New Mills Access Group 2005 AGM

Annual General Meeting held on Monday 20 June 2005 at New Mills Volunteer Centre

Download the minutes of the 2005 AGM   63k

Secretary’s Annual Report

Records - Details of all correspondence and replies are kept at the Volunteer Centre by Helen Bollard so that anyone may view them. Please note that in some cases draft copies have been archived, but standard, formal letters were actually sent. Any personal details provided have not and will not be passed on to third parties, unless this is for a specific purpose and agreed in advance.

Meetings - The group has held meetings every month. These have all been held at the Volunteer Centre in New Mills, apart from the March meeting, which was held in Ventura Court , a sheltered housing development in New Mills where we will also be meeting in July, as residents were keen for this to happen. There have also been subgroup meetings to deal with specific issues.

Activities - Various group members have attended meetings of the Town Partnership. Sally Foster has been in contact with the BE Consultancy group and High Peak Borough Council as a result of the Partnership, notifying them of issues of concern to the group and providing the consultants with written lists of issues arising from Town Partnership meetings which were of concern after discussion at NMDAG meetings. Discussions arising from Partnership issues have occupied a lot of time in group meetings. It remains to be seen whether the level of involvement will have been worth it. NMDAG was very new when the Town Partnership was setting its priorities. The access group was set up after the Town Partnership had been going for some months. A project manager for the regeneration project has only recently been appointed and this may start to make a difference.

New Mills Arts Theatre - wrote to their secretary asking if they required any input from the access group when renovating the theatre. No response as yet

New Mills Indoor Market - attempted to contact the owner by visiting and discussing the issue of access with stallholders. Wrote to HPBC and New Mills Town Council about access to the market. The owner renovated the frontage and since the building is listed, alterations are problematic and it remains inaccessible.

High Peak Borough Council - Environmental Service Dept were contacted 27 th April 2005 re footpaths, dropped kerbs (lack of) in Ollersett Road area, access severely restricted in some areas. They have promised to send someone out (though they are supposed to maintain paths in usual condition anyway).

Sett Valley Trail - letters written to HPBC, developer Gary Cullen, members’ views circulated to other group members by email and post on various occasions as this was an issue provoking much discussion.

Hyde Bank Mill - written to High Peak Borough Council, Planning Office at Glossop and Chinley, on three occasions about planning applications, section 106s and then giving the group’s views. (Hyde Bank Mill also relates to improvement of pedestrian access to Meal St , High St and Market St ).

New Mills Leisure Centre - contacted Dawn Richardson, Sports Development Officer at High Peak Borough Council about duration of improvement work. Then Garry Milner who she recommended should be contacted.

New Mills Adult Education Centre - three group members (Glynn, Vera, Sally) attended a Town Partnership meeting held at the Volunteer Centre, at which the new facilities for the Business Centre were shown to those present. It was noticed that some of the facilities seemed unsuitable for their purpose (eg disabled toilet) and after Glynn had verbally agreed when he visited another time than an access audit would be arranged. The Centre has been contacted and visited four times leaving messages, which were not returned in any instance, and attempted to call many other times. Eventually someone was located and the Manager’s name and address were given. Two letters have been sent so far but there has been no response as yet (first letter sent 2 nd April 2005 , second letter sent 2 nd June 2005 ).

Train Stations - initially, contacts with First Northwestern, who then lost the Franchise. Then contacted Northern Rail about whether they had any plans to improve or create access to stations in the access group’s area. Their Customer Services manager made contact with a response about how they provide services to disabled people where access is a problem. They do not have any plans to alter or improve stations at the moment. Also informed Paul Armstrong of HPBC who had requested details of Northern rail’s response to our queries.

Website - provided some information about the group’s activities for this.

Contact with High Peak Transport Partnership, initially at a meeting of the Town Partnership. Then provided with details of the artist working with Spectrum Disabled People’s group whom was contacted to discuss the project. As a result contacted Gillian Ayre of Spectrum Disabled People’s group, who we may work with in the future.

