September-October 2023

Here is an update on what I’ve been doing in the last two months since my previous blog. I would love to hear from you.  What should I and the Council be prioritising? What particular challenges are you facing, if any? Do you have ideas for how we can improve things in Congleton?  Please get in touch with me and let me know your thoughts:

Email cllrkay.wesley@congleton-tc.gov.uk   Call or text 07711 459740

Or you can come to one of our surgeries – text or email to find the date of the next one.  I am out of the country for an extended break in November but will be back in full swing at the end of the month.

Disability Positive Congleton

I attended a Visual Impairment Awareness session that was run by the Macclesfield Eye Society as part of an initiative I suggested to make Councillors and Officers more aware of the needs of our community.

It was a very interesting and informative session, and we learned, for example, that only 4% of registered blind people have no vision at all, that the visually impaired have a lot of apps and technologies they use to help them with daily life, and that our town centre has a great many hazards for visually-impaired people!

The session came up with some ‘quick-wins’ for making Congleton more accessible for the visually-impaired as well as some longer-term ideas.

I worked with the Deputy Chief Officer to put together a Disability Positive paper for the Community Committee on taking forward the outputs from the Visual Impairment workshop and the disability inclusion ideas that we had discussed with the Health and Wellbeing Working Group. These were presented in October and warmly received by the Committee, which gave its unanimous support.

We will start by conducting a survey of disabled people in Congleton and setting up a Consultation Group of people affected, and then plan a series of actions including making a Disability Guide to Congleton.

We are also planning a wheelchair experience day for Councillors, working with Congleton Sustainable Travel who are working on accessibility (see below), and more visual impairment experiences.

Transport and Travel

We were asked to provide input into bus routes and suggest any ‘tweaks’ that CTC would like to see. In the view of our Integrated Transport Working Group we require much more than ‘tweaks’ and have already sent extensive input on what we would like to see in response to previous consultations. Many of our ideas are in the Congleton Local Travel Plan, but they are not funded. Our ideas have been published before, but as a reminder, the headlines are:

• Encourage bus use e.g. through lower fares and cross-company tickets
• Improve frequency of buses and ensure they run at night and on Sundays
• Extend and improve the round-town services with better routes and more services
• Improve train links to Congleton, Macclesfield and Holmes Chapel stations
• Improve customer experience of bus use with digital displays, improved stops, bus app etc.

I added a map to that same document showing areas of Congleton that don’t have access to a regular bus service within a reasonable walking distance, and the Working Group agreed it should be sent to CEC again.

The working group also provided a suggested response to the Flexilink bus consultation in September, which was ratified by Council and sent to CEC. Better use of the Flexilink (on demand) bus services might help plug some of the gaps we have noted in existing services.

I and the Deputy Chief Officer wrote the brief for a Congleton Transport Report by an Integrated Transport Consultant. The idea of this was not to reproduce existing strategies but identify what the Town Council can do in the short term to improve the movement of people around the town, and how we might get funding to implement some of our longer-term ambitions. With new transport funding due to the HS2 cancellation, there might be some opportunities here. The draft report is now with the ITWG for consideration.

I attended the latest Congleton Sustainable Travel meeting. This is a group of volunteers that is lobbying for better, more inclusive and more sustainable travel for Congleton residents. They have said they will come up with some ‘sample journeys’ that our Councillors could attempt by wheelchair as part of the awareness day.

I attended a number of meetings of the Town Council in which we crafted a response to the Cheshire East Car Parking Charges Consultation, opposing very high increases in parking charges. Combined with poor public transport, I believe these hikes will have a major negative impact on our town-centre businesses. I also handed out leaflets at the Maker’s Market encouraging the public to have their say on the consultation.

Breastfeeding Welcome

Did you know that the UK has one of the lowest breastfeeding rates in the developed world? Earlier this year during International Breastfeeding Week I asked in social media what mothers’ experiences had been in Congleton. They ranged from ‘no problems’ to ‘I was asked to feed in the toilets in a coffee shop’ to ‘I avoided going out because people stared/I wasn’t confident feeding in public’.  

