Minutes of the Forum Meeting held on Wednesday, 2nd April 2025,
Manor Room, Buttery Lane, Teversal Village, NG17 3JN

 
1.    Attendance.

Andrew Jenkins (Chair), Geoff Snare (Secretary), Victoria Crossley (Treasurer), Jan Jenkins, Mike Vardy, Sallie Vardy, Jane Cooper, Lis Reid, Lynn Henstock, Viv Smith, Mick Smith, Chris Simms, Richard Goad, Janine Vardy, Sarah Woodside, Dr Gavin Lunn

Apologies:   Doug Edwards
Andrew Jenkins welcomed everyone to the meeting, in particular Dr Gavin Lunn from Brierly Park medical group

~

2.    Minutes. 

The minutes of the previous meeting were agreed as an accurate record.    
Matters Arising - there were no matters arising

~

3.    Treasurers Report.

In February, an additional insurance premium of £112.00 was paid to cover the Repair Cafe and we also had some set up expenses totalling £147.48 for the Repair Café.
In March, Mike had some keys cut for the notice board in Stanton Hill, costing £36.00. TBC whether this should come out of general funds or FOSH (have included in FOSH for now).
£12,066.24 was received from Notts City Council for the latest Savi invoice were received on Thursday 27th March and I paid them over to Savi on Friday 28th March.
This leaves the Forum with a balance of £3,032.78, which is split;
£154.40 FOSH,
£47.75 Repair Cafe,
£2,000.00 Energy Project and
£830.63 General Funds. There were no questions for the Treasurer and the report was accepted by the meeting.

~

4.    Update from Brierley Park Medical Group – Dr Gavin Lunn

Dr Lunn gave an overview of the current status of the practice:
There are currently 5 partners in the practice with one new partner due to start in October. Each partner spends at least one day a week at the Skegby medical centre.
As a training practice, they have a ready source from which to recruit permanent staff from the many trainees who pass through the practice.
The practice has a total of 18,500 patients, making it one of the largest in mid-Notts. This includes 5,000 patients who live in Derbyshire.
Dr Lunn is the clinical director of a group of four local practices that share resources wherever possible.
The medical centre in Huthwaite is a purpose-built modern surgery, whilst the Skegby surgery is a less modern, 80s building. Both surgeries are currently completely full with regard to rooms and facilities, with every spare inch in use.
The lack of a lift, makes the use of the upper floor at Skegby impractical.
The very poor level of public transport in the area means that patient travel between the surgeries is very restricted, leading to virtually all services having to be offered at both surgeries and the practice is completely committed to retaining the two separate buildings. The practice has a vision to replace the Skegby surgery with a building similar to the one at Huthwaite, but with the local Integrated Commissioning Board (ICB) effectively bankrupt, the significant funding required for such a project is very unlikely.
The practice is in VERY EARLY discussions with Ashfield District Council about the possibility of re-purposing the Healdswood Community Centre into additional space for the Skegby practice, but no decisions or agreements have been reached at this stage.
Andrew Jenkins advised that the Stanton Hill Investment Plan had identified health and well-being as a priority area for investment and he suggested that the Forum should work with representatives from the Brierley Park group to put forward a proposal for the next Stanton Hill investment Plan meeting on how to improve the health and well-being of Stanton Hill residents through combining the Healdswood Community Centre into the Skegby surgery.

~

5.    Reports from Working Groups

 Planning & Environment - Lis Reid

As advised at the last meeting the ADC Local Plan was put on hold for 6 months by the Planning Inspector.

The Council is currently consulting on the Ashfield Local Plan 2023 - 2040: Additional housing site allocations, which sets out an additional number of houses across the Local Plan period (2023 - 2040). The consultation closed on Thursday 3 April 2025 and the Forum submitted a lengthy response regarding the two major additional allocations in our area at Dawgates Lane and Beck Lane (South). The Forum’s response highlighted the very poor state of local health (see comments from Dr Lunn above) and transport infrastructure, as well as how ADC’s spatial strategy of limiting sites to less than 500 homes made the benefits of any S106 (planning gain) funds extremely limited, even when multiple sites each of 400-500 houses were effectively adjacent to each other (i.e. Beck Lane). In addition there was no clear understanding of how the limited S106 (Planning Gain) monies that were generated were being allocated or spent.

