When we began work on a Community Vision for Wokingham borough eighteen months ago, I never dared to hope we would be so successful at engaging so many committed and enthusiastic people.
The concept of a Community Vision, which sets out the aspirations of the borough for the years ahead, was launched at a well-attended meeting at Wokingham Town Hall. I opened the meeting with an overview of what I hoped we could achieve and how it would influence the borough council’s strategy and policies.
There followed a series of productive workshops with the voluntary and charitable sector, town and parish councils, and businesses, and two forum sessions with a wider range of participants, including the probation service, the chamber of commerce, health providers, the fire service and police, faith groups, educators (including Reading University and local schools) and the Youth Council. All have been involved as equal partners with the borough council, and the enthusiasm to participate on that basis has come across strongly.
A steering group was formed some months ago formed to carry forward the work on the Community Vision. It includes representatives from business, the charitable sector, health providers, faith groups, the Youth Council, Reading University, and council officers. The chair is Nick Fellows, of Wokingham Volunteer Centre.
I am enormously grateful to all the members of the steering group for their hard work and commitment over many months.
I also want to thank all those residents and businesses who responded to our recent consultation of the draft Community Vision that we produced earlier this year. The level of approval of the broad objectives of the draft is very pleasing.
Co-authored by a great range of community groups working alongside the council, the draft Vision aims to capture the hopes and aspirations of different parts of the community. It will influence the council’s direction of travel over the next decade and more.
We hope formally to adopt the Community Vision in the autumn. I see it as the fruit of a new and radical approach to how the council serves its residents and businesses. In the past, the council has consulted on its strategies and plans after they have been formed. Our ambition now is for a less top-down and more bottom-up method of engaging the community, where the broad priorities are shaped by the people who live and work in the borough.
There will be periodic refreshes in the years ahead, to make sure the council is still heading in the direction that the community wants.
Rarely do councils initiate a process and then facilitate others taking the lead. We have sought to call on the energy, enthusiasm, experience and knowledge within our community. The Community Vision, and the process by which it has been drawn up, reflects a new commitment to empowering people of the borough to help shape the future.
Stephen Conway is the leader of Wokingham Borough Council
