Help shape parish (From Gazette Series)

Help shape parish

8:47pm Friday 28th April 2006 in Gloucestershire news By Liza-Jane Gillespie

A PARISH council has this week made a plea to the younger members of its community to take an interest or risk loosing its rural charm.

The warning was made at Kingswood Parish Council's annual parish meeting on Monday night.

Chairman Cllr Paul Hemming said Stroud District Council was offering villages across the area the chance to make individual parish plans.

"It is an opportunity for villages like ours to sit down and plan how they would like the area to develop over a period of time," said Cllr Hemming.

So far though no one in Kingswood has taken up the challenge.

Some councillors blamed residents' lack of enthusiasm on the district council's plan to build 50 new houses in the village.

Cllr Norman Ward said: "Maybe there is a bit of disillusionment among people because of the lack of success with our campaign against SDC's Local Plan."

However, Cllr Hemming claimed a parish plan could have helped the village in its campaign against the development.

He told the meeting: "The district council does take notice of documents that are put before them."

Stonehouse parish near Stroud has a parish plan which was recently included in the district council's Local Plan.

Kingswood parish councillors decided at Monday's meeting that they would put together a presentation on parish plans in an attempt to attract new volunteers to write one for the village.

Cllr Hemming said: "Many of us here tonight were involved in projects similar to this ten years ago it would be nice to see new faces take the baton and of course parish councillors can't really be involved."

For more information about the Kingswood parish plan contact the parish council.