Marple Area Committee - Extraordinary Meeting

Marple Area Committee held an  extraordinary meeting on 28th October 2015 dedicated to hearing from groups and residents in the Marple community.  Issues raised and discussed would inform future discussions at Area Committee meetings.  

The meeting was in response to a question from Marple Civic Society in June on how the committee could increase resident's participation.  

Cllr Ingham

Following a short introduction from MAC chairman Cllr. Ingham the meeting heard presentations from Paul Lawrence (SMBC Director of Place), The SMBC Community safety Unit and the neighbourhood police team.  Whilst interesting the presentations bore little relevance to the purpose of the meeting.  We understood that the meeting was called to hear issues raised by residents not to be told how safe Marple is or to be lectured on the dangers of neighbourhood Planning! 

Resident Participation

Part two of the meeting was, however, much more useful and productive.  The meeting was divided into 7 breakout groups who discussed issues around how future MAC meeting could be organised (procedures) and issues that residents felt should be discussed (issues).  Each table presented their findings which were admirably summarised by Steve Fox of Democratic Services. 

The findings will be discussed by councillors and officers over the next 6 to 8 weeks and proposals presented at a future MAC meeting.  

We look forward to receiving

from SMBC a summary of the meeting, in particular the procedures and issues raised, commitments and timescales agreed.