With Town Councillor Peter Macfadyen
What is ‘vision’ for you?
- Ambition
- Resources
- Will to deliver
- No sense if you have a strategy without ambition
- Think about goals and achievements when approaching a new topic or issue
- Timelines are essential for putting visions in place
- Taking the initiative on projects
- Vision statement requires a feasibility study
How to make vision a reality?
- What is the mandate to spend money on delivering visions?
- Who should be creating the vision?
- Encouraging councillors to think about new ideas
- The Town/Parish should be a catalyst for action
- Can negative energy be tapped for a greater cause and rally residents and councillors to act
- Example: Creating a public park, transforming a plot of land into something that benefits the town
- If there is limited public opinion on a topic, projects must be put forward by those that have voiced their opinions and contributed
- Propositions must be taken to the public, don’t expect the people to come to you
- Putting visions in place can lead to a variety of outcomes
How to handle a lack of ambition from councils? What do you do when the public calls for things that the Parish Council believes to be fundamentally wrong?
- If councillors won’t lead, the council has the responsibility to mitigate
- The right things need to come together at the right time to make a noticeable change. Is this always true?
- Community lead projects overtaking council lead projects. If something should be done it’s taken to the community to push forward
- Example: Some councils suffer from a lack of motivation and drive to get things done and achieve visions
- Awareness coming in alongside interests
- Example: Elections introduced at a parish council level
Breaking the Mould 