I have been informed that it has been agreed that the Community Forums, which were established along with the West End Residents’ Group itself in 2013 to replace the Residents’ Briefings, must inevitably be discontinued. For while it was initially envisaged that the management role on behalf of the residents would mainly comprise arranging and co-chairing the meetings, it has become clear that there are far more significant responsibilities implicit in the role which cannot be fulfilled by a single individual and, on reflection, may even lie beyond what might reasonably be expected of a full committee.
Some will lament the passing of this valuable institution which, also in the guise of the earlier Residents’ Briefings, has served our community so well.
Instead, the properly-constituted forum for community consultation is the Area Committee, details of which can be found on the Ipswich Borough Council website. This of course brings the longstanding disadvantage that the boundary between the Central and the SW Ipswich Area Committees runs along the middle of London Road and thus divides our natural community. But there appears to be nothing that we or any local agency can do about that.
A Riverside View 