Foreword

By Dennis Rex, Clerk to the Parish Council and Co-ordinator of the Working Party

In the summer of 1996, under the auspices of the Parish Council, a Working Party drawn from representatives of organisations and other interested persons from within the Parish, was set up to look at ways and means of improving facilities in the Parish of St Giles in the Wood. Possible options were discussed and finally it was agreed that it was necessary to obtain YOUR views on the facilities currently available in the Parish and what you feel the Parish needed. After all it is YOUR Parish

It was agreed to draw up a QUESTIONNAIRE for distribution to all households in the Parish and by October 1996 the form which the questionnaire would take was agreed. Last November, during what must have been the wettest week in the month, a group of volunteers delivered questionnaires to every known address in the Parish and collected the completed forms some three or four days later. This was no mean task bearing in mind the size of the Parish an its sparsity of population outside the recognised settlements. Since then we have been studying the information obtained and this report seeks to give an overview of all the answers.

It is of course a condensed report as it would take a very long report to print all the extremely valuable replies and comments. We would like to take the opportunity to thank everyone who took the time and the trouble to fill in the form. A copy of ther complete results will be on show at Torrington Library for all to see.

I would like to thank Mike Knight of the Community Council of Devon for his help and patience in guiding the Working Party and organising the printing and analysis of the questionnaire and of course this report. I would also like to thank Vanessa Saunders of the Council Tax Office at Bideford for kindly supplying a complete list of addresses - complete with postcodes - within the Parish which made the sorting of the questionnaires for delivery - as well as the actual delivery - so much easier.

The Appraisal is supported by the St. Giles in the Wood Parish Council, Torridge District Council, Devon County Council and The Community Council of Devon.

If the Appraisal is to be of real value to the community, then the most important part of the work is yet to come.

At the back of the report, there is an action plan which suggests areas at which the community might like to look in the next few months and in future years. The action plan will only happen if you and organisations within St. Giles in the Wood take sufficient interest to do something about the issues raised by you in the questionnaire. The Working Party will shorlty be arranging a meeting in the Parish Hall when you will have the opportunity to ask questions, agree an action plan and, most importantly, get involved either as an individual or through your local organisation in starting to initiate a few developments in the parish. Remember - you have completed the Questionnaire, it is your Parish, it is up to you.

Finally, I would like to thank members of the Working Party, who freely and generously, gave up so much of their time over the last year in preparing the Questionnaire and in particular those volunteers who braved the elments at their worst, to deliver and collect them.

Members of the Working Party apart from myself were:-

and all other members of the Parish Council, not listed above, who helped whenever their business commitments permitted.