Hope Valley Access - a large amount of contact regarding working with Hope Valley Access on Station Access Audits. Alison Salmen of Hope Access is quite keen to carry out an access audit of stations according to a plan she has already worked out with Mike Bishop of High Peak Transport Partnership. It is possible NMDAG may collaborate with her at some stage in the future though not on this project.

Derbyshire Constabulary - have been phoned and written to twice requesting clarification of issues – electrically powered vehicles, obstruction of footpaths and pavements, car parking on pavements. Their reply indicated that this was dealt with on an ad hoc basis and not seen to be a great problem.

Federation of Derbyshire Access Groups - contact has been maintained with their secretary, though so far it has not been possible for anyone from New Mills to travel Matlock or Ripley for meetings.

Bowers Buses - After meeting at Ventura Court , residents identified access to Town Bus service, 389, as an issue. It is specifically intended for people having difficulties reaching town, but some residents found it hard to reach the bus stop. They have been phoned and written to. This resulted in a visit to Ventura Court by Bowers. Unfortunately even a small bus cannot use the turning circle outside Ventura Court .

Derbyshire County Council Environmental Services Unit has been contacted on several occasions. Included requesting transport guidelines published for older and disabled people, and obtaining copies of a questionnaire that had been sent out when trying to find how people use and access the countryside (prior to this they were unaware of a New Mills Access Group).

Derbyshire County Council Road Safety Department had been phoned to research information for a blind man who had contacted Helen at the Volunteer Centre about difficulties with pedestrian crossings in New Mills. Obtained useful safety information, which was passed on to him.

The Volunteer Centre had kindly provided a pigeonhole/letter tray specifically for use by the Access group, located in the Volunteer Centre reception.

Chairman’s Report

The chairman Glynn Jennings thanked Dorothy and Helen for the use of the Volunteer Centre.

Since forming 8 people have been trained of which there 3 are left. Audits have been carried out at Bridgemont Village Hall, New Mills Volunteer Centre, New Mills Leisure Centre. This has been carried out with outside help to ensure that we gain through others’ experience. We have also helped out in an audit in Glossop. We have tried to include New Mills Adult Education centre in an audit but they refuse to answer any letters.

We have helped in the design of the new bridge at Goyt Valley Meadows and are still working with the allotments on their design. It is hoped that parking for two disabled cars will be provided.

We have still some outstanding work to be done with NMTC re the bridge access which will hopefully help to make the Torrs more accessible.

We have gained an S106 agreement to upgrade Meal Street from the development of Hyde Bank Mill, work has already started and this needs to be followed through. We also had an S106 agreement to turn a section of the Sett Valley trail between St George’s and Church Lane into a more accessible route but this was turned down by High Peak Borough Council, without listening to us. Glynn understands that the developer will continue to try and get this section sorted out.

He said it would be a good idea to have new members from outside of New Mills and if possible to meet in other venues.

Website – Peter Beardwood has done work on the site, which cost approx £600.

The website is a joint venture of the High Peak Access groups in New Mills, Buxton, Glossop and Hope Valley . Each group has their own web domain name leading to pages specific to their area and projects. For common information and issues, pages will be created under the accesshighpeak.org.uk web address.

The other website address is: accessnewmills.org.uk, and New Mills specifically can also be accessed by the following: accesshighpeak.org.uk/newmills.

Members of access groups need to know how to access – a meeting is to be arranged 1 st or 8 th August.

It was asked if other groups could be included such as Bakewell. It was pointed out that Bakewell is not in the High Peak . It was agreed that this be brought up at the next joint Access group meeting.

Publicity – Bill Allen had been on the radio and today’s meeting was mentioned on the radio this morning. There had been a poster campaign in the Millers parade, One World Festival, and New Mills partnership network. The New Mills Partnership was set up last year.

Summing up, Glynn said much had been achieved in the last twelve months by a small band of volunteers. If there were more members, taking on a few minor tasks, he felt that more could have been done and more audits could have taken place. He pointed out that New Mills has a lot of historic buildings. He said that the group had made a name for itself that is not only realistic and practical but that we were not here just to rubber stamp improvements. Results are being seen now.

There is to be a new audit course in October and it is hoped an Access guide could be produced.

Glynn thanked everyone in the group.