Town council leader reflects on busy year

OUTGOING leader of Frome Town Council, cllr Kate Bielby, has shared her reflections on a busy year for the town council.

Talking at the Annual Town Meeting earlier this month, cllr Bielby said, “I think it’s safe to say that for most parish councils, a review of the year would be quite a brisk affair. Not so for Frome. We’ve been quite busy, but I promise highlights only.

“It’s not been an easy year.  Global and national issues can feel overwhelming. Locally we’re seeing the impact of the dismantling of the welfare state and swingeing cuts to local government funding, hitting the most vulnerable in our community. How on earth, as a town council do we respond to that?

“What we’ve done is continue to be ambitious for Frome. To invest in our town and its people, to do all we realistically can to help create a resilient, thriving town regardless of what’s chucked at us.

Ambitious for Frome

“This year we’ve continued to acquire, improve and manage green open spaces for our town. We’ve taken on Packsaddle and Tower View play areas, so we now look after just under 70 acres in which people can play, exercise and enjoy being outside. We’ve resurfaced paths on the Old Showfield and Victoria Park, so these are both more accessible for the whole community.  We planted a town orchard. We’ve continued to improve the Dippy with lights in the footpath as we did at Welshmill. We recruited two new rangers. As well as the routine upkeep of our land, our rangers are constantly making improvements and work in partnership with school and community groups like the Critchill rangers, Discovery, FROGS and the Women’s Shed who helped create bird and bat boxes for year 8 students to build as part of our annual youth conference.  

“We’ve continued to invest in the Cheese and Grain, which you’ll recall was refurbished five years ago with support from us. In 2017, funding from Frome Town Council enabled the Cheese and Grain to leverage hundreds of thousands of pounds in external grants to complete the new rehearsal and recording space in the building. The loan repayments are financed by income from the solar panels the town council installed in 2012.  We are, in other words, continuing to see ambition and investment pay off.

“We’re in the Town Hall this evening, bought back from the County for the town and restored to a lively and incredibly well-used community space. Home to the town council, Fair Frome, the Frome Learning Partnership, WHY, Frome FM, Active and In Touch, but also used throughout the year for film screenings, conferences, a breastfeeding café, a coworking space, exhibitions and loads more. 

“After decades of consultation with thousands of Frome people, we have submitted our planning application to finish the remodelling of our town centre, so we can finally sort the bus stops, improve traffic flow, reduce pollution and make the town centre a better, safer place for people.

“In 2013 we borrowed £265,000 to buy a patch of land on Saxonvale, protecting Somerset Skills and Learning but also giving the town a seat at the table of any potential comprehensive development of the site. Last month we sold our land for £1million, after costs making a profit of around half a million to invest in Frome. Our staff and councillors have worked really closely with Mendip District Council (MDC) to solve the frustrating and seemingly intractable deadlock of the Saxonvale site and what a hopeful and positive point we’re at now, with a comprehensive, mixed use development actually moving forward. We will continue to put pressure on the developers and MDC to incorporate the things we know the people of Frome want from this huge and transformative development in the centre of our town.

“Declaring a climate emergency as we did in December might seem a bit futile rather than ambitious for a parish council. But in the face of the evidence – that we have less than 12 years to take action to avoid the worst impacts of climate change – why would we not take action? Nobody thinks we can solve a global problem alone, but we can do what we can to reduce carbon emissions and we’ve set a target for Frome to become carbon neutral by 2030.

“In the past year we’ve inspired Manchester City Council with our School Active Travel Challenge that saw over 2,000 local pupils out of cars and cycling, scooting or walking to school. Our infrastructure of electric bikes, electric cars and the community car scheme continues to thrive and we have lobbied for and recently seen improvements to bus and rail connectivity.

“We’ve held successful events such as Zero Carbon Towns, linking with other areas to explore reducing carbon emissions and also Improve Don’t Move, showcasing ways to refurbish homes and also tackle carbon. We promoted free and discounted insulation for homes in Frome and we have just launched ‘Solar Streets’ offering group discounts for people to reduce costs and support our carbon neutral target.

“The Community Fridge in the town centre is old news now, but continues to reduce food waste by around 24 tonnes a year. This year we’ve added the Community Larder next to it and we are working with local community groups to explore setting up new fridges on the Mount and in Trinity. Our fridge has helped to inspire almost 50 fridges to set up around the country. We’ve also promoted the reduction of plastic waste through a series of events and the award winning plastic free carnival float.

Helping Others Succeed

“We’ve given a lot of money away this year, just under £154,000, to local organisations through our community grant scheme, the Mayor’s small grants and through the people’s budget. That’s quite extraordinary for a town council. 

“We support several organisations with multi-year agreements, so they have the stability of ongoing funding and can use that to leverage funding from elsewhere. We set up Fair Frome five years ago and continue to fund their work year on year. We continue to fund Active and In Touch and Health Connections Mendip, who have done extraordinary work in reducing loneliness and promoting the wellbeing of people in our town. 

“This year we’ve given over £24,000 in community grants to a diverse range of groups for an equally diverse range of things – from the cricket club to the baby café. Not only do we provide funding we also provide support to community organisations – training, one-to-one and fundraising so Frome has robust, nimble organisations equipped to survive and thrive. 

“We have worked hard this year to support the growth of new, localised groups where residents have ambitions for their immediate neighbourhood.  Our Community Development work in Trinity has focused on supporting and enabling residents to unite in tackling the issues that matter to them. Drug dealing, arson and litter have been high on their agenda and with our support, new projects and initiatives are beginning to take shape and a new relationship is developing between us, other services like the police and local people. 

“We recognise a healthy future for Frome requires a healthy economy. This year we’ve organised more than 40 events for local businesses including  Business Breakfasts, Discuss and Do and Soul Trader groups – not just as successful networking events but to promote ways in which businesses might contribute to their community – just today we held an Apprenticeships conference where we brought local schools and businesses together to increase training and employment opportunities for young people in Frome. 

Enabling people

to Participate

“As well as public meetings on key issues like car parking and litter, we also try and create informal opportunities for people to have a say – events like Mayhem in the Meadow or Apple Day at the Orchard. We’ve organised huge consultations around large planned developments and got out on the ground in all weathers to find out what people want to see on the Showfield, Tower View and Packsaddle.

“Our council meetings open with comments and questions from the public and we make them as informal and accessible as we can. We successfully trialled a council meeting on the hoof this year – walking with local residents and reviewing our land at Welshmill and the Other Side, with Paul as our tour guide.

“We’ve refined and improved our People’s Budget over the last couple of years and putting the choice of town events to a townwide vote has been a spectacular success. The amazing light the night lantern parade at Christmas and Frome Fireworks in November were two fantastic opportunities for people to come together for free whole town events – opportunities to have a great time and feel proud of Frome, Frome people, and what we can achieve together.”