In advance of its Annual Meeting on 24th May, during which QPCC adopted a new Strategic Plan, we offered Queen’s Park residents the opportunity to input and feed into the Plan at our Community Meeting and Lunch held earlier in May.
The Strategic Plan outlines the Community Council’s priority areas of work, planned actions and the principles underpinning the Council activities for the next three years.
The Community Meeting and Lunch was held at the Avenues’ Youth Project on Sunday, 14th May, instead of a Wednesday when Council Meetings usually happen to encourage as many residents as possible to attend.
The Chairs of the Place and People Committees: Councillor John McArdle and Councillor Samantha Alleyne, and several other Councillors welcomed attendees to the event. After introductions, attendees enjoyed a fantastic Vegetarian Indo-Caribbean fusion lunch provided by Jo Jays’ Lunch Club – a social enterprise which runs a vegan community café at the Beethoven Centre. Lunch concluded with a delicious Apple Crumble cake – another treat from Jo Jay’s Lunch Club – and attendees went into groups to discuss and give feedback on the first draft Strategic Plan.
The content of the first draft included strategies that would help the Council achieve key policies and ambitions of the Queen’s Park Neighbourhood Plan, which was adopted in the 2021 community-wide referendum. It also included crucial aspects of the Council’s Strategic Plan 2018 -2022, the Community Engagement Survey 2021/2022, the Children and Young People’s Survey 2021/2022, input from the Council’s Forward Planning Working Group and various other engagement activities with residents and Councillors over the previous four years.
Although the Plan covers the term 2022- 2026, it was officially adopted at the Annual Meeting in 2023 to ensure that new Councillors elected during local elections in May 2022 had the chance to contribute to the Plan they would be helping to achieve across their term in office.
Councillor Alleyne, elected in May 2022, said, ” It was important that the Strategic Plan was adopted one year after the last election. It allowed new Councillors like myself to understand better where the Community Council was in its journey and how we can embed new ideas and ways of working to make the Community Council work more effectively for residents. We are on a journey, and I am proud of the Plan we’ve laid out. We always want to hear from residents, and their input and feedback at the Community meeting made the Plan that much better!”
Residents at the Community Meeting and Lunch made several important suggestions that strengthened the three priority areas of work outlined in the draft. These priority work areas are Democracy, Citizenship and Engagement; Health, Well-being and Community and Place: Planning, Environment and Open Spaces.
Following the meeting, the Council incorporated residents’ feedback into the second draft of the Strategic Plan, which Councillors voted unanimously in favour of adopting during the Annual Meeting.
Among other things, QPCC officers (staff) have already begun actioning residents’ input that the Community Council needs to work more closely with assisted living accommodations in the area to engage vulnerable adults better.
The Council recognises that the Strategic Plan will act as a guide for the next three years but remains flexible in meeting new needs and prioritises identified by residents.
The Community Council wants to ensure residents can continue to input in its work and provide feedback and has set up a Have Your Say section on our website to do just that. Residents are encouraged to use this section to share any comments, concerns or feedback.
Residents can also read and comment on the Strategic Plan online.
If you would like to get involved in any area of the work outlined in the Strategic Plan, you can sign up to volunteer with the Community Council.
For more information on Volunteering, visit “Get Involved” on our website or call 020 8960 5644.