Macclesfield Town Centre Recovery Working Group 29th Jan 2021

Present:

Emma Anderson Macclesfield Museums

Matthew Baqueriza-Jackson (Co – Chair) Make it Macclesfield

Cllr Liz Brathwaite Cheshire East Council

Justine Gore Peaks and Plains Housing Trust

Cllr Janet Jackson MBE (Co-Chair) Macclesfield Town Council

Cllr Fiona Wilson Macclesfield Town Council

Laura Smith Macclesfield Town Council

Jo Wise Cheshire East Council

Abi Sherratt Macclesfield Town Council

Dr Evi Girling Keele University

Apologies:

Cllr Nick Mannion Cheshire East Council

1. Membership

The group agreed to invite Aoife Middlemass to the working group as a member, who will represent CVS, who are the infrastructure organisation for the voluntary and community sector.

All members agreed to continue the group and to meet at least monthly.

2. Feedback from the Forum

Feedback from the forum has be overwhelmingly positive. There is a lot of energy and enthusiasm from the people of Macclesfield to get involved and make change. Social Media posts have been positive, and many attendees have emailed further ideas and suggestions.

The key now is to harness the enthusiasm and turn it into action in the plan.

2. Finalising and Endorsing the Plan

Matthew, Abi, Jo and Laura will meet 4th FEB to update the plan with all of the findings and suggestions from the online event.

The plan focuses on the shorter term ‘Covid’ recovery; however the event did show that there is enthusiasm for longer term recovery ideas. So, we will add those longer term suggestions to the plan in order to manage expectations and time scales.

We agreed each working group organisation should endorse the plan, with the understanding that this may be more complex for our CEC colleagues.

4. Next Steps and Taking Action

Laura to update all attendees of the Online Forum, thank them for their positive input and enthusiasm, and ask if they would like to be on a mailing list for updates.

Working group members will be added to the mailing list.

It was agreed to have subgroups that feed into the working group to take forward the actions.

• Communication – Abi Sherratt to lead

• Outdoor eating – Cllr Wilson and Jo Wise to lead.

• Community Response – Aoife, Emma and Liz to lead

• Environment – Cllr Mannion and Justine to work with MTC and Macctastic – focusing on the Eco Summit in May.

Each group with update the working group meetings

5. Resources and Funding Bids

It was agreed for the Working Group to collaborate and work together on funding bids that relate to actions on the plan.

Cllr Wilson will work on a statement relating to funding.

6. Date of next meeting

9th FEB 11.30 – 12.30