Polesworth 2050

Executive Summary to report prepared by Stour Power CIC

What is Polesworth 2050?

The Polesworth 2050 group brings together representatives from community organisations within Polesworth.  The group seeks to improve the community, leisure and sports facilities in the historic centre of Polesworth through a single, planned and informed approach.  Various sections of the community already have needs or aspirations for facilities.  The group believes that a co-ordinated approach can have long-term benefits over a piecemeal approach.

Our mission is:

“To bring about the high quality facilities needed for community, leisure and recreational sporting use in the historic centre of Polesworth.  We will do this by researching local people’s needs, consulting local groups/individuals and producing a plan of what facilities we would like to see in Polesworth centre in or before 2050. This plan and this group will assist local groups in achieving their objectives.”

The Stour Community Interest Company was commissioned to carry out the community consultation for this project during 2009, funded by a grant from Awards for All. 

The findings – in brief

The detailed findings of the consultation form the main body of this report; the purpose of this Executive Summary is to highlight the main thrust of what the people of Polesworth have said that they would like to see in the centre of the community and how that may be achieved.

Residents’ ambitions for Polesworth

· Tidy up the centre of the village

· Traffic management and parking

· Something for young people to do

· Improved community buildings

· More shops (and cash points) –

· Make the most of play areas, parks, river and canal side

· Re-open public toilets

· More and better policing

· Attract tourism / visitors  

· Develop cycle routes

· Need a swimming pool

· Better doctor’s surgery, banking facilities and eating and drinking facilities -

Things to be positive about

Polesworth’s residents value the friendliness of the people, the small local shops, the range of local facilities, the rural nature of the village and ‘the way it looks’, its history, its parks and green spaces and its waterways.

Things that could be better in Polesworth

These relate to the ambitions listed above and are put into context here with more detail in the full report. 

Polesworth’s residents are concerned about vandalism, graffiti and the generally scruffy appearance of some parts of the village (eg overgrown river). They think that there is too much traffic and dislike the amount of on street parking, Bridge Street is at the centre of these concerns. Some residents feel intimidated by gangs of youths ‘hanging around and drinking’ in the evenings, linked to a sense that there is nothing for young people to do.

Priorities for Action

Based on the findings of the consultation the following priorities for projects have emerged:

Abbey Green Park, the riverside and the Mill Race

This is felt by most respondents to be the area of highest priority for improvement action; it is the open space at the heart of the community, and visible to all who pass through Polesworth. 

While North Warwickshire Borough Council has obtained funding from Natural England for a project essentially “tidying up” and opening up along the riverside area it is clear that there is a major longer term project necessary.  This is to address the problem of the pavilion which has fallen into disrepair and to re-design the park to both address flooding problems and meet the needs of groups within the community such as sports clubs and the Scouts who urgently need a new meeting place.

Communications:

A lot goes on in Polesworth but many people often say they know nothing about it.  North Warwickshire does not have its own dedicated newspaper and Polesworth’s shops sell both the Tamworth and Atherstone versions of the Herald weekly newspaper.  Being on the edge of the county BBC Radio Coventry & Warwickshire is not really a “local” station for people here.  And unlike many smaller communities, there is no parish newsletter organised by the Parish Council. 

Therefore a communication strategy is needed to support the project and to facilitate community involvement and engagement.  This needs to cover some sort of newsletter, a village directory (possibly website based), welcome packs for new residents, Polesworth’s existing and new websites need to be linked,  and to set up an email group, which covers the main groups and organisations in the 2050 project.

The Memorial Hall and the area around it

The Memorial Hall is a real asset to the community for the meeting and activity space it provides, however its appearance fails to do justice either to it or to Polesworth, especially because of its central location between the Abbey Church and the park.  The Memorial Hall Management Committee has made great strides in recent times to rectify this, but there is still a need for this major facility to be updated.  There is a need to bring together all those stakeholders to work with the Memorial Hall group to determine what the community needs from the space and also how to set the building in an appropriate environment and plan appropriately.

Facilities for youth activities

Many parts of the village have suffered from vandalism and there is a sense that there are few activities for young people in the centre of Polesworth.  Since the sale of the Nethersole Centre some activities such as dancing classes have had to leave the village and despite 3 years of negotiating no land or venue has been forthcoming to house the thriving Scout group when it eventually has to leave the current Scout Hut.  There is also a very successful junior football team but which has no changing facilities.  There is a need to consult with young people and identify what facilities are necessary and try to involve them with plans and developments for the future.

The above projects have been agreed to be priorities for action by members of the Polesworth 2050 Group. 

The aim is for delivery of these priorities to be open to all in the community.  Some actions will need to be taken forward by the organisations that own the facilities, some may be done by members of the 2050 group.  Some by volunteers who simply wish to be involved in a specific thing. 

What is achieved for Polesworth is more important than who achieves it, but as with all things nothing will be achieved if no-one makes the first step.