Priorities shift for Winslow Community Board

A year after its creation, the community group's looking for more members.

Like the other 15 community boards in Buckinghamshire, the Winslow & Villages Community Board was set up a year ago as part of the new Buckinghamshire Council’s focus on localism and empowering communities to work together with the council to make improvements.

At the board’s recent meeting, members looked back on the past year and the achievements made which include:

• Assisting in the response to COVID by funding local groups such as St Laurence Church who support vulnerable residents/ families in need.
• Improving valuable local assets such as the Oving Recreation Ground and Whaddon Allotments with the aim of decreasing social isolation and increasing activity.
• Building strong relationships in the community with key organisations such as local councils, voluntary and community organisations, police and health colleagues in order to expand the reach of the board and enable better partnership working.
• Facilitating community conversations through the establishment of four action groups focusing on health, transport, highways and HS2/EWR in order to develop creative ideas.
• Contributing to cross-board initiatives such as Crisis Support, Young Carers and Wild Aylesbury Vale in order to be more impactful over a wider geographical area and reach more residents and groups.

In the past year the board has helped to fund 14 projects that focused on their priorities. This year action groups will focus on:

• Improving the environment
• Supporting economic recovery
• Transport and highways
• Health and wellbeing

Chairman of Winslow and Villages Community Board, Jilly Jordan said: “We know there are many topics that concern local people and lots of ideas for how we can address them. We really want to hear from these people and better still, ask them to join us in working together to make improvements.

"One of the areas we are particularly keen to focus on this year is improving our environment. This could be anything from increasing biodiversity, to reducing energy consumption or enhancing local community transport. We are urging people to get their thinking caps on and let us know what they think could be done and together we can explore how to put these ideas into actions."

If you would like to find out more about joining one of the action groups, email: winvill@buckinghamshire.gov.uk