Since 2002 villages over the whole country have been encouraged to draw up their own village plans. The process is organised by the Countryside Agency with local assistance in our case, from the Rural Community Council for Essex. The Countryside Agency has funded our plan with an amount based on our own best estimate of the final cost, most of which was taken up with the printing both of the original Appraisal Survey and with the April 2005 printed report. So far the process has been voluntary with the aim of promoting good local democratic government. We are aware of the possibility that in future it may be made a condition of qualifying to be a 'quality council' that a council has a village plan. 'Quality council' is a title given to local councils meeting certain offical criteria with allows them to take over more responsibilties (and costs) from District and County councils to save those councils money.

There are some difficulties in drawing up a plan based on the ideas of the whole community. The Parish Council deals with problems as they occur and with individual topics as they are raised at their meetings. For the Village Action Plans the aim is to reach further into the community for concerns and ideas which would not otherwise be raised. Jan Cole, the Appraisals Fieldworker for the Braintree Distict, organised the open meetings around a framework designed to draw out agreed contributions from those present in the time available. The Appraisal survey had covered many more people, but without the same scope for discussion. These strands were pulled together in the first draft of the Action Plan for scrutiny by the team of volunteer helpers and reference back to the community for confirmation.

THIS PLAN IS intended to reflect the views of the Parish as a whole.

IT IS NOT a PARISH COUNCIL PLAN. Parish Councillors may be involved in the preparation of the plan and may support it, but it is intended to be independent of the Council. Views have been sought from the Parish as a whole and it is those views which are reflected here.

The FIRST OPEN PLANNING MEETING, (2002): provided ideas for the Village Appraisal Survey.

The VILLAGE APPRAISAL SURVEY, (2003): covered the whole village and resulted in a Pete Jenning's detailed 32 page Appraisal Report, distributed through the village. Further copies are available from Mr. R.G. Liming, 62 Butlers Way, Great Yeldham.

The SECOND OPEN PLANNING MEETING, (2004): considered a list of proposals from the Appraisal Report, they added some new proposals, took some away and sorted them into orders of priority. The final stage was to pick out the most pressing, and to produce tables of actions, leaders, agencies, funding and priorities.

The PRINTED PLAN of April 2005: drew that information together as a reference for future developments and a framework to keep track of future progress. Here, to comply with the Rural Community Council for Essex, the proposals from the previous stages have been reset with a special emphasis on their being specific, measurable, attainable, realistic/relevant and time related.
Paper copies of the original plan were distributed to households throughout the village in May 2005. Further copies are available from Mr. R.G. Liming, 62 Butlers Way, Great Yeldham.

This PLAN: is based on the original printed plan of April 2005, kept up to date as appropriate as fresh challenges and fresh solutions appear.

THE BENEFITS:

We hope to identify problems that would have otherwise been overlooked.

We hope to involve more than just the usual Councillors and Committee members in a project for the whole village.

It will help future applications for asistance from funding bodies if we can show that our requests are part of a well thought out and popular plan for our future.

(Sept 2005)