High Wycombe Town Committee - Tuesday 12 May 2026, 7:00pm - Buckinghamshire Council Webcasting

High Wycombe Town Committee
Tuesday, 12th May 2026 at 7:00pm 

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  1. Cllr Ed Gemmell
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  1. Mrs Elly Cook
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  1. Cllr Chris Chilton
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  1. Cllr Hazel Arthur-Hewitt
  2. Wendy Morgan-Brown
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  1. Cllr Ed Gemmell
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  1. Cllr Julia Wassell
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  4. Cllr Ed Gemmell
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  6. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  7. Cllr Maz Hussain
  8. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  9. Cllr Maz Hussain
  10. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  11. Cllr Maz Hussain
  12. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  13. Cllr Chris Chilton
  14. Cllr Ed Gemmell
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  1. Cllr Julia Wassell
  2. Cllr Lesley Clarke OBE
  3. Cllr Julia Wassell
  4. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  5. Cllr Chris Chilton
  6. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  7. Jacqueline Ford
  8. Cllr Chris Chilton
  9. Cllr Lesley Clarke OBE
  10. Cllr Chris Chilton
  11. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  12. Cllr Trevor Snaith
  13. Jacqueline Ford
  14. Cllr Julia Wassell
  15. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  16. Cllr Hazel Arthur-Hewitt
  17. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  18. Cllr Lesley Clarke OBE
  19. Cllr Hazel Arthur-Hewitt
  20. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  21. Cllr Hazel Arthur-Hewitt
  22. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  23. Cllr Hazel Arthur-Hewitt
  24. Cllr Ed Gemmell
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  1. Wendy Morgan-Brown
  2. Cllr Ed Gemmell
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  4. Cllr Ed Gemmell
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  6. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  7. Cllr Julia Wassell
  8. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  9. Cllr Maz Hussain
  10. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  11. Cllr Maz Hussain
  12. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  13. Cllr Arman Alam
  14. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  15. Cllr Hazel Arthur-Hewitt
  16. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  17. Cllr Hazel Arthur-Hewitt
  18. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  19. Cllr Hazel Arthur-Hewitt
  20. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  21. Cllr Hazel Arthur-Hewitt
  22. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  23. Cllr Arman Alam
  24. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  25. Cllr Trevor Snaith
  26. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  27. Cllr Trevor Snaith
  28. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  29. Cllr Lesley Clarke OBE
  30. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  31. Cllr Chris Chilton
  32. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  33. Cllr Chris Chilton
  34. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  35. Cllr Chris Chilton
  36. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  37. Ms. Sophie Payne
  38. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  39. Cllr Trevor Snaith
  40. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  41. Cllr Chris Chilton
  42. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  43. Cllr Lesley Clarke OBE
  44. Cllr Chris Chilton
  45. Cllr Lesley Clarke OBE
  46. Cllr Chris Chilton
  47. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  48. Cllr Chris Chilton
  49. Wendy Morgan-Brown
  50. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  51. Cllr Lesley Clarke OBE
  52. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  53. Cllr Chris Chilton
  54. Cllr Julia Wassell
  55. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  56. Mrs Elly Cook
  57. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  58. Cllr Julia Wassell
  59. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  60. Cllr Majid Hussain
  61. Cllr Trevor Snaith
  62. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  63. Cllr Hazel Arthur-Hewitt
  64. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  65. Cllr Chris Chilton
  66. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  67. Cllr Julia Wassell
  68. Wendy Morgan-Brown
  69. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  70. Cllr Julia Wassell
  71. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  72. Cllr Trevor Snaith
  73. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  74. Cllr Trevor Snaith
  75. Cllr Ed Gemmell
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  5. Cllr Hazel Arthur-Hewitt
  6. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  7. Cllr Hazel Arthur-Hewitt
  8. Cllr Chris Chilton
  9. Cllr Hazel Arthur-Hewitt
  10. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  11. Cllr Hazel Arthur-Hewitt
  12. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  13. Cllr Trevor Snaith
  14. Cllr Ed Gemmell
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  1. Jacqueline Ford
  2. Cllr Ed Gemmell
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  4. Cllr Ed Gemmell
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  6. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  7. Cllr Khalil Ahmed
  8. Jacqueline Ford
  9. Cllr Khalil Ahmed
  10. Cllr Hazel Arthur-Hewitt
  11. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  12. Jacqueline Ford
  13. Cllr Trevor Snaith
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  15. Cllr Ed Gemmell
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  6. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  7. Cllr Hazel Arthur-Hewitt
  8. Jacqueline Ford
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  10. Cllr Ed Gemmell
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  1. Cllr Julia Wassell
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  1. Webcast Finished

Cllr Ed Gemmell - 0:00:05
Good evening, everybody. Great, thank you. Welcome to the High
Work and Town Committee meeting now for the 12th of May, 2026.
Have we got any apologies for absence? Thank you, Chairman. We

1 Apologies

have had apologies from Councillor Oliver, Councillor Raja and
Mrs Elly Cook - 0:00:23
Councillor Mabu -Busse. Great, thank you very much. Now we have

2 Declarations of interest

Cllr Ed Gemmell - 0:00:26
the minutes. You will have seen, you will have had the minutes

3 Minutes

there any changes or amendments, corrections for the minutes of
the last meeting? Go ahead Chris.
Yeah, I have one. We had a long
Cllr Chris Chilton - 0:00:39
conversation about the importance of leveraging High
Wickham Town Committee money, finding projects where if we put
10 ,000 in we get other people to put 50 ,000 in and I think for
lots of organisations like ours that's a very, very, very
important thing to do. That wasn't captured in the minutes and
and I hope that that was just a small omission and we could correct it.
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 0:01:05
Thank you. Has anybody else got any other comments on the minutes?
No. Right. Thank you very much.
Just while we're here, I'll just note that May came in and was suggesting that she'd like us all out at 8 .30.
So if we are able to hit that, fine. If we're not, we'll go on with the agenda until we need to.
Right.
Sorry, Mr. Chair. On that point, I have a dead finish at 9 o 'clock.
Cllr Chris Chilton - 0:01:28
and I noticed I was 15th on the agenda.
Or maybe I was 25th on the agenda.
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 0:01:35
So I'm rather hoping we won't be still here at nine o 'clock
and we'll actually get through it quicker than that,
but we'll see.
We'll try and keep our timing,
particularly as May has just come in and reminded us
about her urgency for getting out as well.
Right, we're gonna move on now to,
am I gonna do items four and five really together?
So that's the priorities update
and then the vision and strategy for highway.

4 Priorities Update

Is that working?
Right.
I think that is working.
OK.
We have been working on it for nearly 10 months or whatever it is to put together all of our
priorities for High Wycombe and a big thank you to everybody for a massive amount of work,
both the previous work and getting all those priorities sent in, then the extra meetings
we did to look at them and then the next work we've been doing looking at the future priorities
which is really our vision. And really I've got to say I'm really sort of proud of all
the input that everybody's put in and everyone's tried to be really collaborative on it all
as well which has been absolutely brilliant. Now we had a meeting, so Leslie and I had
a meeting today with the leader and the chief executive and various others of the officers
and the monitoring officer and that and it went very well. Okay so we really have turned
corner now and we've got great cooperation going now with the top of
Buckinghamshire Council and I mean we were going through one of the main
things we were going through on the priorities anyway is our priorities we
sort of got out the door which is a hundred and eighty one thousand five
hundred up to about two hundred and thirty six thousand five hundred of
priorities and we'll mentions few of those now just remind ourselves of what
it was and what we've done but we had pretty high level of collaboration today
everything is pretty much positively been viewed.
One or two of the items there,
it looks like there's a request
to either go back for some more information,
and with all of the items now,
they're gonna be going through a sort of a governance review
to make sure that everything can be done
the way we've suggested it and that sort of thing.
And then also on information coming back to people
if there isn't enough information to execute everything.
But I mean, we got out, you know,
the traffic calming that we got out,
so the 6 ,000 per ward, all agreed.
Bulbs and Wildflowers, the actual, the ward budgets for those all agreed.
Wickham Life and Gaia both getting the £10 ,000.
They liked as well the idea that with Gaia, what we're doing,
and I think it was just sort of mentioned here with Chris on a previous item,
that we're looking at trying to get returns on the things we put in.
So the money we gave to Gaia was £10 ,000,
but if this can be a money -making venture that makes it,
we would like that money back so we can redistribute it
to something else that's happening in Wickham.
The 28 ,000 for the member of staff, that's all agreed, it's all going through and in
fact now we're really just waiting, we asked Richard Barker in the meeting, we're now really
just waiting for timing.
So now, and I'll just cheque to see if he doesn't know anything new, but as far as I know at
the moment, we're now looking for those candidates which are, as we know, are coming from our
internal list initially and at some point in that we will, or a number of us will get
the opportunity to go and interview and speak with those people as well but
that's all happening. The neighbourhood plan will come on to later but it's
accepted that we'll be going ahead and it's accepted potentially that there's a
budget of fifty to a hundred thousand on that but we can talk about the
neighbourhood plan in a later point. And Trevor will be very pleased to hear
although no budget was put against it they did approve the idea of improving
the High Wycombe Town Committee information on the Bucks Council website
which had been suggested, but at least it's a step forward in the right direction, but there was no money put against it.
The next bit that was agreed, so we all asked as well that once those projects were out the door,
that the 450 ,000 limits, let's say, that we had for this current year set by the previous committee,
would be renewed for the coming 12 months. So that has been renewed.
So now we'll go up to another 450 ,000 new potential spending
that will come in for the following period of months.
And all of this has sort of come out of our collaboration.
It's come out of us, us all collaborating,
and it's come out of us collaborating with the leadership,
trying to get everybody on board as well,
all the way up and down the chain.
And it's really important,
and I go back to what I was saying in the first meeting
about 10 months ago that we are in this room
our team Wickham, okay?
This is team Wickham, it is not political parties.
It is not, to a large part, wards, okay?
Wards are extremely important,
all of our residents are important,
but this is where we set the tone
and create the future for the whole of Wickham.
And we have got ourselves onto the same page
with almost no exceptions over this last month
of meeting with everybody, almost everybody's on the same page.
And that actually leaves us with a much stronger wicca
and a much stronger opportunity to do the best for people here,
which we won't have if we end up with any level of bickering
or dissent or whatever it is.
That doesn't mean opinions are not important.
Of course they are.
It's about having those opinions and moving forward
so we can do the best.
And I remember in the first talk that I gave here,
I reminded you or told you about my experience playing rugby.
And that was that I was playing in a rugby team
during the Thatcher years when the minor strike was on.
And playing in the back row with me in the rugby team
was a guy who was on the picket as a minor.
And there was a policeman who was there dealing
with the pickets on the other side.
They wouldn't talk to each other until they
put that shirt on.
And they went out to play in Maidstone in Division III
rugby.
and that's exactly the same with all the great teams,
and whether we're looking at our great football teams,
rugby teams, or whatever it would be.
And I did just think of, in terms of trying to encourage
fantastic cooperation, which is what we've got
at the moment, thinking back to why,
on the England rugby team, do they have a rose?
And having a quick look at the history,
the reason for that actually seems to be
that it goes back to the House of Lancaster
and the House of York and the War of the Roses,
and that war came to an end when those houses came together
and they created the Tudor rows.
And the implications for a bit of research
is suggesting that's what comes on the England rugby team
shirt.
And when those people who all play for different clubs
get out on the pitch, they pull it on,
and they're only playing for England.
And thank you in here for the fact
that we've got those priorities out the door
and we've got the leadership on side
because we've all been playing for Team Wickham. Hazel. Okay so I had a question
Cllr Hazel Arthur-Hewitt - 0:08:41
on number two which was the traffic calming speed measures in every ward now
as you know on parish Downley and your patch Ed are the only people not
involved in opportunity bucks or the Wickham town committee and I notice in
update it says that it's opportunity bucks officer to lead priority I just
want to cheque that I am permitted to be involved in that considering as
opposite usually bucks does not have downy listed yep let's turn that around
immediately ask one of the officers as I hadn't made that before the answer that
Wendy Morgan-Brown - 0:09:22
is yes you will be included the officer is going to meet with every board member
that's on town committee to talk about where they think they're embossed or
needs to go.
Thank you very much.
Thanks, Hazel.
Right.
And now because it sort of segues right into it, it's coming on to the next item, which is the vision and the strategy.

