11 March 2011 NPN Email Newsletter

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Bi monthly meeting

Thursday 17 March
5.30 - 7.30 
at Brunel House, Planning Reception Area, St George's Road, Bristol BS1 5UY

Agenda

1. BRT schemes update - Bob Fowler / Alun Owen
2. CIL / Section 106 - Jim Cliffe
3. Parking provision in new developments - Colin Chapman
4. Planning structure - Julie Seaton

Please let me know if you intend to come to this meeting.
Do pass this email on to the other members in your group who may be interested.

The next meeting is Thursday 19 May.
If you have any suggestions for topics please let me know.

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Bristol Civic Day

Bristol Civic Society (BCS) invites expressions of interest in participating in Civic Day,
which is a national day on Saturday 25 June  to celebrate civic activity,
the brainchild of Civic Voice, the National Association of Civic Societies.

See www.civicvoice.org.uk/campaigns/civic-day/

BCS has been thinking through how it might participate in Civic Day.
An idea we are running with for part of what we do is as follows.

• a call for the public to celebrate public space in the city by suggesting they go along to a local public space on Civic Day and have a picnic, read a book, play a game or organise their own clean up.
  
  
• this could be tied in with publicity about research about public spaces and their value to people for quality of life. (possibly Henry Shaftoe)
  
  
• more ambitiously, with the growing mobile location technology there is scope to ask people to record their location in a Bristol public space on the day and see the spread across the city. or upload pictures of activity in the parks to our flickr or facebook site. (we have a submission in for a project for UWE students)
  
  
• possibly a competition for most novel activity or best community effort.

NPN members could play a major role in this.
It's probably too ambitious for BCS to do on it's own, and anyway Civic Day needn't be the preserve of civic societies. It can involve other community organisations too, such as NPN members.

BCS invites expressions of interest and offers to be involved, as partners.

If this appeals to you, please contact
Alan Morris, Vice-Chair, Bristol Civic Society at alan@morrises.fastmail.fm.

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s106 developer contributions

Bristol City Council (BCC) Planning Obligations Manager Jim Cliffe is currently in the process of overhauling the monthly updated spreadsheet to take account of the monies to be devolved to Neighbourhood Partnerships (NP) on 1 April 2011.

From next month onwards, it will specifically identify those monies over which spend decisions are to be devolved, in order that each partnership will be able to easily identify those monies over which it has spending control.

s106 parks money will still be allocated in accordance with the agreed split [below] and the local element applied to a park within 1 mile of the development that generates the s106 money.

• 33% devolved to NPs to spend on funding capital projects
  (i.e. not running costs)
  
  
• 33% for maintenance of green space.
  (NP can influence spending of this money)
  
  
• 13% to provide and maintain citywide sports pitches
  (decisions on this are not devolved to NPs)
  
  
• 6% to provide improvements for destination parks such as
  Ashton Court and Blaise Castle
  (decisions on this are not devolved to NPs).
  
  
• 15% will be applied to scheme delivery costs
  (not devolved to NPs)

NPN administrator is sent the s106 list each month.

If you wish to be sent the current s106 list, please email me
alison@bristolnpn.net and I will forward the spreadsheet.

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Bristol Office for Planning Aid South West closed

The Planning Aid South West Office closes on the Friday 11 March 2011.

After this date, and until the Thursday 31 March,
any enquiries should be addressed to the
Planning Aid England National Unit 0121 2142900.

More information on the planning support services offered by the RTPI
from Friday 1 April will be offered through www.rtpi.org.uk
or phone the National Helpline on 0330 123 9244

A bid for future funding has been submitted to the Government under the new
'Supporting Communities and Neighbourhoods in Planning' fund.