Agenda item

The Council received a presentation from the AAP Coordinator and the Chair of Chester-le-Street and District Area Action Partnership (for presentation see file of Minutes).

The Council were informed that the work of the AAP was based around three themed task groups:

·        ‘Thriving’ which concentrated on the town centre, employment and training;

·        ‘Supporting’ – which looked at health, young people, families and older people; and

·        ‘Taking Pride’ which concentrated on areas such as the environment and community safety.

Priorities were linked together to ensure that crosscutting themes could be addressed. The AAP had a varied work programme and had always been prepared to pilot an idea.

The Council then noted a summary of projects that the AAP had been involved in, which included:

·        the purchase of two electronic bikes for the local Neighbourhood Policing Team which had been conceived as a result of concerns expressed around having a greater visible police presence across the various communities;

·        a Man v Fat league across County Durham aimed at weight loss in men by using football as a tool and placing the men who signed up into a team to ensure peer support with their weight loss goals;

·        funding of a business association to employ a retail consultant to deliver a social media campaign to promote independent businesses and to both ‘talk up’ Chester-le-Street and celebrate the variety of independent businesses of the town. The project started in March and eleven businesses had been supported in developing a stronger social media presence and a marketing campaign;

·        joint work with VCD and Durham Cricket on business engagement ensuring that local businesses were fully briefed about the cricket world cup, ensuring that they could take advantage of the 40,000 visitors; and

·        funding of ‘ChesterFest’ - a community festival that was being delivered by Durham County Cricket Club Foundation.

The Council were informed that AAPs could also link well with strategic ambitions for the Council. An example being the AAPs role working with technical services on a £6m flood prevention scheme. The AAP had been a key stakeholder in the development of the project and had been asked to lead the work on a public art feature as part of the scheme. The AAP board contributed £10,000 towards the project. The Thriving Chester-le-Street task group had worked on developing a brief for a potential artist and as an AAP would be looking to consult on ideas to ensure local buy-in to the proposed concept.

In summary, the projects highlighted were a snap shot of what projects the AAP were involved in.

The Chair thanked the AAP Coordinator and Chair of the AAP for the presentation and informed the Council that there would be an opportunity to ask any related questions to AAP staff following the meeting.