5 Vision and Strategy for High Wycombe

When we talked about that today, and you'll all know that we, to some extent, struggled to get a vision going forward to begin with,
not from in here, collaboration was fantastic.
So everybody put in a lot of effort into doing it.
And thank you again for what you've put in in the course of the last month or so, because
with almost everybody I spent a couple of hours and really it was your vision, and some of you
remember me asking the question of where do you see Wickham in 10 years time, five years time,
what's your vision? And then that is what we've created now for our vision, which was today put
in its broadest terms to the leadership and to the chief executive in our meeting. And we got
warm reception for it. Now part of that is because almost everything in our
vision, in our strategy actually fits as well with the Buckinghamshire corporate
plan and with the Buckinghamshire economic growth plan. It also fits with
what came out of the town meeting so that residents advice that came out of
the town meeting and we had a council's meeting with the residents that was
Trevor, myself and Leslie were there and some very strong elements came out of it
which are in that vision, but all of those elements
were ones that you came up with anyway
as we were going through it individually.
And that was obviously economy and environment,
but youth particularly, and lots of people
are talking about what can we do for youth,
and we had a long discussion about it today.
And also then dealing with antisocial behaviour as well.
Now, rising above our sort of,
or let's say rising as one and coming up with a vision that is ours and is owned by us and
is also owned by the leadership of Bucks Council is the way to go forward.
And fitting in with the Buckinghamshire corporate strategy, I mean the highlights of that, which
we all agree with, prosperity, environment, stronger communities and protecting the vulnerable.
and then in the economic growth plan it actually specifically looks at and talks
about the largest towns as the local vibrant economic hubs and that the
council wants to improve that which is something that all of us were mentioning
as well in our meetings. Now we have got within our plan so our vision and that
we put over today some broad areas for work and consideration so the economy
and jobs, the environment, the public realm, youth
and education, visitor numbers, which
was because many people said, I want
more visitors in the centre.
I want more visitors coming to Wickham.
There was some agreement over the fact
everybody was agreeing that we want our own people coming.
So roughly speaking, those in the old Wickham district area
and surrounding, but also incoming visitors
in terms of almost tourists coming to Wickham.
and then green spaces.
Now, in order to actually get some action though,
we have to try and focus in on a number of items.
You've all had the vision that has come out
in the last couple of days anyway, so you've all seen it.
But just to re -summarise, and this was talked about
in the meeting today, so the nighttime economy,
I'm not gonna go into that into detail now
because we have a special section on it,
because that was widely accepted
from the work we were doing before as being something that should be focused on and that
the leadership also has also been very positive about it. Youth, and we were questioned today
particularly about what that meant for youth. Now youth rose up to the top of the town meeting
as one of the main things because the residents graded it up for those of you there you know
so they ended up with a number of tables for the most important topics and youth was an
important topic right on its own.
And out of that came some of the suggestions
that accorded with what we all came up with
over the last month.
And that's trying to come up with a coordination
of clubs, events, and youth listings
so that the youth know where things are going on,
when, how they can get to them.
There was a particular push at the town meeting
to say youth clubs.
They seem to have been disappearing.
Some people have mentioned this when we met.
They don't seem to be as prevalent now
and all the community centres and that sort of thing,
can we start getting those going again?
Perhaps we could catalyse starting of a few of them.
Quite a few of you mentioned sports
and cultural competitions, getting sporting competitions
going right over Wickham.
And when actually we were talking about it
in a couple of the meetings, people couldn't name
off the top of their head immediately
the school's football competition or boxing competition
or Tiddlywinks competition or chess competition
because people didn't know.
So that might suggest that there aren't that many of these kind of
competitions going on that all the youth are involved in and that are getting the youth moving around our town and our district
meeting each other and participating which can start to bring hope and inspiration to them new areas of
Involvements in society and community and really we can do something there quite quickly
We also have and we've talked about
A, we have a number of deprived areas and we have a difficulty of access and hope among
some of the children in some of our state schools here, particularly in relation to
their access to the grammar schools.
So as one particular item, not necessarily in the first stage one of what we're doing,
but within the first year or so, is to looking at how we can level it out for some of those
children in the state schools and the primary schools and potentially coming in with after -school
clubs if they don't exist, some of them
they will already exist, in English and maths,
but also looking at familiarisation with the 11
plus and the 11 plus examination paper.
And that was discussed today as well.
And had again, I mean, although we want to be checking now
with the right offices and the council and that
that we're not overlapping with something else that's happening,
there was definitely a positive feeling about doing that.
Trees.
In our last full council meeting,
we took a sort of momentous step that Buckinghamshire Council now wants to
retain or relocate with trees and although motion itself could be
super strengthened, we want to be doing that in Wickham too and we've talked
about increasing the tree planting into verges and into other areas and
it's been talked about potentially creating budgets again for the wards so
that people could go ahead with it or also or potentially going to Chiltern
and saying, look, all the wards would like to do this,
there's a certain amount of money per ward,
can you agree it with each of the ward councillors
as to what might be done?
The neighbourhood plan, again, was talked about today,
but we'll come on to that literally in a section of its own
on the agenda.
And then health.
Now, we talked today about, excuse me,
I need a glass of water,
we talked today about, with the leader
and the chief executive, no, that's fine,
about what we can be doing on the health area.
And we have proposed, as I think was said in all of the meetings,
that we now have a great opportunity on a particular project
that this building is going to go to the NHS.
The plans that the NHS have at least outlined to us at the moment
sound exciting.
So a training centre, some of the extra facilities
that they currently can't house in their reorganisation on their main site,
and potentially the chief executive and the chairman
when I was speaking to them,
potentially would look at whether something could be done
for the mayor here,
whether there could be some sort of facilities here
for the community.
We discussed today this as a sort of focus area for us,
and quite rightly, the leader and the chief executive
were pointing out that actions will have overlap already
with what the council does in different health areas
and on different committees,
and we would need to be coordinating the action with that
and making sure we're not doing anything different.
But in addition, not just as the town committee,
that would obviously be something that ward members
would be interested in for doing things for their residents
so that we can be involved in that.
There then is within the vision a stage two of projects
which we will think about getting out of the door
but later, so not right now.
I'll come to you, Hazel, I'll say it.
Not right now but later, which are in other areas.
But today, we did not go into those in detail
because there's so much ready to be done in stage one,
we didn't start going into those.
Hazel, go ahead.
Cllr Hazel Arthur-Hewitt - 0:18:22
Yeah, I know discussed this with you before.
So I don't know how moveable this list is
because I know we all fed into you
and you've put this vision together
and you've done an amazing job,
but I wouldn't agree to some of the items
just and I'd have to start sort of like
make my point against one, even if it goes forward
to get it off my chest.
Point six, equal access to grammar school education.
Now I've already been honest about this.
I think the whole idea of suggesting
that it's a pinnacle of success to get to grammar school
is not fair.
And on the secondary schools in Wickham, I really don't.
And I think that after school clubs
to help kids who have nowhere to do homework,
sort of help with homework, would
be a better way of bringing everyone up
to help secondaries and grammars
rather than having anything equal access to grammars.
I think that in itself to me is wrong, but go ahead.
But I have to get it off my chest, thank you.
No, it's fantastic.
And I mean, this is not set in stone at the moment.
It wasn't like we went today to the leader
and everything was agreed and that's it.
And it's gone out the door and we're out of control of it.
We're very much still at the first stages,
but where we are now is it's accepted.
You know, where it is now is it's accepted that this kind of strategy can be created
and that it can have priority areas within it.
Because there's no numbers against any of this, there's nobody responsible against any
of it or anything else at the moment.
That's going to come back in the future as we go through it.
At the moment, it's still big picture vision, but slightly dropped down so we have a little
bit better idea of where we might be going.
It's a question on a little bit the next level of detail.
Cllr Chris Chilton - 0:20:05
I think we're all delighted that the NHS have bought this building.
The neighbourhood health hub which they're going to put in, if you read the guidance
notes, the government guidance notes, it's pretty clear what that's going to do, the
services it's going to offer, how it differentiates the neighbourhood health hub from a hospital,
etc.
How do you see High Wycombe Town Committee having a role in shaping that?
you know, compared to, for example,
the government guidance thoughts
about what goes into a neighbourhood health hub.
First thing is, at the moment,
there's no definite, let's say, work
for the High Wycombe Town Committee now,
and we must, as we were told today,
which was quite right,
wait to find out what all the other council bodies
are doing in relation to things and that,
so we're not literally crossing over something
at the same time.
I think, though, there is a recognition
that whether it's High Wycombe Town Committee
or councillors generally in Wycombe
would like to have input into it.
And the first discussions that I had anyway with them
is that they would of course welcome the input.
You know, they want us to be there
saying what the residents might be thinking,
what's best for the area and that sort of thing.
And in those discussions, as you know,
there was a discussion about the mayor.
It hasn't gone further than that.
So my personal feeling, rather than anything
that's agreed by anybody, is if we were to be either invited
to a council formed liaison group on which we were represented, either as
Wickham councillors or the Wickham town committee, or if we had the opportunity
with Bucks councils blessing forming it, so something like that. But at the moment
it's more a case of within the health area concentrating our energies let's
say on helping that be the most successful project ever. Okay and I
think the other thing that is remember is in terms of the paper that came out
and what I'm describing now is that the main thing is
recommending this onto cabinet
because with all these things,
what we're doing is trying to come up
to recommendations to cabinet
that will get them excited and will move it on.
And we had the advice of the legal services
of the monitoring officer
that what we should be doing is updating our vision
to some extent which hadn't flown
from when we brought it in originally 10 months ago
which is what we tried to do.
and then generally saying we would like this to now be discussed with cabinet
because nothing goes forward because we make recommendations of what can be done
without the input of cabinet and effectively the sign off of the
leadership and cabinet. So I'm assuming and I'm looking around now
Hazel particularly made a comment to Ron but just looking around to everybody
that we are happy to go forward and say we would like this discussion with
cabinet we would like recommendations to be put in front of cabinet and get their
feedback.
Would that be generally everybody
would agree with that in order to move it forward
and actually have it take good.
OK, well that's great.
And I think I've just outlined a lot of the details.
And you all had it because it was all sent to everybody
beforehand and that sort of thing.
But it's a lot more than the details
because what we're trying to achieve
is something much bigger.
So it's hope.
I know that's been banded around a lot in national press
and politics and that as well, but it is.
We want people to be hopeful for the future
because we're driving it, because we're all
on the same page trying to make Wickham greater.
We want to inspire people.
So we want these kids, particularly,
but all others as well, to feel good about Wickham
and that it's going places and we're improving things.
And in stage one, those four or five projects
we've got there will make a real stamp on doing something
if we move forward the nighttime economy,
if we have a programme for kids, if we start dealing with the trees and get them visibly out in the streets
so that communities see them, that will start to have an effect as we move on to bigger and better things.
And we're there to try and in a sense create a moment in Wickham's history, so a turning point
where we now push it on the up, we keep it going up and it never comes down again.
And we've seen the Bucks economic growth plan, it talks about in some distance in the future
that we get Buckinghamshire up to a 2 % growth rate.
Well, based on how we've been going down,
both in Wickham and in Buckinghamshire
over a period of decades,
we don't want a 2 % growth rate.
We want something much higher than that
that is visible, tangible to people,
and they really feel it's affecting their lives.
So we've got a number of projects that we're moving forward.
We've got some out the door, some small ones,
relatively speaking, most of them except the neighbourhood plan.
We've got some other slightly bigger ones now
that we're looking at which will make a real effect
and will make people really think their lives are being changed by the High Wycombe Town
Committee and their councillors, and then we've got to move on even onto the inspiration
and the bigger growth things, growth both in terms of communities and in terms of economy
in the future.
Okay, now we're moving on to the next point, which is purely the neighbourhood plan, so
I'm going to go and take a seat for the neighbourhood plan, because I don't think I really need
to put the same amount of energy into describing it, so I'm going to take a seat.

6 Neighbourhood Plan Update

Cllr Ed Gemmell - 0:25:31
Right, before I do, I should, quite rudely, I should just ask, did anybody have any additional
comments or thoughts they would like to make about a vision and strategy or about our presentation
of it through to Bucks Council? Julia.

5 Vision and Strategy for High Wycombe

Cllr Julia Wassell - 0:25:47
Thank you Chairman. Obviously we've met twice together and you know that my view is that
the High Wycombe Town Committee consists of democratically elected councillors representing
their wards and then our responsibility is to identify what is needed in our wards or
in the wider Wycombe that they might utilise and then ensure that the finances, wherever
possible, are made available to meet the needs of the Wycombe residents. So I have a fundamental
disagreement with you about the way you're going about your strategy because I believe
it should be grassroots from the democratically elected councillors, be they Cressex, be they
Macphiel, be they Booker, be they Israeli or whatever. I mean that's one point. The
second point is that when we met, I told you how concerned I was about issues in Wickham
in terms of deprivation, inequality, poverty, the amount of social care input, and the fact
that 75 % of our council tax goes on children's and adult care. And therefore I feel that
We're just going for a few kind of glitzy headlines
rather than actually address what our residents said to us
in the election a year ago.
Because some of us actually live in Wickham near the centre
and experience it every day.
And, you know, we don't hear that residents want the Gaia ball.
Residents struggling to pay their council tax and being summonsed to go to court over
relatively low amounts.
Parents who have an allowance for childcare are finding that they no longer get any exemption
from that in their council tax and they're struggling to live. You know, so we're dealing
with the poverty every day and that is not contradictory to trying to inspire people.
I mean, I think all of us since we were elected have tried to inspire through role modelling,
through striving for improvement or affrontization in some way or another.
But I, you know, when we heard recently that GPs in Wickham didn't get as much allocation
as the rest of the county and the statistics about the area of deprivation of health, well,
I mean we need to be realistic about the everyday lives of residents in Wickham.
They have difficult lives, either working very strenuously or living with chronic conditions and so on.
So we have a disagreement about the wall from the grassroots upwards in the wards,
listening to the residents' voice, the ordinary people and enacting what they want to see.
And we have a disagreement about how money is allocated to in a local and accessible
way.
So, you know, you know...
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 0:29:43
What is the disagreement on how money is allocated?
Cllr Julia Wassell - 0:29:47
Well, because I think councillors should be putting their ideas forward.
it should be enshrined in it is enshrined in officers reports and we
should be moving on to that as briskly as possible frankly which we have been
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 0:30:08
doing so we got out over 200 ,000 in our last meeting and then we are already we
have another list which we're going to come on to as well in this meeting
Cllr Julia Wassell - 0:30:17
I don't agree with the vision and strategy because I think it's the wrong end of the telescope
Okay
That has been featured heavily in national politics this week that ordinary people don't get listened to
Get listened to we had our mouth
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 0:30:31
Absolutely, and I would I would expect everybody in this room is consistently listening to their residents
I can't believe that's they're doing anything else or they would never have got voted in and they certainly wouldn't morally be doing the correct
job either. So I would like to think, and I'm sure everybody is, listening to their residents and
trying to deal with those and help those who are most vulnerable, to help those who are most at
need. And I hope they're in a position where they're so trusted that they're actually getting
to hear about it. So they're actually getting those phone calls and those emails so they know
about it. I think when we're looking at us as Team Wickham, so in the sort of broader sense,
What we're trying to do is to improve both the environment and the opportunity for everybody as much as we can.
And there is definitely a pressure on people from cost of living, there's a pressure on people with their energy costs,
there's a pressure on people because they can't get their health appointments, and anything we can do that will improve that will help.
and if we can also bring more educational opportunities and more jobs and more inspiration
in the cultural sense, I'd like to think all of that was helping, but definitely we are
not at any point ignoring those in jeopardy or who are vulnerable.
Would anybody else like to come in?
So, Maz.
Firstly, thank you, Mr Chairman, to Mimi for a couple of hours.
Cllr Maz Hussain - 0:31:56
Thank you for your time.
Very detailed report.
Just a couple of questions.
I'm very happy with planning more trees.
I really agree on it.
Just a quick question in regard to the speed incoming measures,
6 ,000 is not enough if we can push up.
Because some of us have got opportunity box in our ward
so we can match funding on it.
We can do a lot more than have just lay camera or something.
We can actually deliver properly.
So 6 ,000 non -ground gas very far.
To some extent, it's the minimum.
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 0:32:28
I mean, it's, I think that...
Cllr Maz Hussain - 0:32:31
It's bad and nothing, but can we, if it's possible,
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 0:32:34
at least 10 to 12 ,000 so we can match funding
with Box opportunity or something else?
I agree with you, and that's almost certainly the case
in a number of the wards, I'm absolutely sure.
I think when we were making the decision originally,
if you remember, we had some different requests coming in
from different wards, but we had a lot coming in
on the same topic, and what we tried to do
is to get a minimum out.
That doesn't stop people coming back for more.
You know, I mean this is we just set the the aim of spending or the maximum spending for the coming year of four hundred and fifty
Thousand and so that doesn't stop somebody who has a particular problem coming back and and convincing
Probably as we move on the infrastructure and parking group first, but then bringing it here
to have further funding
Cllr Maz Hussain - 0:33:20
Thank you. That's that's honestly that is at least we're moving the right way
We are going forward getting at least get something to live
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 0:33:28
And to some extent it would be good when all the members are coordinating getting these
things put in because we're creating the system on how we can do it then more easily then
for things in the future. Would anybody else like to say anything at this stage? Okay,
Chris please.
Cllr Chris Chilton - 0:33:44
I'm going to be a little bit of a politician and I'm going to respond to what Julia was
saying and what you were saying in terms of the vision and I'm going to say that you're
right because I think it is important that we have a vision and a direction
that we're going to. It is also very important that we listen to that what
our our residents are saying and that we do projects which really deliver against
what the residents want. People are quite surprised when on question time
They talk about potholes in the road.
And people don't really mean that potholes in the road
are their priorities because they understand
that the cost of living and various other things
is more important to them.
But that's a manifestation of I want governments
and councils to be responsive to what my needs are
personally and to respond to what is on my doorstep.
And I think the points that Julia is making about that
about it is absolutely vital that we as a town committee
respond to the problems that our residents see
on their doorsteps.
And that needs to be the priority that we work on.
I also agree that we need to have a vision
because there are some big things and big decisions
that we need to make and we need to be consistent with that.
So I think the two of you together,
if I add the two together, I come up with something
which I think feels right.
Thank you.
Anybody else?
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 0:35:23
No, okay.
We'll move on then to the next item,

