Town Council publishes first annual report

Cllr Kevin Hickson, Leader of Crewe Town Council attended the Annual Town Meeting on 20th May at the Municipal Buildings to meet residents and launch the Council’s Annual Report 13-14.

Cllr Hickson said ‘I was pleased to have the opportunity to attend the Town Meeting and meet a large number of people with a collective interest in the Town. I want to firstly say how gratified I was to hear the feedback from groups who had been awarded grants by the Town Council. They came to the meeting to share their success with others. It shows what a vibrant voluntary and charitable sector we have in Crewe’

‘Secondly, in meeting the people of Crewe I felt it important that we launched our Annual Report at an event that engaged with residents. It has been a great start for the Town Council; we are now over a year old and starting to provide that ‘voice for Crewe’. I’m particularly pleased that we have moved forward with developing a Youth Employment Partnership, that we have started to welcome people to the Town, provide a more attractive Town through investment in floral displays and successfully put on a Christmas show in the Market Square’

‘Clearly we know that there is far more to do, but with recent recruitment and stronger links to organisations in Crewe I feel we are well placed to move to the next level. We will do this on sound financial footing and now that we have a firm financial platform to work from I hope that we can take on bigger things such as managing the markets and developing a vision for Crewe well into the future.’

‘Please take the trouble to read the Annual Report. We will in due course be releasing a shorter version and distributing copies more widely. This we hope will encourage more of the community to interact with us and tell us what needs improving in Crewe’

‘Finally, I just wanted to come back to the impact our grants scheme has had and to encourage even more organisations to come forward and ask for funding as we want to support as many organisations as possible to improve the lives of people in Crewe’

The Town Meeting received feedback from groups on how they had used their grant to help improve lives in and around Crewe. A list of those organisations is set out below together with some selected quotes.

  • Crewe Concert Band
  • Crewe Senior Forum
  • Crewe and District Local History Association
  • Team Chongi Academy
  • Crewe Samaritans
  • Community Garden Project
  • Donna Louise Hospice
  • Central Cheshire Buddies Scheme
  • Crewe Brass
  • Crewe Alex Ladies Football Team
  • Royal British Legion
  • The Cat Community Radio
  • CR Swimming Club

Paul Moore from Donna Louise Trust said ‘The Donna Louise Children’s Hospice has been supporting children with life-limiting conditions and their families across South Cheshire and Staffordshire for just under 11 years. Although they have provided support to families in Crewe during this time their profile as a charity and fundraising from the area has been minimal. With a grant kindly provided by Crewe Town Council the charity were able to hold its first event in the area to begin raising profile and vital income from the town. Due to strict budget restraints this simply wouldn’t have been possible without the support of the council and resulted in over 50 brand new families choosing to support the work of the hospice financially. The system was straight forward and we were delighted to receive the full amount of income for which we applied’

Adrian Lindop, Chair of Crewe Senior Forum said ‘A Voice for Crewe was heard loud and clear last evening by such diverse, voluntary, groups and organisations, stating how they have benefited from Crewe Town Councils funding. My own group, 90 older people are feeling the benefits to their health and wellbeing, thanks to this funding which enabled Crewe Senior Forum to provide exercise and holistic therapies Thanks Crewe Town Council.’

Kevin Walker of The Cat Community Radio said ‘We represent The Cat, who are a voluntary community radio group, based in Nantwich, serving the Crewe, Nantwich and surrounding rural area.

We have been broadcasting, in one guise or another, for twenty one years now, via restricted service licences and mainly on the internet.

Earlier this year, however, we were awarded an FM license, meaning we will be able to reach more people from Haslington to Acton, while still reaching further afield via our continued internet broadcasting.

As mentioned, we are a voluntary organisation, so any financial help is greatly needed, particularly for the initial FM set-up. Crewe Town Council kindly awarded us a grant towards the cost of our transmission equipment. We currently anticipate a start date of the FM transmission to be between November this year and February 2015 but that is dependent on a timetable set by Ofcom.

This means that, not only will our area get the radio coverage it has been crying out for so long, but we will also be able to support, promote, and highlight local charities, societies, organisations and events.

We are truly grateful for the support we have received in helping achieve this long held dream’

 

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