A Community Led Plan (CLP), is a snapshot in time about this community. What is important in your community now, and how can you, the resident, shape its future. The action plan that is developed from the CLP can act as evidence for future funding of projects that are important to this local community.
In January 2016 we attended a Community-led Planning training event held in Ambleside, hosted by Action in Cumbria, where it was possible for us to learn from colleagues from other parishes. Like other parishes we felt the only way to gather information was via a questionnaire. However to write one you have to know your audience and no two parishes are the same.
The Parish of Pennington is a mixture of semi urban and rural communities split by the major A590 trunk road. Swarthmoor, Birkrigg Park, Whinfield, Loppergarth and small hamlets like Cross A Moor, Rowe Head, Beckside, High Greaves, Low Greaves, Green Moor, Walthwaite and Carkettle are included in the parish. There are no handy local shops, post offices or libraries. However there is a children’s nursery, an infant and junior school, a butchers, a couple of garages, two great pubs, one in Swarthmoor and one in Loppergarth. Most services have to be accessed though the larger towns of Ulverston, Dalton and Barrow.
There are a mixture of Community facilities available, The Swarthmoor Football Club, Reading Rooms, Memorial Hall, Parish Rooms and Lindal Cricket and Bowling Club.
Communicating with the community is a huge problem, in the absence of a Town Crier (probably very effective), we have had to resort to Parish leaflet drops, the Community News (now called the Community Chat), and now digital efforts include a parish website (penningtonpc.co.uk)and Facebook page(Pennington Parish).
Angela, Neil and Lorraine fedback from the Community-led Planning training event held in Ambleside. All agreed it was a very helpful event and a great opportunity to learn from colleagues from other parishes.
After reflecting on the ACT session, discussions held and information shared, colleagues agreed on the following points: