The WPT, the Civic Trust and Southern Comfort - TrustNews Spring 2000
As members may know, over 20 years ago the WPT was a founder member of a very loosely structured forum for the exchange of ideas and experiences of similar societies, known by the name of "Southern Comfort".
This forum meets once a year under a different host society each time, but is entirely without secretariat, subscription or formality. If, at the annual gathering, one society recognises a problem being experienced by another similar society then they might informally continue discussions by mail or by personal contact.
However, the Civic Trust, of which the majority of the major societies are members, has been very eager to set up a more formal regional organisation so that the views of the societies can be sought, and an agreed opinion on relevant subjects can be formed and used to influence legislation.
The Civic Trust recently set up a small Steering Group, which included a representative from the WPT, to see what was required. The group produced the following guidelines:
- the most urgent need was to assist in the drafting of Civic Trust responses to government papers. This is often a laborious and time-consuming task beyond the resources of many societies acting on their own.
- the work should concentrate on housing, transport, design, retail, the urban/rural interface, waste disposal and water In order to implement these studies the Steering Group proposed:
- a Civic Trust Standing Group should be set up for the South East Governmental Region with 2 representatives each from Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire, Surrey, Hampshire, E and W Sussex and Kent, with one representative from the Isle of Wight.
- experts on specific subjects (e.g transport) should be made available to advise the Group
- it is envisaged that the Group would meet 4 times per year
- there will undoubtedly be costs, possibly absorbed into a small rise in Civic Trust subscriptions. The Civic Trust has put in £500 to launch the scheme, and will also provide free meeting rooms and some, but not all, secretarial services
- there will be a mechanism for feedback to societies on Standing Group progress
The nomination of representatives is almost complete, and the good news is that no one has seen any need to interfere with the aims and conduct of Southern Comfort in any way. The Steering Group's final act was to disband itself!
WPT Brochure
This has been brought up to date, and is recognised by its green colour. There is a Membership Application Form on the back, so if you know of anybody who is interested in the work of the Trust, or if you are prepared to do a mail drop in your street, please ask the Trust Secretary for a handful of brochures.
WPT Website
This is being designed at the present time under the guidance of Dick Selwood, to whom we are very grateful for giving his time to educating the 3 members of the publicity group in "the wonders of the web".
To use the jargon, this facility is being generously "hosted on the Hampshire County Council website" and will thereby not incur any cost to the Trust.
So watch for "www. hants. gov. uk/wpt/ index.html" on your computer screens sometime very soon!