (see above) to gg-fibre@gransdens.org and state whether you would like to be kept informed on progress. Please reply before March 31st. Your details will be kept only in relation to this initiative.

The vision statement encapsulates the views of the NDP steering group as to the principles that should be encapsulated in the NDP. It is still being refined, but he draft as of April 2019 can be downloaded by clicking this link.

The steering group for the Great Gransden Neighbourhood Development Plan are holding a public consultation on Friday 18th January 2019. It will be held in the School Hall, from 5pm – 8pm.
All are welcome.

A document describing our Community Engagement Strategy is now available for download, in PDF format.