Residents Meeting Encourages More Volunteers and Ideas

Paula Isaac and Dave Eggleton were delighted with the attendance of the first Gainsborough Estate residents meeting last night at the Scout Hut. They arranged the meeting to build on the success of the Henley in Bloom Gainsborough project which they started with the flower beds at the entrance to the estate. The residents have also now helped clear the weeds from the entrance and re-painted the telephone box. They have cleaned the bus shelter on Greys Road and cleared a drain on the walkway down to Makins Recreation Ground which hadn’t been cleaned for years – a 1993 sweet wrapper was found amongst the debris!

Pictured above are before and after photos of the telephone box and paved area at the entrance to Gainsborough estate.

All the residents from the Gainsborough Estate (just over 200 houses) were invited to the meeting as well as residents from The Close (off Greys Road). It was felt The Close residents should be invited as a number of them were previous Gainsborough residents and that they would also benefit from any improvements to the recreation facilities. Every resident was also given a survey to complete asking what they would like to see improved on the estate, what improvements they would like made to the recreation ground, what issues they would like to see addressed on the estate and would they like a community hall on the estate.

Paula said “The feedback from the survey will help us prioritise projects and put together future plans.” She then went on to say that, “Dave and I can’t do this by ourselves, to continue we need volunteers to share jobs and get involved. If we want to get funding for bigger projects, we will also need to form a Residents’ Association which we will need committee members for.”

Paula then went on to give an update about the proposed Community Hall on the car park site. “This is now with a SOHA committee who own the land. They are now looking at the feasibility and legal requirements for the proposed hall. We hope to have an update on this very soon.”

Not enough drop curbs for pushchair and wheelchairs has been highlighted as one of the main issues on the surveys received to date and there have been lots of ideas about how to improve the recreation ground facilities including an outdoor gym and a 3 way sports area.

Councillor Kellie Hinton, Chair of the Henley in Bloom Committee said, “Dave and Paula have done a great job and they should be congratulated for this.”

Mayor Stefan Gawrysiak then encouraged residents to come up with other ideas and said that there were community funds available for new projects and he urged people to get involved.