6 Neighbourhood Plan Update

just neighbourhood plan update.
That will be relatively quick,
unless there's lots of questions.
So, firstly, accept it.
So the idea that we would be able to move forward
and try and galvanise a neighbourhood plan,
remember we wouldn't create it,
but we may inspire it or help it to get started.
Also, looking into now the budget that we set,
which was 50 to 100 ,000,
which we asked to come out of sill monies first,
and then if not possible, out of special reserve,
and it is accepted in general as well
in the leaders meeting today,
that potentially it can come out of sill money.
So that was accepted.
The leader is generally supportive, you know?
So he and the chief executive,
and all the others in the meeting,
think that this could be a great thing to do. Now we know the Bucks plan is
coming out, the Bucks local plan, that will be submitted probably by the end of
this year and in place sometime next year. We will never get a neighbourhood
plan out before they get out the local plan and in any case that is better
because really we need the local plan in place to see what it's done because we
can't override the local plan, we can only enhance it and bring in extra
protections for green spaces and things like that if they aren't protected.
But it's much better for us if it's in place.
But it would be useful to be working on the neighbourhood plan
while the local plan is being finalised.
That could be really a very useful way of doing it.
We won't be doing it.
So once we get the green light on the potential funding for it,
then we'll know that we can support in a funding sense, a neighbourhood forum
and a neighbourhood forum will need to be created,
which we may inspire, catalyse, may have a couple of us or a number of us on it
but will be largely not High Wycombe town committee members and that doesn't
mean it won't come back here and report or whatever it is we can ask so we can
question it and all that sort of thing and I think that would be it. I think
what I think would be useful now is maybe people could start coming forward
with suggestions of who would be on it. I mean do you want to be on it? Would
you're prepared to give the time,
who in the town do you think should be on it.
And I'm not suggesting a whole, we take a list now.
It's more over the course of the next month or so,
if people would like to email in to, say,
if you, Wendy and I, and give us some ideas
of who you think should be on it, if you want to be on it,
what organisations you think should be on it.
And then we can start at least getting an idea
of how we're moving it forward.
When it forms, it'll need to have a name, a constitution,
and most importantly a map of the proposed area and take into account
comments about already existing neighbourhood plans Julia talked about
perhaps area area would want its own neighbourhood plan etc that's the sort of
thing that would be considered I suspect we're starting at this stage with just
you know the the outline of the unparished area but I mean then we're
going to have a neighbourhood forum of which we will be some some of us will be
involved but it won't be just our decision and post that you come to the
engagement with the community, consultation, creating the draught policies, that goes into
Bucks Council to be agreed and Bucks Council will come back and see if they see the planners,
see if it's in accordance with the new local plan as it will be and then it will go to
an inspector and it will then come back for a referendum where if it gets more than 50 %
of the vote it will be put into place. So I think at the moment, I mean I'll come to
questions but I think in terms of next steps we're waiting for Bucks Council to
come back with some additional guidance for us on moving forward and then I
think we should all be now volunteering names of people who want to be involved
in it and if it's you please be aware this is a massive undertaking okay I
mean the Hayesmere one was huge it took over several people's lives and about 10
others of us worked on it on a relatively ongoing basis comparable to
committee work in terms of being in the council probably fractionally more
regularly and so it's a lot of work so be realistic if you are putting yourself
forward or volunteering your best friend just be realistic about the amount of
time involved and maybe even put in how much time you think you'd be involved
it's yourself give us an idea of how much time you think you'd want to put
into it okay so anybody come up with any questions if not I'm just saying just
assume people agree with those next steps anyway which went right yeah okay
Cllr Julia Wassell - 0:39:59
Julia I don't want to be a killjoy all the time obviously I was hopeful this
would be a project with a definite budget I don't like things like 50 to
hundred thousand and then it balloons to 150 ,000 or something but I would like to
see it from the grassroots upwards and the way to do that is to get local
councillors to engage with their wards and for meetings to be held in the wards
although we've already had a massive
consultation with our residents last May. We heard what they were saying and we got
elected and we represent thousands of people. So, you know, I know the process of these
neighbourhood plans. I've been involved in various things similar to that, or produced
one at one time. And, you know, the price is astronomic. And I think the way, you know,
we're going to, you know, we've got to put forward a couple of people now on
organisations. It just doesn't feel holistic at all about High Wycombe.
And I'm concerned about it because, you know, for all of us who represent wards,
we know those distinctive areas, as I've said before, and I'm afraid those voices
could disappear under the usual suspects who are articulate, well educated and live in
the affluent pockets of an area of deprivation. So I'd like to find out far more about it
really and how it could be democratised rather than being top down really.
Leslie, did you want to say something?
Cllr Lesley Clarke OBE - 0:42:08
I have to totally disagree with you Julia, which is not unusual.
And that I think a neighbourhood plan is something that we should be looking at for High Wycombe.
Neighbourhood forum members, 21 members across the unparished area.
We did it in Dawes Hill, we did a Dawes Hill neighbourhood forum and we had 21
people on that. Yes it was a lot of work. Councillors can be on it if they want to
be. They don't have to be on it all the time and I think if you've got a
specialist person that actually can deal with the various bits and pieces across
the town it then actually does make sure that everything is covered. I think if we
were to go to each ward and have a consultation will end up with you know
they won't say instead of a horse will end up with a camel and I think we've
got to be succinct in what we want what we want on the outcome and I think the
other thing is is that we know that it's going to be looked at by the county by
the Buckinghamshire council planners and assuming that they take it forward which
we will have to make sure that it does go forward and it does represent what
the people of Wycombe want then it should get through the Inspector so it's
not a you know and I don't agree that a hundred thousand pounds is not enough
Dawesfield neighbourhood forum had a lot less money than that and we took the
council to judicial review and unfortunately lost but it was certainly
not a hundred thousand pounds it was very very much less than that well I'm
Cllr Julia Wassell - 0:43:55
certainly not saying shouldn't be a neighbourhood plan but it's got this very
vague cost attached to it and you know I'm concerned about the methodology that
we just love a few names forward when our so -called neighbourhood which is
actually I think I think it's pretty much council is actually very diverse
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 0:44:17
We don't set the methodology because there's no town council. We don't have any authority to set any of that
well, what we're doing is we're at the moment using our
convening
Opportunity and then our funding opportunity to help it have some funds because in prior years
Government funded people creating neighbourhood plans
So so it was democratised in the sense that there was always money available for whatever parish or town was trying to do it
As I understand it, I might be wrong, but as I understand it,
that government money does not exist anymore.
And so the first thing we're doing
in sort of democratising this is actually saying
potentially we'll back that neighbourhood forum
to try and do it.
But the neighbourhood forum's not us.
So we don't set the methodology.
Personally, I don't think we should get involved in that
unless we are members of that forum, which is fine.
Then you've put your hand, you know,
you've decided to go in and put the effort in
and you're interested.
Then in that case, of course,
whoever is on the forum, when it's, and it will have a constitution, so that
forum will create its own constitution and rules on how voting happens and
whether it's majority of the 21 or whether it's going to all the residents
but I, you know, they'll create their own constitution on how they do it,
presumably copying what's happened in other parts of the country, and then that
goes to the local planning authority to say whether or not that can go forward,
whether or not it's actually designated. So we don't have control on that. I mean
I think where we are what the decision we made and there were a number of
Councillors strong and we must have a neighbourhood plan and I think everybody else then agreed
Is we it's the best opportunity for the local area to have some level of clear legal control
On what's going on both in a development sense environment sense economic sense even?
and but it won't be us it will be another group of
residents and all we're agreeing here is that we're going to try and convene
catalyse a group of residents together if they decide not to cooperate with
each other we can't make them you know so it's not us that's doing that so I
don't think we should fear that it's us that's driving the train in the wrong
direction so does anybody have any further comments on neighbourhood plans
are in the house is that so I couldn't see if you had your hand up it's fine
Trevor's head to Chris.
Cllr Chris Chilton - 0:46:30
Yes, a very, very practical question.
I think we all received our copies of the local area plan,
the Bucks local area plan.
If I think about my ward,
Sorthouse, Duke Street are in there as development sites
over the railway line, there's Saffron House,
there's now Eastern Street car park.
There's a big clump of the eastern quarter of Wickham,
which needs to be developed with a coherent plan to it.
not doing the Eastern Street car park and then doing Duke Street and then doing
Salthouse and then doing Saffron House but thought together is one plan and
since I was elected I've heard rumours mentioned from a lot of people that
there is already an Eastern Quarter rejuvenation plan which is available
which I've tried on a number of occasions to find out what's in it and
and have been told that I can't see it or it isn't available or I can't have it
most of the councillors around here is that plan available and they have been
in the same position as me they haven't seen it. I think as we embark on putting
together a local area plan it's really important that that the team that do
that have access to all of this information which is available and all
of these ideas which are available and I'm going to get a bit of a dig in which
is more information that I personally have available even though I'm the
elected representative for the ward involved.
Sorry, Jacqueline, that's not right.
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 0:47:59
Hello, Chris.
Jacqueline Ford - 0:48:03
The Eastern Area Development is outlined
in the High Wycombe regeneration strategy,
but there is further work that is being done
at the minute on that.
So I've written it down and I will get Shabnam
to contact you around where that information can be found
and how that can be shared?
I think, yes, that's great and that's a good start.
Cllr Chris Chilton - 0:48:26
I'd love to see what it says involving the homes
of the people that elected me,
be interested in seeing what plans are for those homes.
I think there's the principle involved though.
I don't think that people should be aware
of working on a plan to rejuvenate
the eastern quarter of High Wycombe
without informing and discussing it
with the elected representatives of High Wycombe and that work being available to be accessed
by the people who are writing a neighbourhood plan for High Wycombe. I think that way of
working of where that sort of information is kept secret from the elected representatives
is wrong and needs to change.
Sorry, go ahead Leslie.
Cllr Lesley Clarke OBE - 0:49:16
I have to support you on that it's the same with the parking review that we can
shut a car park without knowing what the parking review outcomes are and I think
that's exactly the sort of thing that is being withheld for some reason or other
like you the eastern quarter is part of my board and I can't get that
information either so if it's going to be shared I think it should be shared
with the town committee we should have an input because it's it's our town and
I think therefore that we should also be able to see those documents yeah and I
Cllr Chris Chilton - 0:49:52
would say I understand that in some circumstances if the council is
disposing of sites that that's commercially sensitive information and
it needs to be handled carefully I think I would be very happy to sign a
non -disclosure agreement that prevented me from discussing what I heard with
other people and I would hope that the council would trust all of us as elected councillors
to deal with commercially sensitive information in the appropriate way.
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 0:50:24
To be honest I'd support that in a whole load of areas where I think if we had the contracts
for a whole load of things that are going on we would actually have a better idea of
how we can interact with it and prove it etc or improve the contracts as people go on to
in further years when they're renewed.
Trevor.
Cllr Trevor Snaith - 0:50:41
I would just further add to that as well.
Bear in mind that this is in the centre of Wickham.
I think High Wickham Bid Corps
should have visibility of this as well
because it has an impact on the businesses
and everything else that's going on.
Do they have access to this?
Jacqueline Ford - 0:51:06
This isn't an area that I work directly in, Councillor, but they are consulted on what
goes on in the town at the appropriate time and have an opportunity to comment on that.
Cllr Julia Wassell - 0:51:21
When I was doing the research about this building and so on, I was Googling various combinations
and I came across it by accident, so I can forward it to you.
But it actually lacks quite a lot of detail into the various projects of the Eastern Quarter.
But it does exist, this regeneration policy, and I only found it by accident.
Anybody else? And then we're going to be moving on.
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 0:51:54
Okay, sorry Hazel then last ditch attempt
Cllr Hazel Arthur-Hewitt - 0:52:01
Just really quickly in case nobody steps forward from the committee and in case a lot of money is spent giving it to a neighbourhood
group
Are we able to have someone's?
Serve on that group officially to be able to feed back to us because I am worried by the possibility
We may end up handing over to people who don't have an official route back
And I think I think on the basis we're giving out the money
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 0:52:20
we could set that as a condition ourselves that we have a representative there.
You do have to have a councillor on the neighbourhood forum,
Cllr Lesley Clarke OBE - 0:52:29
that is one of the rules, you have to have a councillor on it, or two or three, but you do have
Cllr Hazel Arthur-Hewitt - 0:52:37
to. That's good to know because it just sounded like when you were saying oh there's a bunch of
neighbourhood people, I just wanted to cheque we would have someone on it. More question,
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 0:52:46
we don't control it, you know, we won't be in the majority on it and we don't control it,
where they'll be making their own decisions,
we will have a representative on it, or more.
If people want to do it,
we'll hope there'll be more people on it.
Yeah, cool.
And also, if a load of people step forward
Cllr Hazel Arthur-Hewitt - 0:52:58
blissfully unaware of what a neighbourhood plan takes,
is there any way that the council could offer support
and training so that when they kick off,
they can have like an introductionary talk or something,
some kind of Teams meeting,
where they're taken through an example neighbourhood plan
or something?
Because obviously, people who are keen
might not always have the experience,
but would be very good at the job wisdom training.
Yeah, I mean, a lady called Rachel Riark
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 0:53:22
is the person in charge of neighbourhood plans at the council
and would, as always, be open to coming in,
helping and talking to people about it.
I think the other thing is it would be verging on madness
to have a forum without professional planning advice,
which is what the money's there for anyway.
So whether or not it's planners who live in Wickham
who want to volunteer their time,
or whether it's planning companies
that are in the local area that we employ to do it, there will be the right level of
advice.
And I mean, the way we did it in Hazelmere is we had two planning consultants.
So we had a sort of national planning consultant that had done 30 or 40 or 50 neighbourhood
plans before.
We then employed a local planner as well to do a limited amount of work, sort of almost
checking the planning consultant.
I get that, but when you have no knowledge, you tend to rely on the consultant and consultants
Cllr Hazel Arthur-Hewitt - 0:54:11
aren't always right.
So all I'm saying is, is that if there was some kind of official pre -start training for those people desperate and, you know,
sort of like hands on to get some official thoughts of their own and they can actually feedback in intelligently rather than just trusting a consultant,
which is a more very, very real.
I totally agree with you.
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 0:54:30
And we felt a bit afterwards on the Hazenby neighbourhood plan that if we had had more knowledge, we probably wouldn't have gone for so much copy and paste,
which is what we think happened.
So you're absolutely right.
the next item. Now the next
item is very enthusiastically
given 30 minutes but it was
really only meant to be a bit of
an update on the process of
getting more priorities out the
door so what is happening with
the list? What is going on over