Persimmon Homes development off Fackley Road - a drop in session for local residents to meet with representatives from Persimmon Homes regarding the development off has been proposed for sometime later in April – Jane Cooper will liaise with Persimmon and local residents to agree a suitable date.

It was noted that an application for outline planning approval has been submitted for land west of Fisher Close, for construction of 84 homes.

Although outside the Forum area, it was also noted that there is a proposal to create a 99.9MW Battery Installation at Hurst Farm to the east of M1 and to the north of Mansfield Road, Tibshelf.
Subsequent to the meeting we received details of a consultation meeting regarding the Project due to be held on Wednesday 9th April at Tibshelf Village Hall between 3.30pm – 7.30pm. Details of the proposal can be found here - https://lightsourcebp.com/uk/project/hurst-farm/

~
Friends of Stanton Hill (FOSH) – Mike Vardy

The Investment Plan for Stanton Hill, prepared by external consultants, has now been approved, although it was noted that to date there had been no discussion on the funding for the plan. A number of Forum members, as well as residents of Stanton Hill are members of the committee overseeing the Investment Plan and the next meeting is due to take place later in April.
~
Heritage – Lynn Henstock

Following the ADC Enforcement notice there have been some limited changes at the Spring Cottage / Whiteboro Farm site, but this falls a long way short of full compliance. One local resident has written to ADC themselves, complaining at the lack of proper enforcement.
Footpath 25 (runs west from Fackley Road near the railway bridge) remains blocked despite the Forum’s complaints.
The Forum’s request for formal recognition of footpaths 1186 & 1187, (from Skegby Bottoms) was first made in 2018, and has yet to be decided upon by the County Council after almost 7 years.

~
Climate Change & Sustainability & Public Transport – Andrew Jenkins

Food Share

The Food Share continues to operate but is in need of additional volunteers.

Public transport
It was hoped that the ‘Connected’ objective of the Stanton Hill Investment Plan might kick-start new discussion on the public-transport services in and around the area

~

6.    Community Energy Project (Andrew Jenkins)

Andrew advised that an online meeting had taken place on February 18th between the Forum steering group and Savi consultants, at which a number of potential projects had been identified for further research.
A follow up meeting was due to take place later in April to discuss progress on these projects.

~

7.    Any Other Business

Geoff Snare advised that the re-designation of the Neighbourhood Forum had been approved at the Council cabinet meeting on January 27th, although it had taken until late March and prompting from Geoff for ADC to actually notify us of the approval.

The first Repair Café event in February had been very successful, with the second event due to take place on Saturday April 5th, and on the first Saturday of each month thereafter.
Lis Reid requested that we share more information about our responses to planning applications on Facebook and on the website to help promote the Forum’s activities and help local residents understand more about what the Forum was doing.
Richard Goad suggested that the Local Government reorganisation into a single tier authority would be very likely to affect ADC’s responses and actions, whether by councillors or officers, as they look to their future within a new council body.
Andrew Jenkins advised that we had been invited to participate in the Ashfield Show (August 8th, 9th, 10th) with a stand advertising the Forum’s activities. We did not need to “man” the stand for all of the 3 days, but volunteers would be welcome - Jane Cooper and Victoria Crossley offered their support.

~

8.    Next Meeting.

The next Forum meeting, will be held on Wednesday July 9th from 7.00 pm, in the Manor Room, Teversal Village

Attendees, in particular Dr Lunn, were thanked for their input to the meeting which closed at 9.05 pm.

The Forum is recognised by Ashfield District Council as the representative body for Skegby, Stanton Hill and Teversal
and Forum working groups are dealing with a number of issues affecting our area.
Anyone who lives or works in Teversal, Stanton Hill and Skegby is entitled to be a member of the Forum and attend its meetings.
To become a Forum member please visit our website