Access Glossop AGM 2006

pointer Full Minutes of May 2007 AGM

Chair's Report - May 2007

Another busy year for Access Glossop!  We have raised funding to help with travel expenses, and have attended meetings all over the High Peak.   We have met with other Access groups from the rest Derbyshire at the Forum of Derbyshire Access Groups, with the High Peak ones on a regular basis, attended DCIL and the Small Group Project Advisory Group meetings, as well as participating in the consultation process held by Derbyshire County Council when formulating their Equality Scheme.  We’ve had a difference of opinion with Bradbury House over mobility scooter access, which I’m happy to report has now been resolved, and another with HPBC over Manor Park, which has not!  At times, it has been hard going, with so few of us in the group, but the few we have are dedicated and I must thank them for the hours they have put in to keep things going.  I also thank the remaining High Peak Access groups for their support, and of course, DCIL and High Peak CVS.

It hasn’t all been tough - we have had some fun, too!  Funding was raised for what we christened ‘Day Tripping’ – this involved a day out at such places as Chatsworth House, Etherow Park, Hollingworth Lake etc. where we audited the access and facilities for disabled people and subsequently published a report on our website (thanks to Peter, our web master).  Some of these trips involved John going places where most people in wheelchairs would fear to go – he was sent down a mine in Yorkshire, and made to climb the stairs in Chatsworth House - and we even have a photograph on our website of him doing that. Not that he looks very happy about it! Our next outing will probably be to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park – a nice easy ride, if we can book him a scooter.  Otherwise, we will be needing a volunteer pusher – any offers?

This last few weeks have been very busy, as we have been working on updating our Eating Out Guide, having obtained the promise of funding from Tameside and Glossop PCT.  With luck and a following wind, we hope to have the new version printed and ready to launch in a couple of weeks, at the Small Group Project’s Special Event, which this year is being held in Glossop – at Bradbury House! 

Plans for the future include formulating a list of accessible venues in the Glossop area.  Both the rugby club and the cricket club have been rebuilt, and both now advertise themselves as available for hire.  These are just two of the places we will be visiting and auditing some time this year, with a view to putting them on our list.  There are many changes in the pipeline for Glossop in the next few years, so Access Glossop can expect to have to work just as hard keeping on top of them in the years to come.

Access Glossop AGM 2006

pointer Full Minutes of March 2006 AGM

Lyn presented the Chair’s Report, outlining the role Access Glossop had played in the plans for the regeneration of Glossop, and the meetings throughout Derbyshire that members of the Group had attended as representatives. She also talked about the auditing of parks and the audits carried out for the High Street Shops Guide.

Lyn covered the following other topics:

Car Scheme - The car scheme would be under threat if the PCT were moved from Tameside to Derbyshire, The National Lottery funding for the scheme comes to an end at the end of March, and a bid has been made for funding for a further five years. They will set up a User Forum to discuss the scheme and any policy changes. Access Glossop were invited to send a representative.

Victoria Hall - The library has disabled access but the upstairs does not. Glossop Environmental Trust wants to save the building. DCC are considering whether to move the library to the new development at Howardtown Mill or stay in Victoria Hall and expand. They are also looking into costs of repairing and adapting the building for community use. There will be a public meeting to discuss ideas on how the building could be used. This will be held on 29th March at 7.30pm at Bradbury House. It is hoped a Management Committee will be formed to work with DCC in attracting funding for the work required. There is a danger that HPBC will sell Victoria Hall to developers and it will be lost to the people of Glossop, to whom it was bequeathed .

Community Transport - Community Transport has 7 minibus vehicles. They have recently acquired an MPV bus, which is accessible to wheelchair users. The bus can be booked for travel in all the High Peak area,  registration is required and can be done when booking the first journey.  The registration fee is £2.00 per annum.

December 2005 - End of Year Report

This has been a busy year for Access Glossop.  We have been involved in Town Partnership meetings, Glossop Vision meetings, Glossopdale Area Forums, DCIL, FODAG (Federation of Derbyshire Access Groups) and Joint Access meetings, as well as carrying out audits and meeting up with various departments of the Borough and County Councils to discuss access issues.  We have taken part in training sessions, and applied for and been granted funding to have more of our Guides printed.

Local Councils are now required to consult on all plans for the future, whether they be Transport, Regeneration or whatever.  Consequently, there is a constant stream of papers arriving on our doorstep with requests for our comments, all of which take time and effort to wade through.

High Peak Borough Council are about to start access auditing their ‘assets' (all buildings and public spaces owned by them), and Derbyshire County Council have recently carried out access audits on all schools in Derbyshire for DDA compliancy (not before time!). There is a great deal going on, and we are right in the thick of it. It is important to be involved in the early stages of these developments, and to monitor what our Councils are doing to implement the DDA.

We have moved our committee meetings to Merseybank Nursing Home in Hadfield, and this has given some of the residents there the opportunity to join our group.  They have made us most welcome, and it has been a beneficial move all round. 

2005 has been a good year for Access Glossop, and we look forward to 2006 being even more satisfying.

Access Glossop AGM 2005

We held our AGM in March. Unfortunately it was not 'overcrowded' but the talk by our guest speaker, Mike Bishop from the Transport Partnership, outlining his involvement with projects to audit railway stations for access, promoted a lot of interest.

The outgoing Chairperson, Jim Seddon, summarised the activities of the Group over the past year. We have produced an 'Access Guide to Public Transport in the Glossop Area', (which follows the 'Eating Out Guide' we produced last year). Our next project will be an access guide to High Street Shops. (For copies of any of these guides, contact John).

We have campaigned on behalf of local people on a variety of local access issues including the inaccessibility of some of the High Street shops that have recently undergone refurbishment; the risk to blind people or those with a visual impairment by cars being parked half on the pavement and half on the road; the lack of a local centre for hiring motability scooters. Our members have all undergone training in Access Auditing and we have carried out audits of buildings for Organisations and advised on access taking into account the requirements of the Disability Discrimination Act. We have recently become involved with the plans for the regeneration of Glossop, although the deadline for comments is May 6th and we would have liked to have become involved a lot earlier.

We are a small Group and in order to to fulfil the role of representing the people with disabilities in Glossop and the surrounding area, we plan to recruit new members over the next year.

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