I contacted Cherubs (Cheshire East Really Useful Breastfeeding Service), which is an NHS-funded service to support mothers and also help create an environment in which breastfeeding is normalised because the health benefits for baby and mother are beyond question.

Cherubs can accredit venues as ‘Breastfeeding Welcome’ which means that any mum who happens to be there can feel comfortable and supported to feed her baby.  A quick chat with our Town Hall Manager revealed that our Town Hall is already a welcoming venue for feeding mums, so after a discussion with the staff and agreement to the required standards, Congleton Town Hall is now a Breastfeeding Welcome venue, and proudly displays a window sticker and certificate saying this.

Emma Evans, who leads Cherubs, gave a talk at our Community Committee meeting and, I’m delighted to say, councillors voted unanimously to encourage other venues and businesses in Congleton to become Breastfeeding Welcome venues.

With so many young families in our town, as Emma said “how wonderful it would be if they could walk along our shopping streets and see ‘Breastfeeding Welcome’ stickers in all the windows”.

If you would like to become a Breastfeeding Welcome venue, please get in touch with the Town Council and we can provide you with the information you need.

Outdoor Environment and Trees

I have been supporting Trees for Congleton as the new planting season begins. I have been out helping with weeding and mulching. I’ve also started phoning local farmers to ask about their planting and if they have any land for future planting. I wrote the brief for a revision of the Trees for Congleton Website to update it for this season www.treesforcongleton.co.uk.

I also drafted a Tree Planting Corporate Away-Day package that Trees for Congleton could use with local businesses as a team-building and carbon offset exercise. We hope to pilot it with some local firms this season.  I also wrote a press article asking people to nominate sites for Coronation oak and plane trees. If you know of a good site, please email treesforcongleton@gmail.com.

I joined in with the Town Tidy in Mossley – many thanks to the Dane Valley Beavers who joined in to help and since have run their own litter pick. Great work!

I have also helped out at the Friendship Garden on Hillary Avenue, which was awarded Level 3 in the ‘It’s Your Neighbourhood’ category of North West InBloom. Congratulations to all the teams who won awards this year, it is fantastic that Congleton is once again an InBloom Gold Award winner.

The work of the Tree Group and our Streetscape team will be influenced by the changes to green space management that Cheshire East is proposing. Until 24^th November, you can find out more and answer the consultation here.

I responded to some residents who were concerned about the felling of a tree near Pagbury Lane – as it turned out, it was diseased and dangerous.  I also reassured residents that an oak tree on Henshall Hall Drive was being managed/pruned, and not felled.

Cllr Robert Douglas proposed a new set of guidelines for our Planning Committee to consider when making decisions about trees. This was an excellent document and brought together many considerations several of us have voiced in recent years. I gave feedback to help shape the document which will become part of our Planning committee resources going forward.

I also visited the Royal Horticultural Society Show in the Town Hall, and the wonderful back-to-back gardens in Congleton Park. What great work from our Congleton gardeners, old and young!

Climate Emergency/Congleton Green

I attended the Business Net Zero Roundtable in September, organised by Congleton Partnership and The Chamber of Commerce with support by the Town Council. I helped invite speakers and captured the outputs. It was well-attended with businesses keen to share best practices in reducing their carbon footprint and promoting biodiversity.

I also attended a CEC Webinar with Town and Parish Councils to explore how we can all work together on this. One suggestion I made after it was to run a ‘Farmers Roundtable’ like the Business one, as some local farmers have a lot of experience of tree planting and biodiversity projects that they might like to share with others.

I helped with Air Quality Monitoring outside Mossley School, and chatted to parents and the headteacher about the dangers of particulates from idling vehicles. We hope to follow up with some educational talks and encouraging more walking to school.

