Vision

To encourage a healthy living environment through accessible community facilities and services, and to
promote quality housing for all.

Goals

• To encourage awareness of healthy communities and individual responsibility to sustain these communities
• To promote healthy lifestyles, tackle health inequalities and support vulnerable and disadvantaged people
• To establish an independent, robust and sustainable Voluntary and Community Sector, professionally
  supported, with the resources to develop individual, specialist organisations responsive to local need
• To support natural communities to develop their own identities and potential.

Principles

• Healthy sustainable communities are those where individuals are responsive to and take an active role in
  meeting local needs and aspirations
• Healthy lifestyles are indicative of a healthy community
• Effective, well-run organisations use best practice to meet identified community need
• Identity gives meaning to the lives of individuals within community
• Social inclusion enables individuals to invest in their community through a sense of common ownership
• Everyone has a contribution to make to our communities and has a right to fair, equal opportunities.

Values

• The dignity of the person
• Community as the essential setting for valuing the person
• Secure personal identity and good health
• Basic human rights.

Strategies

• To support the sustainable development of community centres of various types in Tiverton and the Exe Valley
• To work with partners on community initiatives
• To develop community amenities in association with the work of other Focus Groups developing the Exe Valley   Plan.

Projects

• The provision of a new community centre at Higher Moor, Tiverton, assistance with the roof project at    Sunningmead Community Centre and support for the renovation of Huntsham Village Hall, are practical    examples of the way community identity is supported and developed in Tiverton and the Exe Valley.
• The Furniture Recycling Project will assist homeless people housed by C.H.A.T, and by organisations with    similar aims, with basic furniture needs, drawing in appropriate Voluntary and Community Sector expertise   and skills.
• Office accommodation for Involve (Tiverton CVS) and Exe Valley Enterprises (E.V.E.) in a centrally located    building will be a community asset providing supported space from which Voluntary and Community    Organisations can provide their services.

There are three distinct components of this focus group: Health, Housing and the Voluntary and Community
Sector (VCS). Whilst these elements are linked, and to some degree interdependent they are none the less
individually complex and challenging elements of the overall community profile. We recognised that there are
major agencies working in each of these areas, whose work we will be seeking to influence. Our projects focus
on ways in which a sense of community can be encouraged and on ways in which the voluntary sector can help
and support community development and initiatives.

Community buildings provide opportunities within neighbourhoods and villages for small groups to meet,
providing friendship and opening new opportunities, and for larger meetings and entertainments to be
staged. The buildings need maintenance and older buildings require adaptation for new and varied uses. With
considerable housing development occurring in Tiverton, our group place a high priority on the development
of community facilities on the north side of the town to encourage a sense of local belonging and to facilitate
new friendships, combating loneliness. On the east of the town, the Sunningmead Community Centre is now
well-established and valued, but the flat roof is already due for renewal, and is a temptation for active youngsters.

Early discussions are taking place with a county architect on the possibility of replacing this roof with a
pitched roof to include office accommodation and storage, thereby improving the sustainability of the centre.
In the village of Huntsham, like other villages in the area, the village hall is at the centre of community life
and we support the plans and work of the local community for improvements here.

The Church Housing Action Team, C.H.A.T., represented on our group, has an excellent track record
on advising and housing homeless young people. Often these individuals need basic items of furniture but
cannot afford any. Other couples and individuals moving house in the area find they have surplus furniture
that they are willing to donate. Our project to provide a furniture recycling centre would answer the need of
both groups, providing a service to both at the minimum cost to maintain sustainability, and would be
widened to cover other re-housing organisations. At present we are searching for suitable premises. We will
also need to purchase a suitable vehicle to move furniture.

Involve (Mid Devon CVS) is seeking to develop a Centralised Resource Centre in a Community Services
Building to provide more sustainable supported office accommodation and meeting rooms for some of the
smaller groups. There are long-term aspirations that the CAB would like to be able to co-locate with the
Council for Voluntary Service and other community groups. E.V.E. Ltd. may also co-locate with Involve.
Our group has adopted a policy of support for healthcare services in the area. Currently, there is a major
restructuring of Primary Care Trusts, which is revealing new areas of need. The Patient and Public
Involvement Forums, run by volunteers, are also being restructured. As the new structures become clearer,
we will be working in partnership with the Transport Focus Group and with E.V.E. Ltd. to develop projects
that will meet these needs. We hope to draw new healthcare professionals into our group to widen the scope
of our expertise in this area. One area of need is already apparent - the main hospitals are achieving a faster
discharge of patients, which has put domiciliary services under immense pressure.
The group was acutely aware of the issues caused by high house prices and the real impact housing costs have
on many households, especially those already on low incomes. However, we recognised that our ability to
influence this situation is extremely limited.

Our policy towards housing is to strongly support the initiatives highlighted in the Mid Devon District
Council’s Housing Plan and the Local Strategic Partnership’s Sustainable Communities plan.

These are:
• Developing stronger and healthier communities
• Improving access to information and services
• Providing affordable and decent housing.
Considerable work is being done on these issues, and on the third, the developing Statutory Planning process
is heavily involved. The Group support the work of the LSP on the provision of affordable housing.
Duncan Wood, October 2007