To the person who was interested in forming a Writer’s Group in the Parish - HELP!!

It was early in 1998 that a packed Village Hall in Ugborough was acquainted with the nature and benefits of Community Appraisals; the attraction for many of those present was that such an exercise would give residents of the Parish a unique opportunity to identify and consider the concerns they shared on local issues, and to assess how the quality of life for, and within, the community might be secured and improved. Appraisal statistics would be used to inform Parish and District Councils - and many other bodies - of the range and depth of public opinion; not only could the Parish be in a stronger position to ‘protect its interests’, but there could also be positive steps taken to promote a variety of activate and initiatives.

A Steering Group, fired with enthusiasm, devised objectives for an appraisal that reflected these hopes, and began to design a questionnaire to garner statistical ‘evidence’. From the outset the Group was aware that the Parish has many communities and that the Appraisal should reflect this - so our aims included finding new ways of working together and communicating, and providing a record of the parish, for use with the public authorities and for helping the parish understand what we want to change, keep or introduce. These aims also led to the emphasis in this report on showing how similar or dissimilar we all are.

Now, as a new year begins, we are in a position to offer this report to the Parish, and to invite interested residents to a meeting in Ugborough Village Hall on Thursday, 28th January 1999 at 7.30pm. Representatives of bodies that will find the Appraisal useful have been invited to attend. The aims of the meeting will be to formulate ‘recommendations’ and to consider possible courses of community action at all levels.

It should be said that some information has already been used; submissions for the revised South Hams Structure Plan were due in the second week in November, and a summary of the responses on ‘Housing’ was prepared from the data. The Governors of the Parish’s only Primary School have also received a digest of the views on the School Buildings, to support any bids for funding. We also received many offers of voluntary help. These too have been put to good use, for example helping to re-start the Youth Club in Ugborough village. We hope more opportunities will be found through the discussions at the public meeting in January. So, thank you to those who have volunteered to help in some capacity - but its not too late to join in!

Anyone wishing to use this report should bear in mind that the full statistics are available; a copy will be placed on record as a part of the formal record of the Parish Council - or approach a member of the Steering Group to get a copy.

The members of the Steering Group are named at the end of this report. Their chairman, Graham English, would particularly like to thank the Community Council for Devon, the Parish Council (especially Merryl Docker), as well as Devon and South Hams Councils for their support for the project, without which it could not have been completed. He would also like to use this opportunity to thank publicly all the other members of the Steering Group, especially Peter Fawn for writing this report.

So, what fascinating facts and varied views can we report? Sadly, quite a number of householders were unaware that they lived in the Parish! As the boundaries reached out remorselessly towards Filham and South Brent, Avonwick and Ludbrook, deliverers of the questionnaire became as confused as the residents - surely these ‘fringe’ parishioners will now be clamouring for integration into a favoured environment!

391 households returned questionnaires, representing 936 individuals, which represents about two-thirds of those within the Parish - from all that has been published, this seems to be an ‘average’ response in such an exercise for this size of parish. The questionnaires contain the views of 773 individuals, two-thirds of the households responding comprised one or two people.

Responses received: