Broadband Meets Localism
The "Broadband meets Localism" conference held on Saturday 15
January at Carlisle Racecourse was very successful with 140 people
attending (including staff and speakers). Delegates attending were
a very good mix of people from parish councils, community groups,
local residents, elected members from all three tiers of local
government, Local MPs, local business people, officers from a range
of statutory and third sector organisations and technical
specialists.
You can watch the day’s proceedings here http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=0FB6CCA183CA70A6#CB11
(External Link)
Filmed by the dedicated Citizen reporter John Popham or re-read
the day’s live blog overseen by Nick Turner at www.newsandstar.co.uk/webwatch
(External Link)
The event was funded by North West Together We Can (NWTWC) and
also sponsorship from BT. Ronnie Auld, Chairman of
Carlisle Parish Councils Association (CPCA is a district
association of CALC)
led the event together with partners Carlisle City Council, Cumbria
County Council, ACT and Cumbria CVS. Delegate
packs were produced with supporting resources . From the
collated feedback forms 43.8% rated the event overall as
"excellent" and 49.1% "Good".
The morning session, which focussed on Broadband, was opened by
Rory Stewart, MP for Penrith and the Borders. This
was followed by a presentation from
Bill Murphy, Managing Director, Next Generation Access, at
BT and a very lively Q & A session. Delegates then
broke into two groups to discuss "Community owned
solutions" by Dominic
Scarr and Chris
Conder (External Link) showing examples of community
solutions elsewhere and "Making the most of what you
have" by Phil Thompson (aimed at
individual computer users). The morning concluded with sessions
from Marie Fallon,
Corporate Director of Environment, Cumbria County Council,
who updated the conference on the recent BDUK funding Cumbria has
received and also a session from Daniel Heery who discussed funding
options for community solutions. Ronnie Auld also presented his
report from the on-line Broadband
survey CPCA and Carlisle City Council ran.
After lunch the focus was on the new Decentralisation and
Localism Bill with a particular emphasis on Community Led Planning.
The afternoon session was opened by John Stevenson, MP for
Carlisle.
Ronnie Auld, Chairman of Carlisle Parish Councils
Association outlined the opportunities for communities
within the Bill and Chris Hardman, Planning Manager at
Carlisle City Council, outlined the changes to planning
included in the Bill in a presentation
with slides.
Another very lively Q & A session preceded afternoon
delegates breaking into four groups to discuss what they had heard
and to answer three questions:
"What can we do now to get ready?", "What will we need from
partners?" and "What key think are we going to take back to our
communities?"
A selection of quotes from the returned forms :
"What did you find most interesting or useful in the morning
sessions?"
- Local communities need to work together and be proactive to
access Broadband
- The wide range of different approaches communities can take
and the complexity of finding the best
- The critical role for Parish Councils in planning Broadband
implementation
- The sessions and Rory Stewart’s contribution, in
particular, reinforced the point that local communities are
empowered to define their own best solutions. The emphasis on what
communities can actually do to make things happen.
"What did you find most interesting or useful in the afternoon
sessions?"
- Opportunity to realise local opportunities within the
framework of the Bill
- A lot of stimulating details - I found it all useful and
interesting
"Any further comments?"
- Please continue to hold similar meetings so we can keep up
to date and assess progress
Following the conference, CPCA will work with partners to create
new guidance to help communities with their Community Led
Plans. One theme that came out of the conference was that
all parishes will need to appoint a Broadband Champion and should
include the issue of Broadband in the Community Led Plan.
A report will be produced to detail the
outcomes from the conference and will include a model for issue
based clustering of Parishes (where the issue is Broadband) and
detailed next steps for issue based Locality Working in Carlisle
District.
Further information tel: Lynne Hutchinson 01228 817355
or email: rural@carlisle.gov.uk
Conference Flyer
(Adobe PDF 86KB) Conference Programme (Adobe
PDF 45KB)