Your ideas for building a stronger future

Increase the number and locations of public toilets

Aim to have a public toilet every half mile within public areas so that everyone can go out confident that they will not get 'caught short'!

Fund Ideas First -stop tying money up in Council salaries

Communities have many local groups/activities that do amazing things. Small amounts of funding help them keep going & do more. The public sector ties funding up in staff salaries at the expense of growing community capacity. Communities know best what works in their area

Urban green spaces help to protect air quality and biodiversity. Protect them and empower communities to defend them.

Protect urban green spaces from development.

Safer cycling to the city centre from the outskirts with dedicated cycle spaces and then much better provision of secure bicycle parking.

Support young people in obtaining work experience

Work experience can help young people to work out career paths they are interested in, or at the very least rule something out. It can also give them vital skills they will need in the workplace. At graduate level, employers are looking for people who have work experience and getting some in Y10 and Y12 can help young people gain contacts and enhance their CV. In the current climate, work experience is becoming ever harder to find and this might mean young people may be leaving school in Y11/13 with no experience of the workplace environment. Moreover, Saturday job vacancies will fall given retail and leisure is one of the hardest hit sectors in this recession. I think the council should create a dedicated page on their website that shows various work experience placement vacancies in Cheshire West. It could be the role of the youth senate to get into contact with employers ad schools to promote this.

Concentrate on environmental issues - look forward for future generations

Allow grass verges to grow and invest in wild flower seeds rather than mowing them down. This will encourage insect and birds to thrive. Rotherham Council have planted 8 miles of wild flower verges saving £25K in mowing costs!

Accessible access map

Produce a walkers map that shows where there are still stiles. I find some really difficult and it’s frustrating when a route has to change because I can’t over the stile. The ideal would be for all stiles to be replaced by gates. Some areas of CWAC are better than others.

Make use of the largenumber of empty shops in our town centres to provide places where people can meet up to share interests and activities.

Bring together volunteers and people who need support to get out and about to make this open to all and help reduce loneliness as well as bringing town centres to life again.

Support Communities!

Where there's capacity and the will, support communities to get things done. Remove the bureaucracy that gets in the way of change.

Graveyards

Our graveyard at St Laurence Church is closed and adopted by Cheshire West. Frequent concerns are expressed about its tidiness and grass length. Is it possible that local people could be encouraged to work with Cheshire West rather than being reliant on them? Could the insurance be sorted to allow that to happen?

Just do something

One of the better aspects of the pandemic has been people looking out for neighbours and offering help. Sometimes we can all be too backwards at asking for, or offering help from friends and neighbours. So many things that sounds small add up to bigger things. We can't all do eveything, but we should all try to: support local shops, restaurants, cafes and pubs, vote, give blood, recycle, home compost, walk or cycle short journeys, pick up some roadside litter ocasionally, talk to people, join a local group or society and so on.

More supported volunteering

The Council needs to invest more in volunteer organisers, for example Green Space Rangers so that more volunteer hours can be effectively managed. This will have the added benefit of reducing demand on health and social care are members of the community will also have improved health and wellbeing