7 Special Expenses Reserves update and discussion

the next weeks and months as
opposed to we sit and have an
entire bun fight over every
single item on the list sitting
here in this major meeting so
that wasn't the intention so the
intention for this next item,
Item 7 is to have a budget
to get an idea of where we are,
what's happening with the list, what the next steps are,
what the next member interaction will be,
and that sort of thing.
So I'll hand over to Wendy to give a summary of that.
Thanks, Chairman.
Wendy Morgan-Brown - 0:55:22
So the report was just to give you an update
on the 11 priorities that you've already agreed.
I think Ed's given you the update as to where they are,
but if anybody's got any further questions,
I'm quite happy to answer those.
And then the second appendix on that
were the next set of priorities
that have been discussed with the chairman and vice chairman and to put to committee.
Ed, am I handing over to you to put some next steps around those?
Well, I was probably hoping you were going to do it actually, but let's do it together
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 0:55:49
as a duo.
So we've got a bunch of extra priorities on there.
Now what we did with the last one to get it out the door, so it's really looking at people
and come in with your comments on what we should do on the process of the next one,
is we get together with a couple of offline meetings
to go through 20 or 30 of them and try and agree between us
like we did in those previous meetings
to get some of them out the door
and then bring it back to this meeting
to be in effect rubber stamped
because we've all been in those previous meetings
giving our comments and doing it.
Now that's what we did before
and we got out around 230 ,000 of projects out the door.
That would be the proposal on how we do it again
and if that's the case we will go forward and organise those meetings over
the coming weeks and we'll start going through the list just as we did before.
Did people think it was the right process before? Would they do it a
different way?
Cllr Julia Wassell - 0:56:54
Julia then Mads. Thank you Chairman. Well personally I'd like to see the list
voted through in principle, because this taking a year to trickle these projects, which some
of which have been put forward years ago and we're waiting for a response.
I mean this is why it should be from, the Councillors should be deciding what their
Projects are going to be we've all put projects forward and now I'd like to see it voted all through on
Principle without it going through some kind of very rushed
filtering
System and then us receiving a list today before the highway come town committee
To something that's a variation on what we originally put forward
So I don't like the process. I'd like to see it the list voted through now in principle with all our Ward
Projects with all everything we've listened to
from residents over the years or at the last election and
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 0:58:09
Is it is it your proposal that that now it's voted through immediately with no further scrutiny
Cllr Julia Wassell - 0:58:20
No, we were promised a one -to -one meeting with officers, not with you, with officers
to describe our projects and how they fit into the context of our wards or why they're
important and to look at whether they were appropriately funded by High Wycombe Town
Can I just ask then, is your proposal that we should now have one -to -one meetings on
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 0:58:47
every project with officers? I'm trying to work out what you're proposing Julia.
Cllr Julia Wassell - 0:58:53
Well I was shocked by the way in which the projects that we've put forward was
were then presented in a reductionist way. I found it personally quite disappointing.
Okay, Julie, what's your proposal that if you have a proposal on how to do it better?
Thought this for about six months that this list should be voted through and agreed in
principle and then we have one -to -one meetings with the officer or
officers to explain the rationale for our project and then we decide how
exactly it will be funded and
and we move ahead as swiftly as possible before yet another group of politicians are felt
to be not listening to ordinary people and acting on it, in fact dilly -dallying over
many years. So I think we've all seen the consequences of that in the last week. So
I don't want to be accused of that when I've been putting these projects forward now for
several years in some cases. So I have read the list, I would like it approved in principle
and then subject to a sort of tutorial scrutinising the rationale from it and then brought back
one last time and then all systems go. Not dribble dribble by some kind of filtering
meeting at the last minute.
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:00:31
And then, Armen.
Cllr Maz Hussain - 1:00:35
Thank you, Mr Chairman. I think we need to look into it more than just going through now.
We should have our lines, just the one item, just about this, what we want it,
then we can talk about it, spend an hour and a half. Every council can have a right to talk
about what they want to talk about rather than a rationale. So I think we should take time on it
and spend time on it and get things right.
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:00:57
Do you have a, I mean, so I mean,
Julia had one suggestion.
The way we did it before was we got,
through the officers, filtering down to 20, 30 projects
they thought were close, we had enough details,
a decision could be made, and then we all got together
in two meetings, it'd be great if it was one,
but if we have to do two, we can do two,
and then we try and push them forward
so we prioritise those in order to then
get a list out the door.
I think that was a very good idea.
I think we should do that as well.
one, two and three, when we need to get down quicker,
Cllr Maz Hussain - 1:01:26
where we are, and then number two and number three.
Rather rush now and passing it and then.
Okay, that's great.
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:01:34
So we'll keep going around, wait a minute, Judah.
We'll keep going around getting comments from everybody
and then we'll see if we have a consensus
of some sort at the end.
So I think Leslie and then Armin.
Oh sorry, Armin then Leslie.
Thank you, Chairman.
Following the last town committee meeting,
Cllr Arman Alam - 1:01:46
I emailed across a proposal for Booker Recreational Ground,
a path around the Book of Recreation ground.
It doesn't appear on these priorities.
Is there any reason for that, please?
And can it be included?
Because that's something that there is a demand for
by the community.
This is a ground which is in the centre of a community
used by the community during winter, summer,
and during winter, as you'll appreciate,
because of rain it can be very muddy
and there's no footpath or no concrete lane going around that field which causes a lot of difficulty.
So a number of residents have expressed their concern about that and have requested that I pursue that.
And that's something which I would be grateful if it could be included in these list of priorities, please.
Right. I mean, I don't know how it was missed before, whether it was me or anybody else.
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:02:48
But yes, certainly, would you mind emailing it to Wendy again?
And it will go onto the list and then it will be considered.
Yes, of course.
Suggestion was raised here so that we could decide.
Yeah, I mean, I think we send it into Wendy.
I mean, Wendy does a effectively a sort of cursory cheque
to see if it's appropriate to go onto the list.
But I mean, most things get onto it.
And then it's just one second.
And then can I just say and then I said to me, we need more information.
We need this. We need that.
Or it's going to somebody else in Bucks. Yes.
Cllr Hazel Arthur-Hewitt - 1:03:18
I'll concede to Trevor it's about the same point because I just wanted to make a point
before it moved on.
Sorry, go on, Hayd, make the quick point.
My point is that when everybody put their priorities forward, they came forward for
discussion amongst us before they went on that list.
I don't think we want to start, and this is no offence, I don't think we want to start
opening up people manually adding things to the list without due discussion, even if it's
just a five -minute discussion because that's how everything else was processed.
I don't think they did.
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:03:49
everyone emailed everything in. I think the way it happened, Wendy, if I'm looking back to confirmation, is it, one second, can I just finish, I'll look at Wendy just for confirmation, it came in, we gave, everything came to you, you then put roughly 123 or whatever projects into a list of sort of likely, you know, possible, not possible, with a brief explanation of which, and then, Hazel, we brought that back and we, from the officer filtered, so what the officers were doing was putting it into, yeah, really probable, you know,
you know, really possible, unlikely and...
Cllr Hazel Arthur-Hewitt - 1:04:19
If it's coming back from the officers as viable, then we discuss.
That's what we did on the first slot.
That's absolutely fine. All I'm saying is I remember discussing BOBs,
I remember discussing SIDs, and I might be the biggest campaigner for this path.
So it's got nothing to do with the actual thing going in, it's just process.
If it comes back as viable, it doesn't go in as done without some kind of ability
to be able to discuss, because you discussed the officers.
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:04:45
So the process we did before, which after we had all comments from everybody by the
way, but will is officers have filtered it.
They're bringing up then a list of what they think is relatively viable.
We then have a full discussion amongst all of us, decide whether or not we think it should
be in there.
And then it goes back.
Because those S .R .D .s were agreed and the bulbs were agreed by us.
Cllr Hazel Arthur-Hewitt - 1:05:05
And that's it.
That's I suspect why I'd say it wasn't necessarily to be straight on the list, because otherwise
we end up with things that haven't been discussed yet, things that have been signed off yet.
I think it would be clearer.
OK. I think so, and I'll look at Wendy again just to keep seeing how the process works,
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:05:22
but I think that what we probably would all feel is that it's worth it if when people
are sending projects in, they can go straight to the officer and be considered if they should
go on the list. This is pre -discussion. I don't mean they jump the queue.
Cllr Hazel Arthur-Hewitt - 1:05:36
We have a pre -discussion list and a decided list is all I'm saying. I wouldn't expect
to see something on a –
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:05:40
gets through and gets decided without us having a discussion on it. So it still comes.
Sure, sure. OK, sorry. Ahmed, if you just want to say something on that.
Cllr Arman Alam - 1:05:50
I just want to clarify that we're looking at next priorities. These aren't agreed. And
my proposal was to put a potential footpath in Booker Recreation Ground in next priorities.
So Appendix 2, that would clearly be something that first of all would have to be approved
and secondly would come back to this committee to determine.
And the other point that I want to make is,
Chairman, you've very, I think you've stressed many times at the last meeting
that this list wasn't closed.
No.
And that as time goes on, there will be other matters that can be included in the list
and that's why I've sent you that email and made that proposal.
Yes, no, absolutely, you're right.
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:06:30
The point is because needs obviously come up in different areas at different times
and that sort of thing, so obviously it's not a closed list.
Right. So who was next? I think Trevor had his hand up
Trevor and then Leslie. Okay
Cllr Trevor Snaith - 1:06:46
Trevor Leslie and then Chris. Thank you. Um, yeah, I'm looking at this this list and at the moment. I
know
There are additional things like like counsellor
Alomosco that we need to or I would like to add into this list. All right, so
the process if you can just confirm that which is to go to Wendy I believe and
see if we can get it added but what we're dealing with here is we're
dealing with a lot of items that don't necessarily have financial costs against
them we've got no figures in here which is a bit of a concern you know because
some of the things I'm looking at here there's a one in Marsh in Mickerford
refit of table and chairs suggest you go for a local high community asset grant
Well, not really. It's going to be about 25 ,000, you know.
So, we need to get the numbers into these.
Can I just add, because you're absolutely right, I think one thing that,
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:07:37
which is how we got the first list that we all discussed,
is that we actually went to everybody and said, put your numbers in.
So, in everybody who came back with numbers, it was much easier then to bring it forward
and say whether or not this was going to be viable for us.
Cllr Trevor Snaith - 1:07:50
So, it would be nice if the officers said, against our Pacific wards,
can you give us this extra information and then it can be added into this
document and that I suggest is the next stage and then we know how much we're
dealing with here because there could be I mean some of the items here are quite
quite quite costly items so we need to get to that stage. I don't think I could
support just signing this lot off tonight and saying let's move ahead.
Whether it's a case of one -to -one meetings with the officers or what but
but we do need to get more meat into this
so that we can look at the numbers
and also does it fit the priorities fully, et cetera.
Yeah, yes.
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:08:30
And it's so, but until it comes to the point
where Wendy screams and says,
absolutely can't stand anymore,
we've got to put a line under this for the moment.
Well, you know, it's an open document.
People can send in their ideas to Wendy
and if Wendy presumably with Sophia ever has looked at this
and thinks it's viable, it gets onto the list.
And if not, you know, brief email why it doesn't
or something, we need more information, put a costing in.
So it stays as an open list.
If it becomes overwhelming at some point,
obviously we have to renew whether that is what we can do.
But yeah, and we want everybody,
if you're sending something in,
even if it's paths or whatever it is,
put in an idea of cost.
It's a big difference if you're expecting to get 500 pounds
or 50 ,000 or half a million.
So please, and we know you can be wrong
and that sort of thing,
but just give us an idea of what you think.
Okay, was it?
Chris sorry Leslie and have you spoken already fine I understand where Trevor's
Cllr Lesley Clarke OBE - 1:09:26
coming from and it'd be really good to understand what what you said I think
where it says we can wide on this list it'd be really good to know some of the
costings and then to actually agree that because then that's everything across
the whole of the unparished area and some of these things are things that
we've been pushing for for quite a while you know like the additional grass
cutting and make Wickham greater, improve first entry points, bring
businesses and drive tourists and things like that so there's a lot of Wickham
wide stuff here but I think if we could get the costings for that that then will
philtre out quite a lot of the other little bits and pieces that we can then
follow up and then at least we we've pushed something else out the door.
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:10:19
And just to look over I mean Wendy, Sophie, would you feel up to on some of
these things that don't have costings on them having a quick look at costings to
put them in? Okay I mean because they're not this is not a decision on it it's
just trying to have an idea of what you think this might be costing very in very
basic terms do you think you'd be able to do that or not?
Well, I think we can definitely liaise with services to try and get a price for it.
So if you're happy to do that on any of those sort of more general ones,
or something that's coming multi -ward or whatever it is,
if you could look at that, that would be absolutely brilliant.
For everything that's specific to somebody's ward,
then please can you, when you send it in, give whatever you can in terms of costing,
just to give an idea of what you're expecting,
or what you're expecting it might cost, not necessarily what we might be paying.
Chris.
Yes.
Three things, unfortunately, Chairman.
Cllr Chris Chilton - 1:11:08
First, Julia was talking about an agreement
that the projects on the list are discussed
between the Councillors and an Officer.
We agreed that at the last meeting,
we agreed that at the meeting before.
It still hasn't happened.
I think it's really important that we have the meetings
between the Councillors and the Officers
to go through the project list
and to really articulate what the scope of the project is.
Because I'm gonna say I'm as guilty as anyone.
Some of the projects I've written on here are awfully written.
What the scope of the maze is not very clear,
what the costings are that have come from May
are probably not right.
They absolutely, the projects on this list,
need to be sense checked in a discussion with an officer.
So we do need officers to go through the lists
with members to make sure that we've articulated
did the project correctly and that we've got the correct
ballpark costs for them.
Is it your opinion, Chris, then, that so we've
got a list in front of us at the moment.
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:12:08
Do you think that there should be a sanitization of the list
into the most viable, which then comes to us first
to see if we think it's a good idea, or are you thinking
it's sanitised, the officers then do all it first,
before it even comes back to us?
I mean, I think my feeling on it is
I prefer to have us casting eyes over
to see if in general we want it,
and then it goes to the officers,
but what are you suggesting?
One example, we've got a drug problem
near the cemetery and near the museum,
Cllr Chris Chilton - 1:12:38
and I put in a project for CCTV and better lighting there.
And it's a controversial one.
I talked to Leslie about,
Leslie's shaking her head immediately,
we can't do it, we can't afford it,
and I'm, yeah, we can, we can do it.
I put CCTV in at the Cricket Club for this,
and that's exactly the sort of project
that requires a conversation between a counsellor
and an officer to get clear what the scope of the project is, how much it's roughly going
to cost, and is it therefore a sensible idea or is it something we should kick into touch.
And I think that comes from a meeting between an officer and a member together.
Before any other councillors get to look at it because...
