Last week was the regular meeting of the Border, Fellside and North Carlisle Community Panel. This is the ‘area committee’ for this part of Cumberland, the seven, mostly rural, council wards to the north and west of Carlisle.

Appointments
Roger Dobson (Corby and Hayton, Lib Dem) was re-elected as Chair. John Mallinson (Houghton and Irthington, Conservative) was re-elected as Vice-Chair. We also re-appointed ward councillors as the Council Representative on the boards of various Community Centres, including me being re-appointed to the Board of Longtown Memorial Hall Community Centre.

Neighbourhood Investments
This Panel has been allocated £47,172 to allocate in grants this year (worth noting that this is significantly less than the amounts allocated to the urban areas of Carlisle.) This year we have also been allocated an additional £59,700 which was the funding previously given to three Community Centres.

We have previously made the decision that we would continue funding to Community Centres at the same level as previous, as it would be irresponsible to change this half way though the financial year, given that the centres all employ staff and have other contractual commitments. At this meeting we confirmed these grants, which included £27,200 for Longtown Memorial Hall Community Centre. We also confirmed around five other smaller grants, the details of which are in the papers below.

We agreed to consider how we will approach funding for Community Centres in the future urgently (we are already nearly half way though this financial year) and are having an extra informal meeting next month to take this forwards.

Public Question Time
Each Community Panel has to set its own rules for how members of the public can participate in our meetings. I proposed that we allow 30 minutes at the start of the meeting for questions from members of the public, with no requirement to give notice of questions in advance. This was agreed and we are the first committee in Cumberland to encourage public engagement by removing the requirement to give notice in writing before asking a question.

Highways Issues
The main topic of discussion under highways was around the timescale for Traffic Regulation Orders. These are the legal means which allow for a change in speed restriction, or another highways change such as additional double yellow lines.

To save costs, Cumberland has decided that each part of the authority will be doing TROs in a ‘block’ just once in a four year period. The chance for the rural Carlisle area is summer 2025, which is not long off and we asked for a clear timetable and process on when we need to get our ‘requests’ in. Already in Longtown ward I’ve had requests for five new speed restrictions and I am very much hoping these will be part of the package next year.

Papers for the meeting are here (on Facebook click on the link above). Any questions please just ask.