Minutes from Community centre residents working group meeting – 27th May 2025
Minutes
Attendees: Dayal, Kate, Karen, Friedrich
Apologies: Elena, Vanessa, Dan, David
Notes:
- How we engage with Council etc.
- We all agree that being confrontational is not the approach we want as TGCC, and that we need to always think about what we will achieve when we engage
- Ward has local elections in a year – will there be more attention payed to TG/ward?
- Liam had offered a meeting with Ruth
- 17th “wrap up”
- Good turnout! Surely some overlap with survey, but a lot of them weren’t there for event, they were just passerbys
- There is so much footfall on that corner. It’s a really good spot for a community space. Engagement needs to be outside the building/on that corner whenever we do engagement events. Would this be good for a “business” on the premise. Building is so central to Estate.
- A lot of people surprised by size of building. Felt like a waste that it was empty.
- A lot of conversations about why something on estate was important. Old age/disability was a very common theme in why something nearby was needed. People enjoyed chatting to each other too.
- Most people wanted things that could all fit in the same building e.g. at different times and with multi-use rooms.
- How fast do we engage with Council? Now!
- Where could we share online to get more numbers on survey? When doing research for exhibition/talking to people.
- Immediate neighbours came out to strongly state that they don’t want a space for lots of people from outside the estate which would lead to further issues with parking.
- Plan for September event
- Vision for building
- For Sept we don’t have time for a proper feasibility study
- Kate’s experience of feasibility studies: 5k for quick and dirty, 70k for full study
- Call it a “dream” rather than a feasibility study. Who coordinates? Kate. Develop a brief – with principles, eg as cheap as possible, conservation area, set example for retrofit for estate, …. – and to David to work with this
- Where did Kate used to get money for this?
- Community celebration
- We should focus on community celebration – more than vision/feasibility study
- Ask long term residents to spread the word Would need to prepare some structure?
- Small group of people doing research? Emmanouil, Dayal, Karen, …
- Who leads?
- Vision for building
- Eco refurb angle
- example of airsource heatpumps, … could a company want to promote their business on estate by sponsoring refurb of 100TG; could a company want to use whole estate as an example of retrofit and sponsor?
- Access to building
- Ashley said they’d clear garage.
- Who is the right person? Do we need to go to Ruth? Ask Liam to help set up meeting?
- Make sure we are indeed having right conversations with right people and not invest a lot of time e.g. on yard if then someone else might take over…
- Clear up
- Do we volunteer to make safe/remove decking – general feeling was no, see points above
- Andrew & Andreia offered to help (also for other DIY, e.g. painting) if around. We do need to recruit more people.
- Reach out to respondents – when have plan/brief
- Think about plan for comms
- Is there a placemaking strategy for building – again ask Ruth