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:13:18
Yeah, because if it's rubbish, I mean I'm quite happy for people to tell me my projects
Cllr Chris Chilton - 1:13:21
are rubbish here, I think we should at least do a cull and at least take out, and some
minor rubbish, I'll be the first to say it, I probably shouldn't, but we need some sort
of process. That is a really good project and is going to give us good value for money.
That's probably not a good idea and we need to do that. And we'd had this conversation
and we should have the officers and the councillors should discuss the projects together and essentially
do that first cut.
I just wanted you to say whether you thought it should be first or after.
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:13:51
Yes, sorry Matt.
I didn't second that.
You think that's a good idea as well. Can I just look at the officers, is it practical
Because I get what we do twice. I'm sorry, Chairman. One second.
Once we do it twice before we do it again. Sorry, sorry, Julia.
Can I please just look at the officers, please?
So in terms of, you know, the the council is coming in to meet with officers one on one,
effectively to go through every project that's on the list prior to it coming to the councillors.
Could you cope with that?
I think so.
Obviously it's not, we're going to have to go out to the offices and services to do that, make that request.
Right. Well, I mean, fine.
In which case then, and looking around, if people think this, I mean, what does everybody else think?
So potentially we could be trying to say, right, and within what period could we get all of those meetings?
Two to four weeks?
I think we are dependent on some of the other services.
Ms. Sophie Payne - 1:14:56
I was going to suggest there may be some categories where we can group stuff together and bring
in members together.
So, for example, the PATH and the Teidros's play area is another example where that would
be the same offices, bring those together and probably get some more input from you.
And I think that also helps you have a more informed discussion then amongst yourselves
about priorities across those similar types of projects.
but we are reliant as Wendy said for some of them obviously we are not the experts in things like CCTV and lighting Chris so
Okay, so so I mean I think
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:15:32
Sorry, does everybody think this is the right course of process for us to go through just looking for nods and things
you know have a vote if people are generally in agreement and
If we were to say that trying to get all of the projects on the list to the extent we can
having meetings in the next two to four weeks so we can start getting this stuff
out the door and then we aim the month after that to bring back the viable ones
into our offline meetings for councillors where we try and then agree
ones to bring forward finally to this meeting does that sound like the right
process nods yeah okay sorry Trevor with the caveat that you're also gonna get
Cllr Trevor Snaith - 1:16:06
hit with fresh ones along the way as well yes I mean I think you know if
somebody's putting in a fresh one tomorrow I think they can expect it to
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:16:11
in this process for that for that for this next couple of weeks you know but
if it you know it'll come around again we have to keep this document being
updated they just might all be able to dealt with it at the same time but then
I suppose if there's a meeting about cameras around the museum and somebody
puts in another camera project that you know the day before the meeting there's
no reason why that shouldn't be done at the same meeting but that will be
practical about it I think that can be done can't it okay hey sorry sorry
three points. Sorry, Hazel. The second one is we need to get a little bit more
Cllr Chris Chilton - 1:16:43
joined up. Wycombe Museum is in Terry's and Hammersham Hill Ward. I opened up
High Appendix 2 and there's a £12 ,000 allocation for Wycombe Museum for
delivery of events. Okay fine, but I'm working on three projects with Wycombe
Museum at the moment. One is we sponsored an exhibition which is going on there
now. The second is we've just had approved a big amount of money for
for their new chair museum in the Liberal Club.
I'm working on a third project with them
to develop their back buildings as a community hub
and it was a surprise to me to see another
12 ,000 pound bit for event delivery.
We just need to get joined up.
And let's have all the projects for
Wiccan Museum and this way together.
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:17:28
Have anything new come in in the last month or two?
This is the list that we've had for three months.
So that's been on the list right from the start, Chris.
So who's put that in?
I don't remember now, but it's been on there right from the start.
Cllr Lesley Clarke OBE - 1:17:42
I put it on the list because none of us were aware of the money that you were collecting.
You've kept that all to yourself, and if you've actually informed officers, they could have
said we don't need to have that on the list, it can go.
This is where the conversation has to be two -way.
So brilliant that you brought that money in from the museum.
when this was actually put on the list last year or before this new council the
museum was in dire straits and that's why it was on there twelve thousand
pounds a year for them to run events if you've now got that money that can come
off and indeed all of the ones I talking about I've been doing with officers but
Cllr Chris Chilton - 1:18:22
I haven't talked to you Leslie Mia Colpa I should have done because it's been
Cllr Lesley Clarke OBE - 1:18:29
there from the start, from last year, before we even have this new Council.
Cllr Chris Chilton - 1:18:34
I think the point is, let's just, where we've got a set of projects with the same location
or similar goals, let's just make sure we group them together so we can see the bigger
picture. What have we got going on with the Wicca Museum? Just to make sure that myself
and Leslie, I don't think Leslie's doing it, Leslie thinks I do it, or we don't both do
it together. Let's just do that. And then the final ones are really, really, really
specific one. At the last opportunity box meeting, I have a junction in Hughington Avenue
where three children have been knocked down in the last 18 months and myself and Saf and
Maz have been working for quite some time to try and get some improvements to the junction.
We had the father of one of the children knocked down came to the community board 12 months
ago and talked about it. We have the money approved at the last opportunity box subject
to getting 50 ,000 from opportunity box subject to 10 ,000 coming from High Wycombe Town Committee.
I'm hoping that we can push ahead with that.
Right. So that's on the list at the moment, by the way, because I haven't – I mean,
I'm not scanning over the list to see it. That's on the list at the moment.
Not on the list in front of us.
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:19:44
It's not on the list at the moment.
It was in the list that I submitted originally.
Right.
It's not on any of the lists in Appendix 2.
Right. Well, can you I think I mean because let's deal with these things they come up
Can you resubmit it send it through to Wendy?
Can we then look at actually who's responsible in the council for it as well?
You know
Is it highways or whatever it is in terms of and all those discussions have been have right and it's been discussed and approved through
Opportunity box right subject to the town committee
Contributing ten thousand right fine. Do you mind do you mind submitting it? I don't know why it's not on the list
I can't clearly can't tell you with that information and let's just get it straight into this stream
Cllr Chris Chilton - 1:20:24
It's already it was on the list that I submitted. It was on the original list that Wendy came back
It's not on the list in appendix to
Wendy Morgan-Brown - 1:20:35
It's not it's not in car parking
It was on the list that you for the last meeting
No last meeting or the meeting before was in that list and it's not now in appendix to
Because we've asked for a lot of these ones to go to that type of thing go to
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:20:51
infrastructure and parking. So it's not on that list and it's not there right
it's not a parking it's right okay can we I'm sorry I don't know why we haven't
got the explanation why could you would you mind getting it straight in again
now and we'll get it straight back on the list so and then process it through
I mean unless people feel they want to try and make a decision on it now but
then we're going to have to dig into it in a lot more.
Chairman, I've made a proposal to...
Sorry, one second, Julia, it's not you yet.
Just one second, please.
One second.
Julia, it will be Hazel before you.
It is not your turn, please.
Lesley, finish whatever comment you were, then we're going to Hazel.
I just wonder whether...
Cllr Lesley Clarke OBE - 1:21:35
I've seen what you're talking about
and I wonder if it's still within the Opportunity Bucks area
for it to come to us.
but I have seen your thing about the Huenden Road.
And it was in the spreadsheet that Wendy originally circulated.
Really? Yes.
So I have to say, from my from my point of view, I mean,
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:21:58
I don't mind you proposing now the two of you that we make a decision on it right now.
And then it's up to the members.
That doesn't mean everybody's going to agree to it without much further
further information.
But if you want to propose that you can and then see what the members think.
I'm not projecting.
I'm happy to propose it, yes.
Okay, so and the proposal is that we agree it right now
10 ,000 to 10 ,000 on the assumption opportunity box has put 50 ,000 from opportunity box, right? Okay
Right, well which case Chris what are you proposing completely?
Cllr Chris Chilton - 1:22:30
Improvements to the junction of Green Hill and Huenden Avenue where three children have been knocked down in the last 18 months
I'm sorry chairman. I've been waiting to indicate. Okay, sorry
Cllr Julia Wassell - 1:22:41
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:22:42
that's that you put it forward I believe I should look at Ellie should we be
waiting on that now it's been put forward and seconded what's your
German this is disgraceful process sorry Julia could you please wait until I have
Mrs Elly Cook - 1:22:52
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:22:58
now talked to them okay do members think they have the full information on this
or would they like more information you are not the next person to be speaking
Julia and also somebody put forward a proposal which we are now talking about.
So we can all put one thing forward can we? No I wasn't suggesting that but Chris has come
forward with something which to his mind sounds very urgent it sounds that it's a
matter of life or death in this particular instance and it sounds like
it's been missed off the list. I've allowed Chris the opportunity to put it
forward people can say no to it if they want to it doesn't and then it doesn't
mean it doesn't it can go back into the list later on and be discussed proposal
Cllr Julia Wassell - 1:23:46
to put everything forward in principle the person such as Councillor Chilton
has an urgent meeting them with an officer okay nobody nobody has come
forward and seconded your items what you're doing is acting like Julia some
sort of Charles Dickens character doling out food for the little children.
I haven't doled out anything, Julia. First thing is, Julia, that's enough now, please.
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:24:11
We have had time scales since last January to submit these bits.
Julia, that is enough, please. There are other people in this meeting as well. You have done
a vast amount of speaking.
No, I've asked several times now to put the whole lot through in principle.
The motion that you put forward, is anybody wanting to second that motion? No. Right.
So Julia's mate, I'm just to deal with it straightaway. So Julia had a motion that everything is passed through now
And no one has put their hand up to second it principal in principle in principle and no one's put their hand up
Now our do members Chris has put forward something which is clearly extremely important to him and mass has seconded it
Now do members think that they have enough information to make a decision on that and Trevor?
Sorry magic then Trevor
Thank you Chairman, can I just request all the members just to treat each other with
Cllr Majid Hussain - 1:25:03
a bit of respect. We have live webcast I believe and we've got people sitting in a gallery
so let's just not throw our toys out of pram. My question is, Chairman, if Councillor Chilton
has already said this was submitted and it was emailed over to Wendy, then if Wendy can
go back to the email trail and see if it has been submitted, then just put it back on a
list rather than us taking a vote on it. Because clearly if it was put forward however many
months ago, then we don't need to really discuss on it.
And by the sign of it, Councillor Chris Chilton is confident and has seen the email that he
has been put on the priority list.
Trevor
Cllr Trevor Snaith - 1:26:00
Yeah, I think it needs to be brought forward again if it's on the list, it needs to be
stuck back into the list.
And by the sound of it, it will be nodded through without any question, but not tonight.
I'm just looking around without having to take a vote on it.
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:26:15
Is that the general feeling of the members, that that's what should happen?
Can I just ask, and it might be because I'm new, but I think it sounds like a very good
Cllr Hazel Arthur-Hewitt - 1:26:23
reason to have a crossing, but I don't particularly want to vote on it now without the cheques,
because I'd love it to go in the list, I'd love it to get done, but I just don't think
it's the right point right now, because I want to ask, like, I'm not in opportunity,
bucks as I told you like me and you Ed we're the like the weirdos on the edge
that get left out of everything we have no clue what goes on in the centre of
town committees and everything I want I want to know if it's normal on a on a
life -or -death really urgent crossing whether opportunity bucks can set have
set a precedent to say well do it be on the town committee money because that's
gonna mean that we have to farm off funds in case things can't go ahead that
a council responsibility without chipping in ourselves.
We're going to have to half our budget off into a corner
to allow for that each year.
I think personally, if Opportunity Bucks money
can't do it and council money can't do it,
they have to tell us we're responsible for doing it
and give us a bigger budget, quite frankly.
Right, well I think the first thing is,
your first point's absolutely right.
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:27:25
I think everybody would agree,
we want to know how that happened
and what do Opportunity Bucks think,
you know, if something is fairly urgent,
to be pushing it back to us and saying
that they're putting some money in
only if we do. So can we cheque on that process and come back with an explanation for it?
It was a very good point. Chris, I'm looking at you now. Chris, Chris, Chris, I think that
the, without taking a full vote on everything, I think that in general the Council is saying
can you bring it back, put it on the list and it will be straight onto the list. So
please do that. Thank you. Right. Any more. I will send an email pointing out where it
Cllr Chris Chilton - 1:27:59
was on the list. Please do. Originally. No, that's fine. Rather than resubmitting it.
Yes. Although to be honest, on the basis it's going to go straight onto the list if you've
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:28:04
The copy of it and just send it it'll go straight back onto the list. Okay, so right
Anybody else got any further comments in this if not have a last one from Julia and then we're gonna move on
Cllr Julia Wassell - 1:28:19
I would like confirmation of a few facts from the officers
firstly the
opportunity for counsellors us Buckinghamshire unitary counsellors
Representing our wards the list for the underspend was opened last January for us to put bids in
Is that correct?
I don't know the date, Julia, but it was open for you to put bids in.
Wendy Morgan-Brown - 1:28:45
Do you want to take a list of questions and then get back to Julia on them if you don't have the information here?
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:28:50
No, I want the other councillors to hear this.
Sure, sure, list of questions.
Cllr Julia Wassell - 1:28:54
And then everybody here was elected on May 1st, so the list was extended for people to put in their projects by July.
Is that correct?
Because I know it's correct, okay, so keep keep I mean it is correct when he's taking down the questions
Sitting here elected Buckinghamshire unitary councillors representing thousands of people
Experiencing delay after delay after delay
change in process
lists being circulated
meetings with officers actively being obstructed, then there's an open...
I don't think there's any active obstruction, Julia.
No, don't interrupt me. When I'm trying to explain to colleagues...
Sorry, sorry, please don't point. Julia, as a point, there has not been active
obstruction, which is what you suggested.
So what happens is that we never get to deliver our projects because there are continual changes
and obstacles so we get something agreed at one meeting we get something agreed
at the next meeting then the list is open as a rolling list it gets bigger
and bigger and bigger finalise the point please that under spend which our
residents paid for in their council tax is not being redistributed to them and
if we accepted the list in principle we could crack on across the wards of
It has not been accepted in principle none of the other councillors wanted to go for that
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:30:33
I'm pleased I bring this point back. You have now made it three times Trevor
so
Cllr Trevor Snaith - 1:30:41
Okay, this list that Julia's referring to with the items on it
Why are we not seeing those items on the bigger list for us to consider?
It's it's as if
So so Julia's list that you're talking about with the July stuff on it
should those items not be on the bigger list here as well,
so we can consider them in the round?
I'm not sure what you're even asking now.
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:31:11
I think, isn't the list a combined list?
Somebody's saying they are there,
so Julia, can I just direct you, Julia?
Cllr Trevor Snaith - 1:31:17
So the items that you're talking about that was in July,
are they in any of these lists?
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:31:33
Okay, right. Anybody else have any last comments on that? If not, no. Right. We are moving

