SOUTH Gloucestershire Council is set to replace its system of Community Engagement Forums to bring residents and decision-makers together, after they attracted an average of just four attendees.
The council says it will scrap the 14 CEFs and replace them with four new area committees, which will cover a larger area.
Residents, town and parish councillors, police, the voluntary sector and community groups will be invited to attend the expanded area committee sessions when the 18-month pilot project launches in May.
As well as low public attendance, organisations like the police and fire service have struggled to attend CEFs because there are so many of them, each meeting four times a year.
A cabinet member from the council’s Lib Dem/Labour administration will chair each of the four new committees, which will broadly mirror the district’s parliamentary constituencies but with Thornbury & Yate split into separate East and West committees and the South Gloucestershire areas of Bristol North East combined with North East Somerset & Hanham.
They will not have decision-making powers but the local authority says they are a way of increasing its Community Conversations agenda to truly listen to the voices of the public.
The idea is that residents can speak directly to council leaders so their views can be considered earlier in the process to determine policy and potential service changes.
At present the Frenchay & Downend and Emersons Green wards share a CEF, while Staple Hill & Mangotsfield shares one with neighbouring New Cheltenham.
Opposition Conservative councillors welcomed the proposal, approved by the council’s cabinet in March, but questioned whether the committees’ areas were too big to focus on truly local issues.
Shadow cabinet member Erica Williams said one propose area had a population size of more than 100,000 people, asking: “How can residents hope to get a focus on issues that matter to them when the area is so large?”
Council co-leader Ian Boulton (Lab, Staple Hill & Mangotsfield) said: “These CEFs have been a bit of a blot on our diary for many of us who’ve attended, knowing that we’re the only ones there, so to have any opportunity to engage in a fuller way with residents and town and parish councils is really welcome.”
By Adam Postans, Local Democracy Reporting Service