September 13th 2010 - meeting minutes

Loaves & Fishes sculpture by John Skelton, Brighthelm Church & Community Centre

Photo by Peter Crowhurst

The way forward

By Lynne Arnold, NLCA Secretary

1. Welcome

Welcome to all, particularly new members. 27 attended. Apologies from Helen Day and Tessa Gunputh.

2. Achievements

Congratulations to the NLCA as since the July meeting we have: successfully launched the North Laine history leaflet; put together a series of street parties; had a tea party at the Pavilion Gardens Cafe with about 36 people attending; and a number of North Laine houses had participated in Brighton Open Door.

3. Minutes

The minutes of the last meeting were approved, with the following correction: Sarah Dunsmure had sent her apologies for the July meeting.

4. Police report and Local Action Team priorities

There have been a series of successful operations undertaken and these have lead to a dramatic drop in burglaries, theft from shops and cycle thefts over the summer months. Over the next month the local police team will be  focusing on street drinking in the London Road to Old Steine corridor, which may have an unintended negative effect on street drinking in the North Laine. Inspector Vicky Harris and a couple of her colleagues will be attending our October meeting to discuss our experiences of late night noise and disturbance.

5. Standing Orders for the NLCA

The officers of the association have drafted a set of standing orders which will be published (on the website and in the Runner) for discussion and approval at the October meeting. The purpose of these standing orders is to try to be more explicit about what we actually do and how.

6. Future of the NLCA

Peter Crowhurst circulated a brief summary of the points that had been made over the past few months, together with a list of suggestions for possible ways forward.

• We have already begun to have tea breaks in the meetings and are seeking volunteers to arrange these for each meeting. Please contact Lynne Arnold if you would like to volunteer.
• We will produce standing orders, as discussed earlier, especially regarding planning to enable routine decisions to be made outside the meeting, but still allowing for any applications or issues to be discussed if a resident requests this.
• We should have a clearer focus on speakers – either within the meeting or on separate occasions. A number of suggestions were made for speakers and possible alternative venues. These will be taken forward by the officers.
• We should have an ethos of greeting new people at the meetings, but this should be informal outside the formal business of the meeting.
• We should instigate a ‘notices’ page on the website for any reports back from each meeting as necessary.
• We should have a clearer focus on 'eco' issues (it was agreed that this was a better term than 'green') by having an Eco-officer and a regular eco corner in the Runner for links, tips and information. It was agreed that this was an excellent idea and a request for volunteers would be included in the next Runner.
• We should have more social activities. However, concern was raised that social activities are usually successful (socially and financially), but are generally arranged by the same few people and don’t seem to encourage ongoing engagement by residents. There was some discussion about trying different kinds of events although no decisions were made.
  

There were more points on the list but we ran out of time, so this discussion will continue at the October meeting.

7. Financing the NLCA

There was no time to discuss this item and it was deferred to the October meeting.

8. Planning

There were no planning applications that need discussion. The Planning Officers supported two applications. Helen Cornish reported that after discussion with Geoff Bennett (the Conservation Officer for B&H Council) she had been allowed to put in double-glazed units without seeking planning permission.

9. Licensing

We had been approached by the police to oppose the licensing application for 6 Queen's Road (the old Seagulls shop). It is an unprecedented situation but it was agreed that it would be worth responding to this request positively.