8 Discussion on the Nighttime Economy

on to the next point. Okay, so the discussion of the nighttime economy, unfortunately, slightly
later than was expected, as I had thought you'd be on a lot earlier. It really is the
nighttime for the nighttime economy.
Jacqueline has been extremely thoughtful for you because you have an item on the
agenda. Would you like to do your item now because you've got a hard stop? So
thank you. Very happy to. So I'll be as quick as I can and unfortunately I
Cllr Chris Chilton - 1:32:14
haven't prepared any notes. So we have we formed a parking group which isn't a

10 Parking and Infrastructure Sub-Group Update

infrastructure group but which
to start off with is a parking
group. We got together. We have
all of the members except Darren
and Kelly are on the parking
group and I will come back to
why that gives us a little bit
of a challenge in a moment.
Please call the infrastructure
and parking only because it has
to have a wider remit than only
parking.
It's parking to start off with.
We have around 300 ,000 pounds of
funding left from phase one and phase two of the High Wycombe Parking Review and we
want to spend that money and we want to spend that money sensibly. So we assembled two lists,
well one list is assembled which is a list of all of the members' requests for new parking
restrictions to be put in place in their wards. We have that list, I collated the list, the
has gone round two or three times and I think with the odd occasional can you
change this a little bit can you change that a little bit I think we've got a
set we're satisfied that we have a list. A second list that we agreed that we
would put together is where we are there are existing yellow lines and markings
that need to be redone. That one is a little less clear the status of that but
we have another meeting coming up in two weeks time and we'll sort that out then.
So with a list of what we all want as the new set of parking restrictions, that list
has gone to the parking team and they are coming back to us in two weeks time to tell
us whether we can do everything on the list with the £300 ,000 which is available. And
that's a pretty important milestone for us because if we can do everything that we want
With the 300 ,000, the money that we've got, that's great.
We'll just go and do it all.
If the answer is you can do all of this
and it doesn't spend all of the 300 ,000,
we can add even more items to the list.
Or if it comes back of actually this whole list
would cost us 400 ,000 to do and we have 300 ,000,
then we need to go through a set of prioritizations
where we'll need to take some things off the list
in order to get everything done
or we'll need to ask for some more money, and one of the two. So that's a fairly big
milestone is can we do everything on the list with the money that we have available. I think
what we've seen so far has been a pretty good response from the officers involved. They've
taken all of the SANS requests, drawn them up, said they look like this. This gives us
a little bit of a problem because they circulated it to the members of the team which actually
bizarrely includes all of the members here except the member for Sands. So we've had
a bit of a communication loop fallout and I think it would just make things easier if
we just said that automatically everyone here was a member of the Parking and Infrastructure
Subcommittee so that they all get circulated with all of the outcome. So I was impressed
that they've turned around, I think it's around 15 requests from you Darren, that
have drawn up and and we have tentative you know plans of what they would look
like. I was impressed by that. We'll see where we go with the next meeting in two
weeks time and we'll we need to take it from there. I've talked to Ian
informally who thinks that we probably can do everything that we have requested
with the 300 ,000 that we have available.
I think unfortunately that would mean that the list that we have would be the list for
now and it would be difficult to do what we've talked about for the wider project list of
start adding extra things in.
Because if that took us above the 300 ,000 we then need to go through another process
of getting some more money approved.
So I think everyone just needs to be satisfied that there is a possibility that the list
of what we tackle is what we're calling phase three of parking requirements is
the list which has been assembled for now.
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:36:32
A good summary and great piece of work. So I think it's Leslie, Mads, Hazel and then Trevor.
Cllr Lesley Clarke OBE - 1:36:38
The question I have is that I was told that the island in the middle of the High Street was going to have its yellow lines done by March.
they've got the horizontal line but they've yet to get the double yellow lines
round that and that's been on the go for about two and a half three years now so
I think we need just to ask and Jared Peart said that it was going to all be
done and it's not to been done and I'm really rather concerned but I think the
work that the team have done is really good and it's good to get Ian back and
Ian's not always fit but never mind at least we put a lot of things on and if
we get a bit done for that 300 ,000 pounds more power to your elbow sunshine.
Cllr Chris Chilton - 1:37:28
So so so Leslie I think we will on the agenda go through the we're calling this
phase three we'll go through the phase one and the phase two lists because
there's there's a slight disagreement about whether it's all done or whether
it isn't because there are still a few from there that haven't been done.
I think, sorry, was it Maz next?
I just want to say a thing to Chris, to be honest with you.
Cllr Maz Hussain - 1:37:49
Since we served the parking team, I think it worked very well.
And I also want to further record, since Jan took over as the head of the parking, things
are moving very well.
I want to pass the message on to the officers.
He's been working very hard.
Unfortunately, it's passed, what was the convention name, where she wasted a lot of time for the
two years. But I work for another co -chair. He's done a very good response. If you email him
less than 12 hours, you get the response back from him.
Thank you. Hazel?
Cllr Hazel Arthur-Hewitt - 1:38:27
Yeah, all the stuff that you've been compiling is amazing as part of the group. So thank you
very much for all you're doing, Chris, and the rest of the group for pitching in. We attended a
briefing on the new parking enforcement thing on them that's coming in and I'm
just wondering whether the committee would be covering because they said in
the induction you think we had to learn all about it that it's possible that the
town committee and other parishes could buy in time if there's any really vital
areas that need addressing sort of every so often or for events or something like
that and I'm just wondering whether that would be the parking committee going
forward to consider that when that comes into place in terms of like if there's
peak times or events where you want someone getting those cars ticketed or
you know enforced and the other thing was whether who it falls under in terms
of you know we've we've lost Eastern Street and we've got a severe lack of
parking spaces whether there's gonna be a drive -up of issues with parking
enforcement required how many spaces have we actually lost and what what is
anyone monitoring the situation because I still don't personally believe that
the alternative car park spaces are enough in the other car parks I think
there's a complete myth what you know no offence to the council I think it's a
complete myth that we have loads of spare capacity now Eastern Street's gone
so I'm just wondering whether that could fall under party to you too good you see
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:40:05
I'm just sorry parking enforcement and the consideration of parking
Cllr Hazel Arthur-Hewitt - 1:40:07
availability whether that could come under that as well or whether that would
be done separately because I think they're two extra issues but you know
that's off to all the work you do so enforcement is part and Jared the
Cllr Chris Chilton - 1:40:21
enforcement manager is coming to the next meeting cool and what in which case
Cllr Hazel Arthur-Hewitt - 1:40:26
then just to say that what I'd learned was that we can buy in time so I think
we might want to be able to pitch into in terms of what we think might be
important well and I think that I mean because everyone's invited to the
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:40:37
infrastructure and parking group it's not a closed group or anything and we've
got as much as we can concentrate all the discussion there on all of these
things otherwise we literally be here all night on these areas and they need
digging into in in new detail so I'm just I'm just checking I can harass the
parking meeting with those things.
Cllr Hazel Arthur-Hewitt - 1:40:55
Yeah, the infrastructure and parking group
is open to everybody.
So, and yes, it's the place to bring all those things up.
And then if we need to make a decision,
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:41:01
we're passing on to full council,
we bring it back to here.
But to the extent we can do things,
the infrastructure and parking group,
and have the time to give it a bit of detailed study,
it's the best way to do it.
Yeah, agreed, Chris, with that?
Yeah, okay.
I think there's somebody else, was it Trevor?
Yes, Trevor, so the last one, yeah.
Thank you.
Cllr Trevor Snaith - 1:41:19
I have to say yes that this list is quite amazing in terms of what it's actually got in it.
I spent the whole good afternoon going around through Google Earth,
through the whole of my ward, identifying every corner where there's problems
and that's now in that list.
But there's a second list Chris and the second list which he alluded to is repaint jobs.
So basically faded lines, lines that can't be enforced.
Now I asked for a copy of that list and I've seen it but it's not actually populated with all of the projects that's in the pipeline.
So I'd like to have seen the list if we can, if we can just get the officers to do it, to give us all of the paint jobs that's in the pipeline so that we can see in our wards where they're going to go out and do it.
because I've identified Ford Street, for example,
but it may already be in that project.
But you know, at the moment, that list is not populated.
It's just an empty list, which we have to do.
And there's no way I wanna go around the same Google
act again looking for it.
So thank you.
I think the one thing that presumably officers
could come forward with is what's the list
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:42:27
of proposed projects over the next,
whatever planning period is, year to two years,
so we already know.
And then beyond that, bring in any new projects
not on the list into the infrastructure and parking group
to see if we want to push them forward.
But yes, let's get the information first.
So can we organise that?
Great, thank you very much.
Right, Chris, well done, and great job, Chris.
So thank you very much for that.
So Jacqueline, you're on.
Lots of nighttime stuff done at nighttime,
so very appropriate.
Thank you, Chairman.

