Reply from Steve Dance following our letter thanking him for standing in at the last minute.
Many thanks for the letter.
Glad you appreciated the talk – although I may have strayed from the subject with HS2!
I certainly enjoyed the evening and the quality of questions raised by those who attended.
Regards
Steve
The Civic Society are willing to set up an open meeting for everyone who is interested in coming along, it will not be formal, there will not be a committee but another chance for people who want to do something to put forward ideas for the future after the tram and new Square. I have spent this week looking into venues. I think the idea above posted by Joan is a good one, having a street festival when the new students are here. We need more young people to be involved, a lot of those students will stay in the area and it will be their town, they should be involved, also the Youth Council.
Steve Barber has already said he is happy to be part of it, thank you, but we will need other people as Marion Wallwork has suggested who can offer constructive support. Incidentally Marion is one of the founder members of the Beeston Civic Society 40 years ago. I have spoken recently to our committee about the Civic Society having a ‘pop up’ shop in Beeston to publicise what we do but apparently it is not that easy but we can look into that again more thoroughly.
I think what is needed now is for people to come forward with ideas for venue, my own choice is either the Town Hall or again use John Clifford,
and timings. The square is due to be demolished from 27th January so February or March would be ideal as there will be more to talk about.
Please send your ideas and thoughts to beestoncivicsociety@gmail.com or go to our website and post there under ‘January Meeting’.
Our March meeting on Friday 14th at John Clifford will be a talk given by NET, another forum for people to come along and hear what is said and ask questions.
On the subject of trees, We have planted a lot of trees and we currently have 60 trees waiting to be planted in February to celebrate our 40th Anniversary last October, we asked for 40 and got 60!, we are not complaining. Trees removed along the tram route will be replaced by NET, we can look in 2015/16 to see where more are needed.
Finally, there is a CAT meeting on March 11th, Tuesday, in the Town Hall for Beeston West residents, although no one would be denied entry, where James Greenway from Henry Boot PLC is booked to give a talk on the Square. This is a good forum to hear what is happening and voice your views. There are several different Beeston and Chilwell CAT Community Action Team) groups, they are very worthwhile meetings but not usually well attended unless something contentious is going to be discussed, eg The Square, Tescos, Residents Parking. People can send in questions too if unable to attend.
We look forward to hearing from you.
Judy Sleath, Chair, Beeston Civic Society.