Civic Voice

Regional Forum
Minutes of the meeting held on 24 January 2017

Present:
Helen Kidman, Regional Forum Chair
Peter Eversden, London Forum
Vernon Porter, Oxford
Joan Humble, Chairman Civic Voice
Vanessa Gregory, Look St Albans
Jim Robinson, YHACS

In attendance
Ian Harvey, Executive Director, Civic Voice

Apologies
Mike Jenks, Falmouth
Tony Fooks, ANTAS
Helen Marcus, London Forum
Elizabeth Allison, West Midlands

1. Welcome and Introduction

The Chairman welcomed members and asked everyone to introduce to themselves

for Jim Robinson, who was attending his first meeting of the forum on behalf of
YHACS.

2 Minutes of meeting 8th November 2017

The minutes of the previous meeting were approved.

3 John Kershaw

The Chair explained to the forum that it was terrible news when she was informed in
November that John Kershaw had suddenly died and that the thoughts of all at Civic
Voice and in the civic movement were passed onto John’s family and friends.

It was explained that no immediate announcement was made to the membership due
to wanting to inform the members of the death and funeral arrangements all at the
same time.

It was agreed to consider who we invite from NWacts to attend future meetings once
they have held their AGM, due in March 2017.

It was agreed:
a) To inform the Regional Forum when we know arrangements around funerals.

4 Chair of Civic Voice Report

Joan Humble reported that:

1. The Board will be having discussions about prioritizing its work, and will be
agreeing a new strategy in at the Civic Voice board meeting (25th January)
and noted that she is aware of the competing demands of different societies
 around the country vary significantly. She explained this will be shared with
the regional forum at the next meeting.
2. Explained that the board will be responding comprehensively to the Civic
Voice review and its 42 recommendations and that the Regional Forum will be
kept in touch about developments.
3. In the last 12 months, she was pleased to report that Civic Voice had
a. Delivered 112 workshops on a variety of subjects across England
b. Organised 5 Parliamentary meetings – average 90 people at each and
met 35 MPs met throughout the year
c. That 35 civic societies had received a talk from a Civic Voice speaker
(either the Executive Director or a Trustee) and another 23 are in the
dairy for the next few months
d. Over 3500 people attended a Civic Voice event and nearly 800
queries had been submitted to the Civic Voice helpdesk and over
25,000 National Trust passes had been utilised by civic society
members as part of membership benefits and 140 civic societies
utilise the Civic Voice insurance policy to cover their activities.
e. We had issued 50 editions of civic update each Friday and that we will
be changing our communications to be more personalised based on
membership feedback.

5 Regional Reports
a. Peter Eversden submitted an excellent update from the London Forum
with concerns being highlighted including
i. The Treasurer of London Forum having initiated conversion of
the Chislehurst Society to an incorporated society and is to
produce a report on the process and a set of recommendations
for other civic societies.
ii. The Government issued a Call for Evidence on Basement
Developments and the Planning System.
iii. Civic societies need to be warned that the Assets of
community Values must be properly recorded by their local
authority on the Land Register and that ACVs will expire and
action must be taken before they do.
iv. The Government has published guidance on estate
regeneration and proposes that Councils should use planning
‘permissions in principle’, Local Development Orders and
Neighborhood Plans to streamline the process.
v. Explained that they will be holding a talk on the Big
Conservation Conversation on March 1st and Ian Harvey will be
speaking
b. Vanessa Gregory gave an update on activities in Look St Albans and
explained that they were delighted to be this month’s edition of The
Planner the official magazine of the Royal Town Planning Institute.
http://www.lookstalbans.org/1/post/2017/01/-look-st-albans-design-
charrette-for-the-civic-centre-opportunity-site-features-in-the-january-
edition-of-the-planner-written-by-local-resident-and-journalist-chris-
jenkins.html
c. Jim Robinson reported on the activities on YHACS and confirmed that
Joan Humble would be delivering a talk to the group at their AGM.
d. Helen Kidman reported that a civic society had recently cancelled
membership with YHACS
A short discussion followed and it was noted that the following should be fed back to
Civic Voice:

- Neighbourhood Planning is patchy, variable and takes a very long time. We

are concerned that the APPG question on Neighbourhood Planning ‘Will
Neighbourhood Planning deliver the homes the Country needs?’ is possibly
not the right question.
- Governance and Strategy are slowly increasing in importance on the agendas
of civic societies.
- Assets of Community Value (ACVs) may be worth very little. Some local
authorities, where they are the owner, advise they do not have to register
ACV status with the Land Registry.
- Obtaining Chartered Incorporated Organisation status is extremely difficult.

