Agenda item

·         Northstowe

·         Orchard Park

·         Cambourne

·         Our approach to Milton and Waterbeach

·         Melbourn

Northstowe - EM

·         Northstowe Support Partnership continues to meet to look at emerging issues.

·         Creation of the Northstowe Youth Hive – Voluntary led youth organisation whose aim is to engage with the young people of Northstowe and to support them with putting on activities. In the pipeline is a ‘youth café’ on Wednesday evenings.

·         Various partners have been addressing issues of ASB as they come up. Racist graffiti seems to have been a single act, as no further incidents have occurred. Some general low-level vandalism has occurred also, but nothing of major concern.

·         A new Arts organisation has been formed over the last year (Northstowe Arts) and one of their aims is to engage with the more excluded members of the community.

·         Initial discussions started on addressing housing ‘tenure stigma’. There has been tension between those residents that own their houses and those that are in affordable housing.

·         CCC will be commissioning a professional youth work offer that will support the development of the youth hive and its volunteers, as well as support the local community by engaging with Northstowe’s young people by addressing any emerging issues through detached work and other initiatives. This is currently going through commissioning and then will go out to tender to a third sector organisation

Orchard Park – EM

·         Think Communities continue to chair and coordinate the Orchard Park Partnership – A multi-agency group meeting bi-monthly focussing on emerging themes and issues in Orchard Park including ASB/ criminal damage but also to build community capacity and cohesion.

·         Set up the Orchard Park Youth Partnership – Youth specific subgroup of the partnership focusing on increasing the offer for young people in the area to address the issue of bored young people committing ASB/ criminal damage etc. This is coordinated and chaired by Think Communities in partnership with the CCC YCC Amanda Silvester. They are in the process of developing a questionnaire to find out who the wider cohort of young people would be, who may benefit from taking part in Orchard Park.

·         The Youth Partnership has been working collaboratively with the Community Council to improve the offer, to develop more activities for young people. A new secondary age youth club is now happening every week, there are several free to access football sessions and there will be an activity camp delivered by sports students from ARU that will take place at Easter. There are, however, still some gaps in provision for primary age and a lack of non-sporting activities for young people.

·         Targeted Youth Work – Secured £8000 of funding from SCDC to commission Romsey Mill to carry out detached, focused youth work, working specifically with those young people that are at risk of entering the criminal justice system. The aim of the project is that once relationships are built, Romsey Mill and the young people will work on a project that the young people design. This is to divert away from ASB and to engage them in something positive. The Project has been designed by Think Communities in partnership with Orchard Park Community Council and Romsey Mill, with support from SCDC Communities Team.

·         Developed an action plan, via the partnership, to record the direction of travel and keep track of projects.

·         Going forward, work will focus on building community capacity. This will include the development of a community café, community garden, as well as supporting the parish council and the community to make these initiatives and others, a reality.

Cambourne – LG

• I have been working closely with Katie Ixer from County Think Communities Team who is the Community Connector for Cambourne.  After the Town Council Meeting in January, we held our first Cambourne Community Group meeting on 15th March. We had attendance from Town Council, Early help, Living sport, medical practice, Cambourne VC, church, Romsey Mill, the Workers Education Association as well as SCDC Officers and a Cambourne District Councillor.  We made some connections between agencies and we know we have a lot more work to do to get this operating to the same level as Orchard Park and Northstowe Community Groups. We are feeling positive that going forward we can engage the community and make some impact on their issues.
• We plan to join their upcoming events through spring and summer and erect a stand so we can engage the community and chat more to gather their thoughts and issues. There is also a Transforming Lives program, potentially occurring in Cambourne in Sept, delivered by the County Early Help Team, Transforming Lives (cambsyouthpanel.co.uk)  which we hope will be impactful in a preventative way to those youths on the peripheral of crime either through friends or siblings or vulnerable to potentially taking the wrong path.

·         I am also working with the Early Help Team to deliver the County Lines videos in all secondary schools across South Cambs http://www.alteregocreativesolutions.co.uk/countylinescambs/

·         Fire & Rescue will hopefully be delivering the ‘Fire Break’ program in Cambourne later this year. Firebreak (cambsfire.gov.uk)

Our approach to Milton and Waterbeach - KH

• Main reason for focusing on this area was due to issues at the Tesco’s site, however nothing of note showed in this strategic assessment, therefore Waterbeach and has now dropped off the priority list, but it is one we will monitor due to the size of the ward.

Melbourn

• The issues are known to us and Melbourn has good Councillor engagement. This will be one of the first project areas when the new PCC position is in place. They will be working with the current Melbourn Practical Solutions Group as well as the Melbourn/Meldreth underpass project.