The Town Plan Live events

The Packhorse Fair on 30 May 2016 saw residents’ first chance to contribute to the Town Plan.  Following the analysis of the Town Plan Survey a further series of Town Plan Live events took place in March 2017. This page gives further details about each of these events.

Town Plan Live at the Packhorse Fair 2016

262 people visited the Town Plan marquee leaving 130 comments about the Plan and a further 37 comments about a visualisation of possible developments at Jubilee Park.

There’s a summary of the key messages below. Also available are:

• A full report of the event (which also covers Jubilee Park)
• A list of all the Town Plan comments received
• The Jubilee Park comments

The key messages

Speeding and parking stood out as the two most commonly mentioned issues. Thirteen of the fifteen people who mentioned speeding wanted speed reduced (sometimes in specific locations, such as Dropping Lane and Frome Road) but one person thought that “20 is not plenty, keep it at 30”. The need for better enforcement of speed limits was mentioned by five people.

Parking was also mentioned by fifteen people and is clearly a very significant issue for the town. There were, however, more varied views than there were for speeding: “start charging for parking”; “absolutely do not start charging for parking”; “stop town centre car parking”; “build a car park” and “over-zealous traffic wardens” are some examples of the comments we received.

Dog poo/the need for more poo bins was mentioned by nine people; noise from the recent Gilcombe Farm festival and a desire to see the public toilets re-opened were each mentioned by eight. Dog poo was no surprise as it is constant concern and source of complaints, but the strength of feeling about Gilcombe Farm and the public toilets was less expected.

Eight people kindly left comments that the town was already great and nothing needed to change: “Let Bruton be! It is a wonderful place to live.”

Other matters mentioned by several people were new housing (four for, two against), narrow pavements (six mentions), please keep Man on Bench (four), don’t move the surgery (four). Three people thought it would be good if the Dovecote was illuminated at night.

The response to the Jubilee Park proposals was overwhelmingly positive, with only two of the 37 comments being in any way critical. Many young people posted comments.

Town Plan Live events March 2017

As well as publishing the results of the survey on the website, we arranged six public meetings so that residents could see and discuss the results of the survey. The meetings were planned at a range of times and venues to give the widest opportunity for residents to attend. Following the events the posters used at the events were installed in the Community Office to give a further opportunity for people to see them.

As it turned out one of the events had to be cancelled because of difficulties with the venue. In total 67 people attended the five events that did take place. The event on the green at Cuckoo Hill was the most popular, with 21 attendees. The venues and numbers were as follows:

Friday 10 March, 7.00 to 9.00 pm, Longhouse, Mill on the Brue: 11 attendees
Sunday 12 March, 9.30 to 11.30, Community Hall: 9 attendees
Monday 13 March, 7.30 to 9.30 pm, Community Hall: 6 attendees
Tuesday 14 March, 1.30 to 3.30 pm, Community Hall: 20 attendees
Thursday 16 March, 7.30 to 9.30 pm, Unionist Club (cancelled)
Sunday 19 March, 10.00 to 12.00 Cuckoo Hill Green: 21 attendees

The key messages

Visitors to the events were invited to prioritise a range of possible projects arising from the survey. 27 people chose to do so. The priorities were scored and then the projects ranked on the basis of the scores. Because of the low number of people responding, limited weight can be attached to the ranking, but the results, shown below, do give a further indication of what it is that people see as most important.