8 Discussion on the Nighttime Economy

I'll just get the presentation here.
Jacqueline Ford - 1:42:59
I feel a bit like a DJ here.
I've got two laptops, and I'm gonna try the other one
because this one doesn't seem to be working.
I can't see the notes page.
Let's try the other one.
So it's just as a little bit of background,
what you've been setting up, so.
So we've had nighttime economy on our list right from the start.
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:43:23
Everybody seems to have accepted it.
Everybody has mentioned it in our meetings.
The leader and the chief executive mentioned it.
So everybody seems on the same page.
Now we've got to create a project and actually do it.
And Jacqueline has asked to come not with an exact project,
but to come and present to us some ideas around it
so we can start getting an idea
on how to move it forward.
Switch that off.
Jacqueline Ford - 1:43:47
Wendy's laptop's worked, so I'm not gonna double DJ it,
which is a good thing.
So thank you for inviting me to come along
to town committee tonight to talk about nighttime economy.
I'm really gonna be focusing in on the areas of opportunity
where High Wycombe Town Committee can make a difference,
focusing in on partnership working,
collaborative action that we can take
that builds on what is already in place.
As the chairman said, I'm purposefully not diving in
to what this can mean in practise
because it is really exciting
and I think there's some fantastic opportunities.
Two reasons for that.
I don't wanna be presumptuous.
I want to share and I want feedback from you
and also Sue Hainard isn't here with me.
she gives her apologies tonight.
So it wouldn't be fair.
We need to have that full discussion all together.
So let's set the scene.
So we're just going to give you an overview.
Nighttime economy, perception versus reality for our town.
These opportunities that I want to share with you
and then my next steps.
So quick question, hands up.
What do you think the nighttime economy actually is?
Just shout out.
Just shout out.
Shout out.
eating. Lots of alcohol drinking, interesting, thank you. Getting drunk.
Food and drinking entertainment, yep. Needs a lot of risk assessment. So in
short, the renowned definition of the nighttime economy is about activity that
takes place from 5 p .m. to 6 a .m. within the centre. Food and hospitality, culture
arts and entertainment, leisure and social activities, and community and civic uses.
So we got a number of those in there.
Anecdotally though, if you think about the perception, we've already had one thing raised
here that some people think that it is just focused on alcohol, on drinking, and that
later nighttime economy.
Some people think that it's limited, some people think, well, there's nothing really
here for me at all and different types of people maybe feel excluded from the
town as well but is that true? So just put a really brief overview together
here looking at all of the different assets that fit within what we would
class as the nighttime economy for High Wycombe. So we've spoken about cafes,
restaurants, food, drinks, we have quite a spread of activity that happens over
different windows and I've put these in here five to seven, seven to nine, nine to
eleven and eleven plus because it's just really useful when we think about
different animations or activations that you might want to put in place. Got
traditional bars, we've got the nightclub, we've got the venue which is the late
night club area and bar within BNU. Then we have the more typical things and I've
grouped the activities within Eden within here. One thing you'll notice some
Some of these have got an end next to them.
What we have seen since COVID happened is that the high street and the office within
our town has really, really evolved to that more experiential piece.
So we lost a lot of retail within Eden and other areas in the town, and we've got new
activities that have come in there.
We've also got to just think about the high street, if you think what that was like early
2020.
We've now got the Beehive, we've got the Mileto Lounge, and it just changes that vibe and
the spread of activity around the town.
We also have the traditional civic type of amenities,
you would say this, so we've got a fantastic theatre,
we've got an art centre, and then we have a whole range
of other places that have, dip into sort of nighttime
activities on occasion.
We've got some new ones in here as well
that have developed since, and we've also got
public realm assets, so sometimes we can have things
that are going on earlier evening,
and there could be scope within there as well.
So we have a mix of casual dining, family activities,
cultural events, live events, leisure venues,
student socials place.
So we have a lot that's going on in the town.
So our reality is, I would suggest,
that we have a functional early evening economy.
We've got lots of different uses within the town,
we can attract different people in,
We have a range of businesses that open late as well,
and it is not all alcohol -based.
You can go and get an ice cream here at many times
in different places around the town.
So we've got more probably a mixed use
earlier in the evening.
So looking at this and having discussed with Sue as well,
and looking what other towns do,
it's not really an absence of activity.
Maybe it's an absence in how visible it is,
our narrative around this,
and how we curate this together to enable you
to not have a single use visit,
I'm just gonna come in and do this,
that while you're here, you could do this
and you could do this and you could do this,
and sharing awareness around the town.
We already have a lot that's in place
that we can look to mobilise.
So we've gone through that list,
our different cultural assets,
hospitality businesses, public realm.
We have lots of groups who are really active
in this space already. We've mentioned BIDCO, there are loads of others as well. We've got
communication channels that are in place, we've got digital ones, we've got paper ones
as well, and we have an established programme of activities for the town. So this is led
by Hiberg and BIDCO and we get people like the museum and Patch and everyone in together
and we create a list, this is what's going on in the town. What we don't necessarily
always have in place is the funding and a capacity to do a lot more around it.
So I just want to flag that.
So what could we do more deliberately to support the nighttime economy in High Wycombe?
We can look at the existing offer and how we curate, put that together, how we can have
more visibility on what is actually going on.
We could look at delivering small scale early evening animations and doing tests around this.
We could look at the kind of messaging we have and developing a shared evening narrative that is shared by multiple partners so that we're all saying the same things and amplifying that out.
Of course, we have pieces around place management about lighting, about car parks and all the rest.
and I'm not saying that those aren't important,
but I want to elevate it up just to things
that we can do around the place.
And the long -term impact that we're looking to do
or we could achieve by taking action in this arena
is creating something that's more inclusive, resilient.
We can look at different activities
that can bring people into town.
We've already said about the single -use activity
and really putting Wickham firmly on the map
as a destination for the night time economy.
All of these things together take time to develop
and embed, but getting this right puts High Wycombe
on the map and it encourages new investment to come in.
So some of the new, like the Mileto Lounge,
some of the new ventures that have gone in in Eden,
they have seen improvements around the town
and they thought I want a piece of the action
and I want to come to Wycombe
and we can help to further that.
And of course that links in with your ambitions that you've been talking about, Chairman,
and also links in with our Buckinghamshire Economic Plan, corporate plan priorities and
the right.
So before I go into the priority areas or the pilot areas for consideration, I just
want to talk about some of the principles for us as a council and what we can do around
this.
So things that we want to be seeing, to be a catalyst for this, to look at additionality,
to look at collaboration.
It's not about reinventing the wheel or doing something that,
or we could do this, that somebody's already in there
doing an adventure.
We can look around the communications
that we do to nudge behaviour and perception change
about the town.
And we can also, I am going to really ask here,
because High Wycombe Town Committee aren't necessarily
going to be the people doing this,
or the people with the spades in the ground doing this,
to be sensitive to what we do
and the impacts that this has on others.
What we don't want to be seeing though is mandating fun
because things where other areas have failed
around council activities, we're doing all of this,
it kind of doesn't necessarily ring true and can backfire.
So I've got three pilot areas that I think I want to share
with you as a consideration.
And the first one is looking at the messaging that we have about what is actually going
on in the town.
We can look at improving that.
And it's not necessarily about promoting individual places, although that becomes in it, but normalising
that High Wycombe is a place where you can come.
And people are coming here already.
It's not like we've got an absolute ghost town in Tumbleweed.
When you come out in the evening after work,
when I'm in town and you can see people
in the different eateries, you can see play,
there is a lot going on to be built on here.
So that is one area that we can do.
And I've put on here that normalising is more persuasive
than persuasion around certain pieces.
So we know we're gonna have haters
that are gonna hate this.
I look at the comments that are on some of our
Council Facebook pages about activities that we do,
especially around the market.
And we are just never gonna solve all of that.
But we can also be a sort of word of mouth ambassador
to support what we do as well.
So the second pilot is around looking at an animation test.
So what additionality can we bring in
that builds on the calendar of events that we have in place?
And this is where Sue and myself and others
have got multiple ideas that could be really, really exciting for the town and it's based
on things that have been done previously. So we could have multiple things going on
every month around a specific theme and you can curate people around the town for just lots and
lots of things. But as I say, I'm sorry, I need to keep some powder dry because I get really excited
about the potential of this one.
So we could make it as an intention,
more of an intention for people to come into town
on those pieces, and the activities starting small,
we can create a desire line,
because if it puts bums on seats,
if it gets more people into the theatre,
if it spills out and people take on on this,
it can be scaled and we can grow it.
So a bit like habit stacking,
we want to look at activity stacking around the town.
And the final one is more of what we're calling
a sort of visibility nudge to really make it clear
to people what is going on.
Can I just have a show of hands?
Who signed up to the Wick and Pulse newsletter
in this room?
Not everybody?
Has not everybody heard about the Wick and Pulse?
Really encourage you to sign up to that.
and the box guide, have you heard of the box guide?
You signed up to that and you're following it
on social media.
So there are a number of new things that have been set up
by residents who are really passionate about the town
and wanting to share more and we could be amplifying
and promoting saying well if you sign up to Wick and Pulse
and Steph would be delighted with this, sign up for it.
I love it, Thursday morning, eight o 'clock, it arrives,
have my cup of coffee, read that and plan out,
right, I'm gonna do this for the week, fantastic.
So if we can make it easy, if we can do that piece
that people say, oh yeah, I'm just gonna go and do that,
can really, really help.
So they're the three areas that I wanted to share
about the potential for this,
and we can have a discussion now, of course,
and if this is supported, what I propose to do
is to continue the work that we're doing
with High Wick and BIDCO and others
to develop a programme of what this could look like in practise.
I've already heard the messaging in the room this evening around costings,
because there would be money that would be required to do this.
We can't expect people to do it for nothing.
And develop a timeline of what that could look like and bring it back in June
and bring Sue with me, hopefully, this time.
So they're the sort of starter areas, and I think real tangible, positive opportunities
for town committee to be a real catalyst to enable these to get going but I'm
really really keen to hear from you guys too. Thank you. Fantastic Jacqueline I'm
very excited I think it's great so thanks for the ideas and things. Can I
just ask just to be clear in terms of your ask you put up three sort of
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:57:26
options for pilot projects is your thought that we say you know yes we'd
like you to go ahead and look into all three or you wanting us to pick one
Jacqueline Ford - 1:57:40
what's your ask? I think there's elements of all of them but I think the
one that you are probably most interested in based on discussions and
your ambitions is looking at the animations piece. But they all link
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:57:54
together. Right, gosh we've suddenly lost a load of people as I've turned around.
So anyway, sorry, questions and comments guys. So Khalil, Hazel, Trevor.
Cllr Khalil Ahmed - 1:58:06
Jacqueline, wonderful presentation. I'm in agreement. I think that all three do actually
link in and if we are going to take this further, then all three need to be looked at. Especially
the pilot two, the animation one, I think it definitely does. Overall, as I said, I'm
not going to say too much on it. You've got my support on it. I don't really have any
questions on it the costings element is something which I just wanted to ask
whether you have a ballpark figure in your mind at all or is there no sort of
you know kind of vague idea in terms of what this might cost because when we
look at the the pilot to you know the pop -ups and all that kind of stuff
instantly I just think of the Christmas lights and similar you know that kind of
atmosphere that it obviously kind of brings to the town but you know having
said that you know I also look at Beckonsfield you know Old Town and when
they also have you know kind of events at night and all that kind of stuff so I
just wanted to know if you had any idea in terms of costings for this in order to make it happen.
Yeah thank you Councillor. To put on an animation to the scale that High
Jacqueline Ford - 1:59:11
Wicom Bidco do to say close the High Street and I mean we've got Frogfest
coming up let's use that as an example because that's in a couple of weeks
That's a really, really good one.
The logistics, the road closures,
the other pieces that need to be put in place,
you're looking at like 14 ,000 pounds.
What I am proposing is that there are smaller scale
activities that you can put on as a series
in a specific area that can spill out,
that can include businesses, that can include restaurants,
to have a curated offer for an evening,
which would be a much lower price point
and it would tap into what's already happening
on the ground already.
14 ,000 is not exactly, but you know,
Cllr Khalil Ahmed - 2:00:06
in terms of what it will deliver in the long term, right,
I just think that it will be a positive
for Wicom going forward.
I was expecting, you know, higher figures, whatever.
So it's not exactly huge.
I know it's 14 ,000 still quite a bit amount but still in the grand scheme of things.
I just think that you know something as good as this and it's something radical needed to be done
to be honest in order to improve it and it's definitely very good so I'm still in support.
Thanks, Cleo Hazel.
Yeah, thank you very much for the presentation and all the work you've put into it.
Cllr Hazel Arthur-Hewitt - 2:00:40
I guess where I'm thinking is more instead of people sat at home going why
do I want to go to Wickham today I'm thinking more of the people who turn up
because they've got a bag of sausages and you don't want them to go home so at
that point they're not going to be sitting on one of our wonderful balls
and the town's out there looking through their phone thinking what's gonna keep
me here they're gonna see it so one of the biggest challenges we've got is
is that the station goes,
hello, here's Wickham, parts of Breen -Eraushed,
you can buy a house.
That something has to be done direction -wise,
a big sign saying, you know, this way,
whatever it is in some clever marketing spiel,
to get people into the high street.
You've also got the problem of the bus station
at the other end of town, you go, hello, welcome to Tesco
and a subway, you know.
I think you need to tell the storey there as well,
because they're all great, but you need to pull them
through Eden and down the high street
and back the other way, if you like.
And the swan is marvellous hidden down an alley.
And I know it's got a nice little sort of a happy, sad face,
you know, the drama face.
But I think we also have to think about having at night,
some kind of lighting, some kind of directional fun
in the way, you know, we've got flags out or something,
I don't know, just sort of tell that storey
so that people who go, oh, you know what,
I've finished buying my bananas.
When's the show, seven o 'clock?
Have we got time to go home?
No, you don't, you wanna stay.
And there's got to be something that comes on at night
to make them want to and where to direct,
where the food places are, where, you know.
And I think it's a great idea about the entertainment
having some street performers or something,
maybe under the Guildhall
or under the Pepperpot or something.
You know, you could get some licenced musicians to maybe come down and play or something.
I mean, obviously not too loud because there's musical events going on.
I think it'd be wonderful to get someone in the Antelope ASAP as well.
But, you know, it's that kind of visual feel of hearing a bit of music,
is it smelling that bit of food, and seeing where you're supposed to go.
Because unfortunately our transport was just at the wrong ends of everywhere
to like, you know, tell the storey as it needs to be told.
So if we could add something, some consideration on
to make you see that you want to stay,
rather than have to look up a newsletter,
which I entirely get.
But I think we need to cater for the people
who've got two hours to kill and choose
to go home at the moment.
But thank you.
But fabulous brainstorming.
Hazel, there was probably about 10 different things
you came there.
I just had picked up a couple of the ones
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 2:03:23
which are just to pass on my sort of emphasis
on them as well.
I think you're absolutely right.
There's a number of assets in the town,
which in a funny sense we are not connecting terribly well, you know, hidden
down an alleyway or whatever it is, how can we open them up to make it a little
bit easier whether it's lighting. And we've often talked on this
committee about entry points and I mean I know you talk about bus and train but also the
other entry points and where we can get communications in for what's going on
whether it's screens, posters, pointers, blow up men directing you to whatever
the event is. Absolutely, I absolutely love all of those things you said Hazel
Jacqueline Ford - 2:04:00
and it was like, were you sitting in the room with me and Sue when we had this discussion?
Are you sure you weren't?
I think the piece about storytelling, about narrative, about winning the hearts and minds,
about having a bit of a tease campaign leading up to, is so important.
The directional pieces about making it easy for somebody to see or hear,
oh my gosh, there's something going on,
I want to go and see, not really important.
To just put something on, do a press release,
put a couple of things on social media,
it's gonna fail and a lot of effort goes into this
and we can see this as a way that starts building
that pride of place and sense of place and communities
and I want to be there.
Different age groups for different activities,
there is such an opportunity by doing it holistically and looking at all of
these points together and we have enough friends around Wickham and we know the
right people to speak to about enabling some of this to happen and I think now
fills the time with all of this that we could.
Trevor
Cllr Trevor Snaith - 2:05:20
destination Wickham, here we come. Long overdue. I remember speaking to an ex
Wickham district planner who said one of the things Wickham district missed was
the tourist trade and it's not just the public that we're looking to bring to
these events it's people who are say maybe going to Wembley for an event and
and they come to Wickham because they know on that night they were doing something special.
Yeah, I'm 110 % what you're trying to do, trying to get moving.
Put me down for the first event, thank you.
Fantastic, thank you, thank you Councillor.
Jacqueline Ford - 2:06:03
And I think the piece about our positioning between Oxford and London,
I saw, and I can't think who it was, made a post that some punk band,
they met them in one of the pubs in Wickham and they said,
what are you doing here? Oh we're starting our tour of the UK and we're in London and
like High Wycombe was the most reasonable, closest place to London for them to be able
to stay. And that whole piece about being perfectly placed right in the middle is something
again with the marketing about how you raise awareness about you want to be here, you can
come here. If you're going to watch the football, come here first. Or stay here and then go
and see the football.
There's so much around the messaging
and getting the vibe right to tickle ears
of different people to really put us on the map.
I just said one that we talked about
in the charter trustee meeting board, of course,
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 2:06:53
we've got that unique historical element here
of the mayoral weigh -in, charter trustees,
and something that doesn't really exist anywhere else.
You know, I mean, I don't know how we bring it
into the nighttime economy,
but certainly in terms of the touristic entry point,
and if you're thinking five o 'clocks,
and oddly enough, I've talked about
the weighing chair create create we came up with you know a modern weighing chair
gosh one that goes into the club outside the bar I don't know becomes the weigh -in
event in the evening post the actual historical one and then there's some
other event in the evening but it plays into art into something that's totally
Wickham so anybody else likes coming on that on night some economy if not right
the in which case then Jacqueline I think you've already proposed that yes I
think we're all interested in in support and please do come back with something
and if there is a meeting happening with Sue or anybody else, then apart from Hazel, I'm
sure one or two others might want to come and join as well.
So, okay, great.
And you're still on now, so you're now on the market.
Yeah, I've got a double bill, lucky me.
And I'll do this really, really quickly.

