Meeting with Local Councillors

As part of my monthly meetings with our local councillors, I met with Cllrs. Josh Coldspring-White, Alexa Michael and Thomas Turrell after their monthly street surgery on 6th January.

We covered a variety of topics and this month they included the Safety Neighbourhood Team, Chilham Way shops, an invitation to have a Q&A session at our AGM on 4th April and a discussion about an initiative that the HKVA would like to pursue to bring residents and local agencies, e.g. emergency services, local councillors, banks and the post office together to discuss problems and seek advice.

The Safer Neighbourhood Team is a small team of Met Police, local councillors and local volunteers. The next meeting will take place on 7th March 2024 and I would be happy to receive any questions, or problems that I could take to that meeting.

Our local councillors would like to put a bid in to help make the Chilham Way shops area more appealing, including planters and benches as well as signage. They will be collecting resident’s responses as well as using an online survey to gauge the strength of local opinions. It is hoped that a new shop will be moving in soon and I am sure more shops would be welcome.

As mentioned, early notice of our AGM this year on 4th April 2024 at the Village Hall. Our councillors have accepted our invitation and will be giving an update on the work they are doing and holding a Q&A session too.  Advertisements about the AGM will be published later.

Also, early notice of our initiative, working title ‘Hayes Helping Hands’, to hold an open morning at the Village Hall where people will be able to come to discuss problems, seek advice and training on a variety of local services.

My next meeting with our councillors will be on 3rd February 2024. If you have any issues or problems you would like me to bring to their attention, please email me at chair.hva@gmail.com. Of course, you can see them yourself at their Street and Hayes Library surgeries each month.

Steve White
Chair HKVA