Class of 2021/22

Farnham Town Council, Surrey

Farnham Town Council has a proven track record of creativity, innovation, partnership and collaboration. Achievements in 2020 show significant success despite uncertainties and challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The town council formed the Farnham Coronavirus Coordinating Group (now continuing as Farnham Connects) with a community-based cultural organisation the Farnham Maltings and other community groups. It created a safeguarded framework and coordinated five hundred volunteers who managed a helpline and community response supporting over 1,800 people with shopping, prescription collections and friendly phone calls. The objective was to create sustainable long-term community-based support and it has evolved into Farnham Neighbours Network. Alongside this, the Farnham Coronavirus Support Fund was established raising £67,000 to support residents facing pandemic hardship. The town council’s staff built a temporary COVID-19 assessment centre at Farnham Hospital in April 2020 enabling those with COVID-19 symptoms to be separated from other patients and over two hundred Farnham Town Council volunteers have underpinned the successful vaccine rollout.

The high street was supported through a new partnership with We Are Farnham, a digital marketplace for local shops, and regular updates were sent to all businesses with information on a range of support.

Farnham Town Council, working alongside Surrey County Council, installed planters in the town centre to widen pavements for social distancing. This was part of the award-winning Farnham In Bloom, which planted 26,000 plants and two hundred hanging baskets in the town and surrounding villages, and again won Gold in several categories and an invitation to Britain in Bloom 2021. Community participation underpins Farnham in Bloom and Farnham Town Council organised lockdown activities including creating a Lego garden, making scarecrows, an art project and a Secret Gardens competition and COVID-19-compliant volunteer opportunities.

The town council reshaped its programme of events within COVID-19 rules including a farmers’ markets restarted in June 2020 with social-distancing measures in place (a model followed by other market organisers) and additional art and craft markets were held to support the re-opening of the high street and music in the Meadow, restarted in August - the only free live music programme locally setting a benchmark for outdoor music. 

Cllr Matthew Walsh, Princes Risborough Town Council, Buckinghamshire and Milton Keynes

Over the last six years, Cllr Matthew Walsh has led Princes Risborough Town Council in the most successful development programme the town has ever seen. Cllr Walsh has overseen the restoration of the iconic Market House and had the vision to lead the council in the purchase and let of a building in the High Street, ensuring a tenant who will enhance Princes Risborough’s nighttime economy. He has instigated a significant renewal project to enhance and expand the community centre and has developed a popular farmers market to ensure the town continues to be attractive for visitors and residents.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Cllr Walsh’s primary consideration has been for the welfare of the elderly and vulnerable residents of the parish and local businesses. By 23 March 2020 Councillor Walsh had set up Risborough Market, an online platform that enabled residents in over 5,000 households to telephone local shops, buy goods and have them delivered the same day, free of charge. Councillor Walsh worked hard for up to 18 hours a day with a dedicated and loyal team to design, commission and populate the Risborough Basket website with local shops; ensure that everyone had access to produce by finding a local supplier of fresh fruit and vegetables to bring produce from wholesalers daily; design and manage a telephone ordering system with volunteers daily receiving orders from vulnerable residents and put together a team of 90 volunteers to deliver the goods daily. The website has made over 8,000 deliveries since its inception. Multiple high street businesses have managed to survive through the COVID-19 pandemic as a result of the intervention.

In September 2020 Cllr Walsh launched a new and improved Risborough Basket online shopping platform believed to be the first of its kind in the UK, extending it to over 10,000 households. The High Street remains buoyant, new businesses are opening and joining the Basket. Participating businesses have benefitted from the additional income the Basket generates. 

Cllr Michaella Biscomb, Kippax Parish Council, Yorkshire

Cllr Michaella Biscomb, aged 27, was co-opted on to Kippax Parish Council in 2018, having supported the council before with its social media when she was at university. She quickly stepped into roles of responsibility as vice-chair of the council and chair of the Youth and Leisure Committee (YLCA) and redeveloped the website, and managed the council’s social media.

In 2020, she stepped into the role of acting clerk while the council began recruiting a new one. This was a significant time for the council, as it had recently appointed the YLCA to do a full corporate governance review on the council.

