One positive outcome of last week’s Meet the Cabinet event in Frome, and I don’t think it was a coincidence*, is that it was announced by Mendip’s Cabinet that there will be a cross-party Frome Forum starting in the autumn.  This will involve all of Frome’s elected councillors at Mendip, Frome Town and Somerset councils, as well as other public agencies and community groups, meeting in public every 3 months to discuss the big issues affecting Frome and how to act on them. This will be supported by both Mendip and Frome Town Council staff, to gather information and help take action. It will feed into the councils’ decision-making, and if successful could take on decision-making itself (as we previously had in various forms).

 

I think this should mean that the three councils work together better, because they need to, to respond to issues affecting the town, and that problems between different councils can hopefully be resolved quicker than at present.  This is what I and other councillors for Frome at Mendip (and ‘Vision for Frome’) have been asking for, for a long time since the suspension/abolition of the East Mendip Community Partnership in spring 2011, and I am glad it is finally going to happen.  Details will be agreed over the coming months, including how to best make this popular with residents to encourage a good turnout and ensure community input into the meetings.

 
*: The East Mendip Community Partnership (a meeting of all Mendip councillors in the Frome area) and other two Community Partnerships met regularly to discuss local issues until being suspended for a year from May 2011 by Mendip’s Conservative council. I raised the need to replace the Community Partnerships at three Mendip full meetings since 2011, in formal and informal questions. Frome Town Council proposed a Frome Forum in correspondence with Mendip’s Cabinet and Chief Executive. Several meetings were held about a Frome Forum between Mendip’s Cabinet, Frome Town councillors and Frome’s Mendip councillors.  I and cllr Helen Sprawson-White both raised the need to progress a replacement for the EMCP at the last Mendip Full Council meeting in May. A question was asked in advance about this at the Frome Meet the Cabinet event by Charles Wood, Chair of Vision for Frome. A decision to proceed with a Frome Forum was finally made the previous Friday at a meeting between Mendip and Frome Town Council officers and councillors including cllrs Richard Pinnock (Lib Dem, Mendip), Mel Usher (IFF, FTC) and Tom Killen (Con, Mendip).  I have written previously about all this here – http://adamboyden.mycouncillor.org.uk/2013/02/22/lets-bring-real-tangible-benefits-to-community/