9 High Wycombe Market Update

So thank you for inviting me again to give my regular update about Highwicker Market.
I've just put a few slides together to do this quickly.
Jacqueline Ford - 2:08:00
So talking about our general market, Kippa season's over and I do know that our Tuesday market has looked a bit sad at times over the last few months.
So our traders are starting to come back. We have a pipeline of interest of new people coming into the town, which is really good.
but as I've explained previously to this committee,
showing an interest, registering to trade,
turning up once, converting that to casual,
and converting that to a regular trader
can be a challenge, which I personally know now
because I do this for Winslow Market,
and it is a challenge.
On our Sunday market, thank you to Hazel.
I did see you come down to support this,
and if anyone else did and I missed you,
I apologise because I didn't have my glasses with me.
But our season launch for 2026 was on the 3rd of May,
and we will be running through monthly this time
through to our Christmas edition in December.
And I must say that the level of interest
that we're seeing for this now one year in,
we have bookings for Christmas already, which is exciting.
So this is continuing and what we also had on Sunday is we missed doing this last year
by a matter of weeks.
We've joined up with the National Market Traders Federation and we are offering the opportunity
for young traders on the market, 16 to 30 year olds, to come and trade with us and we
award and a winner and they get to go through to a regional final on Greenwich
Market which by all means is absolutely a fantastic experience and if they are
lucky enough to win that he or get highly commended they go through to the
national finals. So this is a first for Buckinghamshire, we haven't done this
previously so it's been really really exciting and the two young girls who
came along and we awarded they were just really delighted with having this
opportunity, which was great.
We are going to be doing the second round of this in June.
So if anyone wants to come along and just show
a bit of extra support on Sunday the 7th,
you'll be most welcome.
How do young people find out about it?
So they find out it's heavily marketed through the NMTF.
And they have a list of people.
And we've been signposting people to register.
They've actually got a press release
that should be coming out soon, which includes wider things
around the markets and there'd be information on that as well.
Everybody doesn't know what's the NMTF? It is the National Market Trader Federation.
And the final thing just to say you'll be pleased. So for the general market, our development
for the year, we are looking to introduce on the high street back, this was for people
who are bedroom entrepreneurs, Etsy sellers,
to give them that first opportunity to trade
and to come and test an idea or talk to people.
And we have some infrastructure that we provide for that,
so we supply a gazebo and a table and a cloth
and support them with it.
And we're also exploring, this is one of the options,
so I'm letting the cat out of the bag a bit more,
around a twilight market,
which could be one of those additional pieces
that you have going on as an activity to bring people in.
I have a very exciting mandate
from the leader of the council.
Again, our members will be aware
that Buckinghamshire Council passed a motion last year
around supporting our farmers and our rural economy,
and he has an ambition to reestablish
a traditional farmers market in High Wycombe and Aylesbury,
which would be fantastic.
And this was one of the things
that you have all told me previously
and members of the public have told me previously.
So we're cracking on relationship building
with farms and other providers.
So I really hope, well, I don't hope it will happen
and I will come back and tell you about that
at another point.
And we're also looking at additional entertainment offer.
I will be honest with this,
that some of the activities that we want to do,
we are limited because we don't have funding within here.
I have a market budget with Aylesbury that's covered by special expenses.
That I have extra money to pay for events and to pay for promotion and other aspects that I don't
have for High Wycombe. So it can be slow and this may be something I would like to come back
and maybe explore as part of the night time
and extending provision in the future.
So that's all I wanted to say.
If anyone's got any questions, happy to take those.
Great, thanks, I can go ahead and ask.
Just a quick question.
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 2:13:10
How much cost are you looking,
Cllr Maz Hussain - 2:13:14
the last where you say you don't have enough money,
but how much money are you looking for?
Jacqueline Ford - 2:13:21
The additional budget that I get from special expenses
it's in Aylesbury's around 6 ,000 pounds a year.
That's not too bad a view,
Cllr Maz Hussain - 2:13:31
I think you can bring it back to the town committee,
we can look into it.
Thank you.
Yeah, agreed, yeah.
Anybody else, Hazel?
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 2:13:38
Cllr Hazel Arthur-Hewitt - 2:13:41
No, thank you very much, that was a great update.
I just, really interested in that bit you said
about trying to get people who are sort of selling online
and stuff to give the first punter a market stall.
I'd really like to sort of make the most of advertising
that to my residents who are very ingeniously,
at the Hillclimb Garage in Downley,
they let their forecourt out to do like craft fairs
a couple times a year and like Christmas and stuff.
And the amazing work of some of the jewellery artists
and bag makers and things like that are incredible.
I would love to be able to sort of see
if they're aware of this, even if they're not interested,
to just show an interest and say,
this is something they might be interested in.
I was really gutted to see the craft co -op close.
And something like that would make an immense market stall,
but I don't know if they've asked
or whether it's even possible.
But like, that is something that could really
bring the market alive, because I know how,
it must be really difficult to get people in those stalls,
and the fact that you're offering to help set people up
is amazing, but the further and wider we can find out
who's, how we can spread the word and fill that market up
so the street's brimming, it would be amazing.
Yeah, absolutely, thank you.
And again, when we have that worked up,
Jacqueline Ford - 2:15:04
we will have comms around it,
we will have social media posts,
and I would really value everybody here,
liking, sharing, reposting, getting words out to people
to just share that opportunity, that would be incredible.
But I'm happy to speak to you outside of here.
Yeah, if you could send us a digital business card, the way...
You know, if you could send us a digital business card or something
Cllr Hazel Arthur-Hewitt - 2:15:29
that we can give to people to go and find out about that,
that would be absolutely amazing.
And then whenever I discuss it with somebody, got it there,
that would be incredible.
And something potentially we can all post that is ready for us
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 2:15:42
to copy, paste and paste rather than simply like.
And in fact, I was just thinking, Hazel, it's a very good point.
I mean, if we got a bit more information, so because we're all going to be meeting residents
who are doing something, you know, during the year that we could be handing it to, if
we really, really understood it.
So a short summary of each of them.
And then thinking on the kids, I can't remember which it was, but was it Young Enterprise
did stalls in Eden, which was fantastic with loads of the schools out selling things.
Could we, and we were talking about youth and education, opportunities, hope, inspiration,
and all these other things, could we extend something
across the two, bring it into the market stalls
and do it for everybody in Wycombe?
Are you kidding Wycombe?
Absolutely, and I think our first sort of venture
Jacqueline Ford - 2:16:24
into this national programme or this competition,
our ambition, and I've told my market manager this,
so our ambition or my ambition that I've told him
I want to do is that we have provision throughout the year
for young people so that they can get the experience,
they can have a go and then be ready when we do the High Wickham and Aylesbury Heats next year
to be better placed to go through. Because young market traders are more nomadic than our traditional
market traders, which is good because they want to try lots of different areas and so if we can
get lots of different people that even come once a month, the variety and the difference and the
animation that it brings to the town is fantastic and that would also spark the imagination or give
that opportunity to the young people in Wickham to go and trade somewhere else
and get those different experiences. There's loads of links for young people
that we can explore for this. And to some extent that Young Enterprise thing if we
could just give all of them a card to say why don't they look at it because
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 2:17:24
they've all had a go some of them would be interested in doing it.
Anybody else? Great so looking at our last couple of items so we've got the

11 Cabinet Forward Plan

cabinet forward plan which you are you can read you're able to comment now if
you would like to we then have our work programme the only thing I would say on

12 Work Programme

the work programme so I'm the meeting on the 23rd of June we've got down a
priorities update I think it may be worth if others are in agreement that
that sort of split into two things priorities out the door actually what's
happening because a bunch of things are agreed but if they're not funded and
actually happening what's actually happening with those ones we've agreed
to fund and then the next one is an update on what's unfunded and getting it
out the door so we split it into what's already agreed and what isn't that would
be great and I think we do that does that include now that we're going to be
Cllr Julia Wassell - 2:18:18
having meetings about these priorities and projects we are that was already
covered earlier so that's all in that'll all be in the minutes as to what we
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 2:18:25
agreed earlier I mean we agreed earlier on if I remember it correctly we're
going back over ground which we did and that's that in the next two to four
weeks the officers are going to try to serve a number of one -to -one meetings or
group meetings if they're similar projects and then in the period after
that so one to two months we're gonna have the council is one where we come in
offline and review those projects that already have those one -to -one meetings I
think that's what we agreed my right okay right and yes and can we add the
infrastructure and parking update as we're going to literally keep pushing so
much of this to them then they should always be updating so we can we can
agree some of those things. May we're on our way and the date of the next meeting the 23rd of June

13 Date of Next Meeting

this year at seven o 'clock. Thank you everybody. Thank you and thank you so much.