The Gensing and Central St Leonards Community Forum is made up of volunteers living or working in the two electoral wards of Gensing and Central St Leonards. While administration is supported by funded staff, all projects and decision-making originate internally.
The Forum's aim is to provide a sounding board for all those 'on the ground' in the area and, over the years since its inception in 2002, has provided a channel for local opinions and concerns to be addressed by working closely with, but independently of, council and government initiatives.
As well as mounting the highly successful St Leonards Festival each July, much of the work of the Forum has been concentrated on making Gensing and Central St Leonards wards safer and nicer places to live and work, and it has been actively involved in the improvement of street lighting, gating of alleyways, Shopwatch, provision of personal safety alarms and much more.
In addition, the Community Information Centre at 16 Silchester Road, which is run by volunteers, is there for anyone to drop into with questions or concerns.
We hope that you find what you're looking for on the website. If you can't, why not pop into the Community Information Centre to speak to one of the volunteers?
The Forum has an Executive Committee, elected annually at the AGM, which manages the Forum’s affairs and hold Business Meetings bi-monthly at the GCSL Forum Community Information Centre. It consists of officers and members which are made up of residents or people who work in the area. The four local ward Councillors are also non-voting members of the Committee.
Four times per year the Forum holds open meetings when anyone can attend. These are usually based around the chosen thematic areas which are listed below. Open Meetings are designed for residents to be able to come and talk about local issues which concern them. At each meeting local service providers are invited along to talk about what they do and to answer questions from residents. Please see our Calendar for dates of our meetings.
Anyone can express any view they have regarding South St Leonards by either writing to the Forum, visiting the Community Information Centre or sending an email. The volunteer staff at the Information Centre have access to reporting issues such as flytipping or dog fouling to the relevant service agency so if you have an issue it will be forwarded on. Anyone who reports can remain annonymous if they wish.
The Forum's Thematic Areas are:
03 Planning
There are 4 areas across the Borough. Each of these Areas has an Area Management Board consisting of local Councillors and council officers, officials from local service providers and local community representatives. The community representatives from Gensing and Central St Leonards are four members of our Committee appointed annually by the Committee as a whole.
Each year the Forum consults with the community to identify the issues that concern local people and works with the Area Management Board to include actions to address these issues in the Area Delivery Plan. The Forum negotiates with the various service providers (such as local health service, refuse collection department, and the Police) the precise changes and improvements that they can commit to delivering.
These delivery plans contain a detailed list of very specific objectives and (where appropriate) deadlines.
The Forum also has a representative on the borough-wide Local Strategic Partnership. This group includes representatives from Local Councils, Government, Community and Businesses. One of its main tasks is to oversee the social and economic regeneration of the whole of Hastings and St Leonards.
In addition the Forum has a representative on the Hastings Regeneration Community Group, which provides community representation to the Hastings Regeneration Partnership which oversees the economic, business and infrastructure aspects of the town's regeneration and links directly into the Local Strategic Partnership.
For more information about the Forum, please contact us.
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