Her attention to detail and creative skills have played an essential role in the council’s response to COVID-19. She designed and coordinated the printing and delivery of an information leaflet for every household in the community. She also designed an ‘Active Guide’ which included walking routes and points of interest in the local area to encourage people to stay active, healthy and local during the pandemic and beyond.

The council launched Kippax Food Bank during the pandemic. She helped to operate it every weekend with early morning food shops, pack and deliver parcels, and take referrals from those in need.

She has worked hard to ensure the food bank is operated correctly, doing a lot of the paperwork to support the project, including the initial briefing papers to pitch the project to the council, detailed risk assessments, data retention policies and consent forms, updating safeguarding policies and arranging appropriate training, information and food safety leaflets to be distributed with each parcel, health and safety assessments and reports for student placements, posters to promote the food bank and donation points, grant funding application forms, managing the finances and donations, including cashbooks and reports.

She is always willing to roll up her sleeves and get stuck in, with creative solutions that help the council overcome problems and deliver new initiatives. She works hard both for local people and the council to ensure its operating correctly and that the council is doing its best for the community.

Yorkshire Local Councils Associations

Yorkshire Local Councils Associations (YLCA) decided to nominate its recent remote conference for member councils. This was a two-day event over 21 and 22 April 2021. Both days commenced at 9.30 am and finished at 8.15 pm and in total YLCA provided members with an opportunity to choose from 43 training sessions on a wide range of topical issues and to also attend sessions presented by the nine external exhibitors that were attracted to the event.  The two days were intense but the whole thing ran absolutely to plan and the feedback received was fantastic - it met the needs of so many members, their councillors and clerks.

YLCA, like many others, have developed their online training offer over the past year, but this remote conference was innovative and enterprising, both locally and nationally. YLCA had one hundred and one delegates in total; a mix of councillors and clerks and that means that all of those people have learned something new about the parish sector, how it works, its administration and how to perform their roles within it. The learning value was immense and the feedback reflected this.

In terms of value for money, YLCA attracted three sponsors to the event - Streetscape Products and Services Ltd who are a Yorkshire based play product company; Imaginarium Learning and Development and CCLA. Because of their sponsorship, they could keep the cost reasonably low at £40 per delegate. Delegates could dip in and out as they wanted but actually, many attended nearly all of the sessions on both days. YLCA received some excellent feedback from the exhibitors who have received enquiries from the event and a couple that have received firm orders for their goods/services.

Due to careful planning and detailed preparation, the event ran smoothly. The transition from one session to another was handled professionally and again, this has been reflected in the feedback from delegates. The whole event has demonstrated that YLCA is a professional body and that it understands the needs of its member councils, their councillors and clerks. 

Adam Keppel-Green, Knutsford Town Council, Cheshire

Adam Keppel-Green joined the council as deputy town clerk in 2012 becoming town clerk in 2014. In many ways, the town council had been run like a parish council. But during his tenure, it has grown from being a ‘talking shop with few events’ to one that works for the town and makes a difference. Its Local Council Award Scheme Quality Gold status would not have been possible without his input. He leads by example, taking charge of the working environment and supporting his staff. He has developed key relationships with other council clerks and officers, creating a network for resource sharing and solving problems or managing project solutions. His use of technology has been invaluable to fellow officers and councillors and the council’s visibility and relationship with residents.

During the pandemic, he worked closely with We Are Knutsford; the community group set up to support residents. All volunteer and help enquiries were filtered through the council’s phone lines and email system until the volunteer group set up separate lines. This support meant the distribution of a leaflet to every household by 21 March. A website supporting the shops – KnutsfordHighStreet.com – was developed with a local agency and was ready by Easter 2020. Videos of the town mayor were broadcast over Facebook to show residents they were not alone.

His quick understanding of Zoom and how to use it for council meetings during 2020 meant continued public engagement. The annual town meeting took place using Zoom with presentations from We Are Knutsford and interviews with local businesses about how they had adapted during the pandemic. Under his direction, many of Knutsford’s events went online – digital versions of Bunny Hop, Pumpkin Path and Town Awards. The Knutsford Voucher was set up to offer an alternative to the main big brand vouchers. As identified by We Are Knutsford, many went to those in need to be spent in local butchers and greengrocers pre-Christmas.