Minutes – 26 June 2013

Minutes of the Meeting of Visit New Mills held on 26th June 2013

  • Present: Barry Bate, Jean Fildes, Mike Daniels, Beth Atkins
  • Apologies: Sean Whewell, Northe Slack
  • Minutes of the Meeting of 12/06/2013: were accepted as a true and correct record.
  • Matters arising:

From 4) a) ii) (contact with NMTC) Barry reported that he had written the letter to NMTC. He has taken it to Sue Stevens (with a copy of the Constitution) and she will make this an agenda item for the next NMTC meeting on Monday 8th July. VNM will be invited to make a three minute presentation to that meeting. It was decided that Barry will make that presentation – having first written a draft and circulated it to VNM members for comment. It will stress the economic aspects of the work and the networking intentions of VNM.

From 8) b) (New Mills Stations) Members of the group had joined members of the ‘Friends’ group on Saturday 15th to carry out a station tidy at Newtown. Beth thanked those who had attended. She also reported that she will arrange subsequent working parties and circulate information to everyone.

As planned at the last meeting a sub-group had met at Newtown Station on Monday 17th June. Following the meeting Jean had drawn up a revised Action Plan concentrating on rail-associated issues and had circulated this to members.

From 8) c) (sustainable transport) Barry reported that he had met with Steve Essex. Steve will now consult with the other members in his work group, discuss some of the possibilities for the New Mills area and create a short report for the group to consider.

Beth reported that the Sustainable Hayfield AGM would take place tomorrow evening – including a large item on the sustainable transport aspect of their work.

  • Finance Update: There was nothing to report at this meeting.
  • Web Site Update: It was noted that the third quote for the creation of a web site had been received. There was nothing else to discuss at this meeting.

The group agreed that both Finance and Web Site issues must be discussed more thoroughly at the next meeting.

  • Action Plan update:

Jean felt that VNM should seek ‘piecemeal’ funding for particular pieces of work as they developed rather than a large block of funding all at once. She felt that this would help the ‘staging’ (or phasing) of the Action Plan over, say, a five year period. She had re-written part of the Plan – and distributed this for discussion. She proposed that many of the initial items on the ‘Stations’ plan (i.e. items 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6) were solely the responsibility of Northern Rail – whilst the ‘Interpretation’ and ‘Information’ schemes were suitable for VNM to take forward, but in association with other groups.

There followed a discussion about the enabling/ initiating function of VNM and the way that it should act as an umbrella organisation.

Beth reported that she had had initial contact with the Area Manager for Northern Rail and will meet with him soon. She mentioned some of the issues raised at the recent Rail Partnership meeting and said that she will circulate information from the meeting, including the 2013 – 2015 Strategy and Action Plan.

Following discussion it was decided that Beth will produce a bullet-point list of issues relating to the Stations to act as a discussion starter and circulate this to group members for comment/ additions. Subsequently it will be forwarded to Friends of Stations, Heritage Centre, Local History Society, Walkers are Welcome and the Gallery in order to begin drawing together a wider action group.

  • Funding Issues

Barry reported that he had not yet made contact with staff responsible for the HPBC Marketing Fund

Beth reported that she had made enquiries of the Greenbank Trust, Derbyshire Community Foundation and the HPBC/ Staffs Moorlands Tourism Officer and was awaiting replies.

Jean had contacted Manchester Airport Community Fund and been told that we are outside the ‘area of benefit’. She had also contacted the Duke of Devonshire’s Trust and felt that this fund might be appropriate for the Friends of Stations group. She also described some of the main features of the Heritage Lottery Fund.

  • Any Other Business:
  1. a) Jean reported that she had emailed Jo Brookes (HPBC Conservation Officer) to discuss policies and procedures in relation to conservation issues in New Mills. She has asked Jo to meet with VNM in the future. She confirmed her view that the lack of a Conservation Management Plan was a major problem for New Mills.
  • Date, time and place of next meeting:

3.30 on Monday 22nd July at Jeans’ house.

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