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Friday April 1st

This morning there was a board meeting and of the Airedale Neighbourhood Management Board. We had a look round Chrysalis, a Methodist church inspired project that has a computer refurbishment shop, a bricklaying tuition set up and car repair teaching centre. There is also a garge that teaches students. This is a greatly successful project and needs all our support. The most upsetting thing about the meeting was that George Rutten told us he had been made redundant by the PCT. This is criminal as he is one of the best workers with creative ideas I have ever met. I told him this, offered a reference and will write a strong letter to the PCT.
The Airedale Neighbourhood Management Pilot was set up in 2006 and was managed by Wakefield and district Housing (WDH). Last year The Airedale Neighbourhood Management pilot ended and it became self-governing board.
Board members include 8 residents all of whom applied in writing and were selected by interview. The residents are volunteers. On the board are our three local councilors of Wakefield District Metropolitan Council (WMDC) as well as a senior police officer, the principal of Airedale high School and senior employee of the Primary Care trust (PCT) and Wakefield District Housing.
WMDC, WDH, the PCT, education and police are known as “partners”.
What is the function of the board?
Broadly we are trying to:

• coordinate the monies coming into our area to get the best value from these funding schemes
• improve our living conditions by reducing crime, fear of crime and anti-social behavior. We want to improve the quality of the physical environment, housing management and leisure provision for young people.
• tackle poor public services by reducing educational underachievement, worklessness, poor health, teenage conceptions and offending.
• transform our neighbourhood by connecting communities with major regeneration in the district including housing and job markets where this is possible.
• enable local people to get involved and have a say in local decisions, foster a community spirit
I find this the most interesting group I have ever been in.

In the afternoon three of us continued inserting both a menu from the new social enterprise café based in the library and a leaflet about young people drinking alcohol into a significant number of the 7000 newsletters that I had produced and which will be posted into houses in the patch. It is a daunting task but worthwhile. After that I went for a walk in Fryston by the river and then came home.
A day of the Airedale Neighbourhood Management Board.