It was agreed

- As we do not have a report from all parts of the country and this means we
are limited in what we can feedback to Civic Voice as a national picture. Ian
Harvey to present a paper showing the full national picture in regard to
regional forums for a future meeting.
- Ian Harvey to ask John Walker from the Kent Federation of Amenity Societies
to attend the future regional forums, or a deputy in his absence

6 Civic Voice Activity

Ian Harvey, Executive Director of Civic Voice reported on the following activities since
the last meeting

a) Griff Rhys Jones and Sir Terry Farrell letter to 25 biggest housing companies
b) We have launched Design Awards and received British Land support
c) Theresa May offered support for Civic Day by saying “it was a day when all
communities could celebrate where the live”
d) AGM of APPG for Civic Societies – celebration of civic pride. It was explained
that whilst we sometime wish to hold events that we want, we also must
respond to what MPs think will be a more interested event for them.
e) That the next set of APPG for Civic Societies meeting will be part of a series
to discuss the solution to getting the homes built that the nation needs. This is
in line with the forthcoming Housing White Paper. The first meeting is on
neighbourhood planning on January 31st.
f) APPG to discuss the Housing White Paper is proposed for Feb 21st….
depending on the Housing White paper being published in time
g) Survey of communities in partnership with Historic England – conservation
areas/neighbourhood planning
h) Preparing for membership renewals – Insurance, National Trust passes
i) All societies are to be encouraged to get their local MPs to join the new Civic
Societies APPG which is to meet on 31 January and will be discussing the
role neighborhood planning can play in solving the nation’s housing crises.
j) The war memorial surveying programmer is proceeding with some revisions
to the programmer. Active groups of volunteers have begun work in over 50
areas around the country. 97 civic societies have participated in the
programmer so far.

7 Latest Research from Civic Voice

The Executive Director explained to the group that Civic Voice had been piloting
some new surveys to use as part of our evidence based approach to developing
policy. Latest research had asked the following questions

- Is your civic society responding to more planning applications now than 12

months?
- Does your local authority consult/notify you about heritage related
applications? Is your civic society responding to more or less planning
applications now than 12 months ago? Do you have more or less active
volunteers now compared with 12 months ago?.

A short discussion followed and it was noted

- Local authorities see civic societies as key partners in the planning system,
but we can often have significant differences of opinion
- The changes to the planning system are impacting on civic societies in terms
of resource
- Civic Voice should be considering training/support to ensure civic societies
are equipped to respond to the issues within the planning system

Action:

- Civic Voice to consider training/support to ensure civic societies are equipped

to respond to issues within the planning system
- It was agreed for Civic Voice to consider a full survey of the membership
based on the interesting results coming back from the small sample

8 Updates on Civic Day and Civic Voice Design Awards

The Executive Director and Chairman encouraged all societies to take active roles in
supporting the different programs introduced by Civic Voice as a means of
broadening their ranges of activity, increasing their local influence and enhancing
their appeal to potential members.

It was explained that

 Civic Voice Design Awards is are open for applications until February 14th and
we are organizing visits to previous winners (Alder Hey, Pickering and All
Souls and members encouraged to attend)
 Civic Day 2017 will be taking place on June 17th and is a great way for us to
promote our work
o So far 141 groups have registered interest in participating – with the
main group being town and parish councils
 The North West and West Midlands are leading the way in groups saying they
want to get involved!

Action
- All to inform civic societies in their region about the Civic Voice Design
Awards and Civic Day to get involved

9 Updates on the Big Conservation Conversation

Ian Harvey introduced the latest thoughts on the Big Conservation Conversation and
started by saying Civic Voice supported us do this at Civic Voice AGM in Chester.

