We Are Colchester updates

Hello and welcome to the second We Are Colchester Update. It’s been an incredibly busy couple of weeks.

Our online questionnaire has been launched and lots of people have been taking the time to share their views about Colchester now, and their ideas for the future. Thank you to those people who have completed the survey. We’ll share some of the results in the next newsletter.

We also have a group of researchers who are out and about around Colchester, asking for people’s views face-to-face. We really do want to hear the views of as many people as possible.

As part of this survey we have asked people if they are interested in becoming involved with We Are Colchester going forward. It is really important that we have a diverse input into the project identification, selection and development over the next 12 months and beyond.

Funding criteria

In the last newsletter, we explained that the Government set strict criteria that we must follow if we are to get any money. The Government want to see that the proposed projects address some or all of the following issues:

1. Local Transport
2. Digital Connectivity
3. Urban Regeneration, Planning and Land Use
4. Arts, Culture and Heritage
5. Skills Infrastructure
6. Enterprise Infrastructure

All ideas submitted will be scored against the criteria, before a short list is examined by the We Are Colchester Board and the final projects chosen. Our bid will be 2 submitted on 30 October.

Next Steps

Once we have analysed the results of the online and face-to-face surveys, we’ll know what projects people have suggested for We Are Colchester. Fingers crossed there’ll to be lots of great ideas!

The next step will be to check that these ideas match the funding criteria. Ordinarily a number of large sessions would be held to do this. However, COVID restrictions make this impossible and alternative methods will have to be used.

We are going to hold two online meetings of our Advisory group, one in August and one in September, where they will look at suggested projects.

Members of the We Are Colchester Assembly as well as members of the public, will also have an opportunity to suggest ideas and compare them against the criteria. Unfortunately, due to coronavirus, we are not able to hold face to face meetings as we would have liked and so we will be doing this online.

If you’re not at the meetings, we would still really like to hear your project ideas that meet the criteria. Please send them to us by Monday 7 September so that they can be assessed at the meetings.

This is only the start of the process and everybody, who wants to, will have the opportunity to feed into the development of the chosen projects.

Thank you for supporting We Are Colchester. I’m sure you will agree, this is a fantastic opportunity to benefit the whole town now and in the future.

Simon Blaxill
Chair, We Are Colchester Board