Biodiversity Seminar, Chair of Council Reception, NPFF Consultation, Pro Pathways For Councillors – The Experienced Councillor training portfolio update

Dear Colleagues

What a week, I’m hoping that the worst is past us and despite it becoming colder, it will also allow things to dry out.  It’s been two weeks since our last view which is testament to how busy we have all been.  

We enjoyed an amazing BioDiversity Seminar and the feedback from you, our presenters, partners and speakers has been incredibly positive and encouraging.  The team at The Gateway in Aylesbury supported us as always with good humour despite running other events elsewhere in the building at the same time, thank you BC for the loan of your facilities.  

We also enjoyed our first Chairman’s Reception, with Cllr Bray our Chairman inviting the chairman/woman of local councils to join him for a social occasion and presentation from Matthew Barber.  Matthew took lots of questions and extended his time with us and although that did eat into our social time, the response from you has been very encouraging.  We are going to aim to do this once a year with a venue in both MK and BC and so our next reception will be hosted in MK and we will play with the format slightly to ensure sufficient socialising time too.

You won’t have been able to avoid talk about NPPF consultations, alarming housing numbers, threatening Development Consent Orders and more coming down the line.  For those of you looking at Neighbourhood Plans here’s a link to Home – Locality Neighbourhood Planning who provide grants and great advice.

Next week we have a first practical Allotments training session, following a similar format to our recent practical playground training.  I’m praying for drier weather, but wellies may well be required!  On our to do list, the annual survey, building our experienced councilor portfolio of courses – including procurement for councillors, and spending those hard won developers funds!  So plenty to do and hot on the heels on BioDiversity, pulling together next years Place Shaping Conference (our working title).

We wish you a calm weekend and look forward to speaking with you next week.

Kind regards

Mel and Lorraine