| The Recreation Ground Trust, Bath | |||||||||||
| (Registered Charity No. 1094519) | |||||||||||
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Please use the links below or read on and learn more about the consultation:
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To be successful, the Strategic Review will need to collect views and ideas, from the citizens and users, on the future uses of the Recreation Ground (the Rec). There has to be a comprehensive and robust consultation process in order to provide information to the Trust Board to make decisions about what future activities will take place on the Rec. It must be noted that the Charity Commission will have a duty to uphold the interests of the Trust through charity law and will scrutinise any decision made by the Trust Board. Who is Running the Consultation? To provide reassurance that the consultation process and its results genuinely reflect local opinion and ideas, an external consultant has been employed by the Trustees to design and run the consultation independently. The consultant is Jeff Bishop, Director of a Bristol-based company (BDOR Limited). Jeff has vast experience of working on complex and sensitive public consultation processes. Plus, he is familiar with Bath having worked on, amongst other things, the Combe Down Stone Mines project. The aim of the consultation is to develop a process that the beneficiaries can support and therefore be most likely to generate useful results. In addition, rather than send technical experts away to generate recommendations and then check them with the beneficiaries, the consultation aims to engage local people to generate recommendations for themselves. There will need to be some technical checks at various stages. For example, there may be questions about legalities – the terms of the Trust. This is critically important. Even if 100% of those consulted were to support a particular recommendation, that would be of little value if it did not fit within the legal conditions. The consultation must therefore come up with options that are practical and achievable, as well as widely supported. ‘Practical and achievable’ also covers issues such as financial viability, durability, planning, heritage issues, timescales and management. With this in mind, Ernst and Young have been appointed separately to work independently on issues surrounding the possible outcomes of the consultation process (to learn more about the role of Ernst and Young please click here > Ernst and Young). Finally, although what follows is the core or official process, others are already undertaking their own campaigns and surveys (see later). The main process must be able to live with, hopefully even gain from, these other activities. 1. The first, setting up, stage (now completed) has helped to scope out the main issues and the main groups and sectors to consult. It also ended with agreement amongst key parties on the format of the consultation. 2. In early November there will be a workshop for around 40 key stakeholders from specific groups and organisations. The aim of that event is to work together to generate a range of quite different options or choices for the future of The Rec. The workshop will also produce what those stakeholders (not the consultation manager or technical consultants) believe to be the main arguments for and against each option. 3. Before moving on, the emerging options will be given a quick technical evaluation on legal, financial and other aspects. This will be provided by Ernst and Young (read more on their role click here > Ernst and Young). 4. The next stage is for ‘all’. The main part of this will focus on a questionnaire asking people not just to choose an option but to say ‘why’. That way it will be possible to evolve and refine solutions, pick and mix from options and use new ideas. 5. There will be several formats to the questionnaire. One will be used with a statistically selected sample group (managed by a specialist survey company) and another will go to a wide range of groups and organisations within Bath. A third will be available on this website and at other locations for anybody to complete. It will be available for 6 weeks to allow as many as possible to respond, especially groups which may wish to meet to discuss it. (Please note: The questionnaire will not be a 'referendum' but a major guide to the outcome. The most robust results will come from the statistically managed sample but results from the more open formats will also be given appropriate weight.) 6. As is often the case, some key groups - for example, young people – may well not respond to the questionnaire format. Special events may be run to ensure their voices are heard. 7. As a mix of option(s) and/or new ideas emerges they will be given a more thorough technical check. If there are outstanding issues, on planning aspects for example, these will be explored in small meetings or workshops. 8. As well as keeping you up to speed on progress, reports of events, etc on this website, there will be a high profile public announcement of what emerges at the end of the process. 9. The final task, working with the original key consultees, will be to produce a full ‘Report of Consultation’ – a complete audit trail to show how and why the result was generated. As many of you may be aware, some campaigns are already underway. It is essential that these campaigns follow a proper process to ensure they generate results that can add value to the review. Please contact Jeff Bishop for advice on how you could add value to consultation process through this method. Although other information will be borne in mind, ultimately it will be the results of the core process (outlined above) that will have a key influence on the final outcome. Hence, whether or not people contribute to a campaign or sign a petition, everybody is encouraged to respond to the official questionnaire. Jeff Bishop can be contacted as follows: Letters: BDOR Limited, 12 St. Thomas Street, Bristol BS1 6JJ Emails: bathrec@bdor.co.uk In general, Mr. Bishop will not respond to individual letters or emails. He will however ensure that any points or comments are included in the results and given due consideration. Points which relate to the concerns of others (eg. past finances or the role of Trustees) will be passed on as appropriate.
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