The winners of the Community Award

The last official meeting I had to attend as a councillor was the Town Meeting, an official annual event in the Town Council calendar. It is always held in the last month of the official year, but because there are elections in May this is the end of a whole cycle. As one of the Chairs of a Council committee, in my case the Finance, Community and Policy committee, I had to write a report which is printed in the Annual Report which was presented at tonight's meeting.

This year Camilla was asked to give a short talk about the Neighbourhood Development Plan which is currently being formally 'Examined' as part of the legal process.  We are confident it will be acceptable and then the final stage will be a referendum on it acceptance by the town's electors, to be held in August 2016.

The best part of tonight's meeting was the presentation of the Awards to members of the public who had been nominated.  Camilla received the Environment Award for her massive contribution to the creation of the Neighbourhood Plan and her specific organisation of the consultations held with the general public over thirteen months.  She shared the Award with Leonora and Hugh who could not attend, so I was asked to go up and receive the Awards on their behalf.

The final presentation by Kevin, our mayor, was the Community Award which you can see him presenting to the group organising 'Refugee Aid' which they set up to raise money and contribute help for the ongoing refugee international refugee crisis.  They are very well supported and are doing a wonderful job.  There would be a lot of support locally for making refugees welcome here if only more were allowed into the country.