I attended the Green Fayre in Congleton Town Centre and took my electric car down to be one of the exhibits, so that people could have a sit in and talk to me about it. I spent the morning on the Congleton Town Council stall and it was great to talk to lots of residents about all the opportunities to reduce carbon emissions and improve biodiversity. We also promoted the Sustainable Living in Congleton eLearning Course.

For the afternoon I helped on the Air Quality stall, and had some very interesting conversations with people who were concerned about this issue, especially near schools, and very interested to see the ‘hot spots map’ of Congleton.  There is more work to do in this area but it was clear to me that there is considerable public support.

I have written to Cheshire East Officers to ask what is happening about the future of our waste and recycling services in Congleton, both regarding the Household Waste and Recycling Centre and the provision of potential ‘pop-up’ services.

Working with Local Businesses

I attended the Chamber of Commerce Business Fair at Congleton Leisure Centre.  It was a good event and we made some useful contacts, especially for  the Net Zero Roundtable.

I also attended the pre-launch for the Congleton Market Quarter. It was an enjoyable evening and great to see so many local people in the town centre on a Friday night.

I joined in with the pre-launch of Totally Locally Congleton, an initiative that aims to encourage people to come to Congleton town centre for shopping and entertainment. It was good to see a number of local businesses there and the Town Council will continue to support this project as it develops.

Working with the Police

I chair the Community Safety Working Group, which has been discussing challenges in Congleton including a cross-agency effort to address problems at the Meadows, as well as shoplifting and drug dealing in the town.

I attended a Community Cohesion Meeting with the local Beat team. At these, the public scrutinises bodycam footage and discusses specific situations that police officers have dealt with, and comments on the behaviour of the officers concerned. This is part of ‘policing by consent’ and is always an interesting session. Please get in touch with me if you’d like to attend the next one.

As part of the Cheshire Police EDEI (External Diversity, Equality and Inclusion) Board, I attended a board meeting at which we discussed the Baroness Casey Report. We also looked at the latest figures for sexual harassment at work and the actions the Force is taking to change culture and prevent these things from happening.

I gave a talk at the local branch of the National Women’s Register about policing in Cheshire and crime rates in Congleton and the surrounding areas.

I attended a public Scams Awareness Workshop at the Town Hall run by Age UK and the Police, and we displayed the Community Safety Charter materials. It was a very interesting session.

I also sent out the Cheshire Police VAWG Survey to all my contacts and CTC also shared it. In this, Cheshire Police is aiming to learn about the experiences of women and girls.

You can answer the survey for women and girls here.

White Ribbon

White Ribbon is an international organisation engaging men to stand up against men’s violence towards women, and the behaviours and attitudes that lead to it.  Congleton Town Council is a White Ribbon Accredited organisation and our goal is to ‘eradicate men’s violence against women and all gender-based violence and abuse from Congleton’.

In September we had a White Ribbon stall at Astbury Mere, where some reports of poor behaviour had been heard. On the day we had some great conversations with walkers and families who were visiting the mere, and a number of White Ribbon promises were made.

I have spent time preparing the White Ribbon Campaign for November/December. It starts on the 25^th November, White Ribbon Day, and continues with the UN ’16 days of activism against domestic abuse and violence against women and girls’.

I have filmed our White Ribbon Ambassadors as well as volunteers from the Police, the Clergy, charities and high schools, and those videos will be released throughout the ’16 days’. There will also be social media posts, town centre stalls and press articles.

I am involved in the National Association of Local Councils’ White Ribbon Steering Group, and they invited Congleton to present a case study at their annual meeting in Parliament. Ambassador Cllr Mark Edwardson has agreed to do this.

The White Ribbon team was invited to talk at a PubWatch meeting, and Chair Cllr Richard Walton attended on our behalf. I have also set up a meeting with Congleton High School in December.

If you’d like to get involved in the White Ribbon Campaign, please get in touch with the Town Council.

Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence

I attended the Cheshire East Domestic and Sexual Abuse Partnership (CEDSAP) Board meeting to hear about all the different agencies (CEC Officers, Police, Social Services, Housing, Health, myCWA and others) are working together to support families affected in Cheshire East.

myCWA (My Cheshire Without Abuse) and Cheshire East also have plans for White Ribbon Day, and are hosting the White Ribbon Cheshire Conference in Holmes Chapel, which some of our Congleton Ambassadors will be attending.

Congleton Pride

Congleton Pride, of which I’m a Trustee, held its Annual General Meeting in October. I presented the results of the survey earlier this year, in which 90% of LGBTQIA+ respondents said they are ‘Comfortable’ or ‘OK’ in Congleton. I was elected as Safeguarding and Compliance lead and Press Officer. I have recently written new Equality and Respect and Safeguarding policies for Pride.

I attended the Halloween Hootenanny organised by Pride colleagues as a fundraiser.  It was a great fun evening and raised £400.

I also attended the Cheshire Prides Meetup in Crewe, which co-ordinates activities across all the Prides in Cheshire.

Council Website

The Request for Proposal for the new website that I helped draft has been signed off by the Council at a meeting and will now go out to vendors. We are prioritising local digital agencies and those who specialise in public sector websites. My own company, Kanga Health Ltd, is a digital agency, but will not be invited to pitch.

Civic Events

As Deputy Mayor I represented Congleton at the Staffordshire Moorlands District Council Civic Service and the Sandbach Civic Awards evening.

Bromley Farm Hub

The Bromley Farm Hub group is thriving and getting ready for its first Annual General Meeting early next year. The Friendship Garden is going from strength to strength and the Residents’ Forum is doing some great work with Plus Dane Housing. Meanwhile the Friends Group on a Tuesday is considering whether to offer a warm meal for the winter months. Until now it has been just hot drinks and a snack. I am supporting this group with administration and governance.

If you’d like to get involved with Bromley Farm Hub or any of its subgroups, get in touch with myself or Cllr Susan Mead, or contact us via Facebook.

Other work

I attended the Annual General Meeting of Visyon, the charity that supports young people’s mental  health. I offered to help the Green Tree House social supermarket with a bid for funding.

I have been supporting residents with a number of matters during recent weeks:

Supporting several women who are victims of men’s harassment and violence to get support and justice.

Helping residents get the benefits they are entitled to and appeal if necessary.

Discussing a number of listed buildings that are falling into disrepair with several residents, and following up with CEC enforcement where necessary.

Talking to residents who were concerned about the licence for the Wharf Inn. An amicable solution was found by a group of residents working with the licencees, and the licence was renewed.

Elizabeth’s Group

This group commemorates Suffragist Elizabeth Wolstenholme Elmy, and I am a trustee.

I have been campaigning with the group to save Moody Hall, Elizabeth’s old girls’ school, and we staged a protest outside Cheshire East Council when our Chair, Susan Munro, asked a question about the hall. I have also been encouraging CTC officers to bring parties together to discuss the future of the hall and try to move things forward. The Council had a closed meeting to discuss this and the work continues.

I have also attended a meet-up of the national Visible Women Group, which is made up of leaders of projects to erect statues of prominent women. In Crewe they are commemorating worker’s rights campaigner Ada Neild Chew, and Elizabeth’s Group has lots of experience that team can benefit from.

In other news, we have closed submissions for Elizabeth’s Book which we hope to publish for International Women’s Day 2023.

My Council Meeting Attendance

Overall, my Council meeting attendance in these two months has been 97% for all council meetings and working/other groups, either face-to-face or virtually (28 out of 29). For the principal council committees my rate is 100% (2 of 2). (This includes the full Council and the Community Committee, which I Chair. All other Committees are ‘ex-officio’ for me as Deputy Mayor, although I attend them when I can, and I’ve been to 9 out of 10 Committee meetings.)

I am a member of 21 other Groups as well as the Council Committees, some of which are council-related, some are other local charities and community groups.

The Town Council’s remit does not include things such as Social Services, Health, Transport, Waste, Recycling – these are the domain of Cheshire East, but we can lobby in these areas.