 Civic Day 2017 will be taking place on June 17th and is a great way for us to
promote our work
o So far over 200 groups have registered interest in participating – the
majority not being civic societies

It was noted that some highlights include:

 Robert Jenrick MP leading a debate in Parliament on 50 years of

Conservation Areas debate on Thursday
 APPG for Civic Societies – 50 years of Conservation Areas – March 7th
 March 31st – Laura Sandys keynote at LGA Conservation Officer conference
 May – Civic Voice Design Awards with a special Conservation Area Award
 June – House of Lords reception – Invitation only
 *17 June – National Civic Day
 August – Griff Rhys Jones talk at Countryfile TV event
 September – Conference in Stamford with Stamford Civic Society
 September – October – Manifesto for Conservation Areas

Action: It was agreed for all regional forum members to promote the Big
Conservation Conversation and tell groups in their area to inform Civic Voice about
what is happening across the country

The Executive Director then gave a private presentation showing the results of a joint
survey between Civic Voice and Historic England looking at the issues impacting
conservation areas across as part of the 50th anniversary

It was noted:
This survey of Civic Voice members was conducted from 11 November to 4
December via Survey Monkey.
• Promoted in the Civic Voice newsletter, sent out to the Chairman of all the
Civic Voice members, and promoted via Historic England twitter and
newsletter (150k).
• In total, 164 Civic Voice members completed the survey.
• All regions of the country were represented
• Most respondents were the Chairman/Vice Chairman of civic societies
• Results published throughout 2017 at key dates

A further update on results will be published at a future meeting.

10 Membership decline in the movement

The Executive Director introduced a talk setting out the challenges facing civic
societies across the country, emphasizing

- Society is changing and that the way people volunteer is changing

- Technology is something civic societies must adapt to
- Societies continue to feedback about challenges in recruiting members,
dwindling membership and difficulty in recruiting volunteers

Examples of groups that have had major declines (more than 100 members) were in
• Cambridge Past Present and Future (1750-1571),
 • The Chelsea Society (800 [or 1200 incl. joint/family members]500) and
• The Isleworth Society (291-175).
• There were also declines of over 30% in the smaller memberships of Harlow
Civic Society, Little borough Civic Trust and Worcester Civic Society

A discussion was then had around

• Why is this happening?
• Does it matter? What impact does it have?
• What is already happening to change this?
• What can we as Regional Association’s do about it?

It was noted by all that:

 Active societies attract younger members and cCivic vVoice should be

considering an example of what constitutes an “active society”.
 That the Civic Voice membership committee will be considering this issue.

Action: Ian Harvey to prepare a discussion paper setting out how we can tackle the
membership decline in the movement
Action: To prepare a set of case studies looking at how groups have grown their
membership

11 Regional forum and Civic Voice relationship

Postponed to next meeting to be considered as part of membership decline in

movement

Action – for Ian Harvey to prepare a report setting out the status of regional
associations across England.

12 Next meeting

Future meeting dates

There will be a special meeting to consider issues around
The Big Conservation Conversation on 28th February at 13.00.
Next main meeting Thursday May 18th 2017
both at Alan Baxter’s

ACTIONS

It was agreed:
- To share the draft Civic Voice strategy at a future meeting of the regional
forum
- To inform the Regional Forum when we know arrangements around funerals.
- It was agreed for Civic Voice to consider a full survey of the membership
based on the interesting results coming back from the small sample

- As we do not have a report from all parts of the country and this means we
are limited in what we can feedback to Civic Voice as a national picture.
- Ian Harvey to ask John Walker from the Kent Federation of Amenity Societies
to attend the future regional forums, or a deputy in his absence
- Civic Voice to consider training/support to ensure civic societies are equipped
to respond to issues within the planning system
- Action: Ian Harvey to prepare a discussion paper setting out how we can
tackle the membership decline in the movement
- Action: To prepare a set of case studies looking at how groups have grown
their membership
- Action – for Ian Harvey to prepare a report setting out the status of regional
associations across England
- All to inform civic societies in their region about the Civic Voice Design
Awards and Civic Day to get involved