Felmersham Parish Council

During the rest of 2004, the Steering Group engaged upon a series of initiatives to seek the views of parishioners on the issues facing the villages of Felmersham & Radwell over the next 5 – 10 years. The following initiatives were undertaken:

• A presence at the Village Fair in July 2004
• Letters to every household sent out in the Parish newsletter, the Ouse News
• Suggestion boxes sited in the Swan Inn, St Mary’s Church and Pinchmill Hall
• A Parish Plan comments facility set up on the Felmersham web site, www.felmersham.net
• Direct consultation with established village organisations: The WI, Felmersham & Radwell
     Community Care, Felmersham & Radwell Community Trust, the Parish Paths Partnership group
     (P3), the Village Hall Committee, Pinchmill Pre-School, Pinchmill Lower School and the Parochial
     Church Council
• “Graffiti boards” sited in key locations for the more youthful and artistic to express themselves

Part of the suggestions received via “Graffiti boards” (some names and more descriptive comments removed for publication)

• Pinchmill Pre-School (under 5s) created a large mural on the theme of what they liked about
living in the villages (see back cover).
• A Sharnbrook Upper School student from Radwell compiled a video presentation on young
people’s issues

Throughout the consultation process, regular updates were published on www.felmersham.net, in the Ouse News and on village notice boards. The consultation identified a wide variety of issues, some of which emerged as universal themes, others as individual concerns. From these issues a questionnaire was developed and delivered to every household in the Parish during April 2005.

The questionnaire was in two parts – the first part to be completed on a household level and the second part to be completed by all parishioners over the age of ten. All returns were anonymous. In all, 289 were distributed and 213 returned, representing an overall response rate of 74%. 556 people were declared of whom 497 were over 10. The initial demographics data from the questionnaire have already been published on www.felmersham.net and in the Parish newsletter.