Bolton community alliances to replace area forum meetings

This comes after new “community alliances” were introduced to replace the old area forum meetings, which many representatives claimed was a flawed and outdated model.

A council meeting heard how further wards across Bolton have been urged to take up the model and that most of them still have more than £20,000 available for spending.

Council leader Cllr Nick Peel said: “Attendance at area forums vary but overall attendance by members of the public was low with some having only a handful of residents attending.”

He added: “We’ve all been at public meetings where there may be 100 people shouting and bawling but do they really represent that community? Often not.”

The questions were posed at a town hall meeting (Image: Newsquest)

As it stands, area forums are still listed on Bolton Council’s website for each of the borough’s wards.

But this has not been updated to take account of boundary changes since the last election.

The last area forum meeting was held more than three years ago and last December The Bolton News reported various area forums still appear to have thousands of pounds worth of funding to spend. 

Cllr Peel said that area forum meetings had come to be seen as an “outdated model” for this reason but that he hoped to encourage more wards to embrace community alliances.

The community alliance model aims to bring together volunteers with elected members, key institutions and businesses in each of Bolton’s 60 wards.

Cllr Peel said: “It will be a fresh approach to engaging with and working alongside communities within our wards.

“We will carry on encouraging the creation of community alliances in every ward.”

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He had been responding to a question by Cllr Debbie Newall, who called for the return of area forums at last week’s meeting.

She said: “Nothing demonstrates our local democracy better than those forums.”

She added: “I’ve attended as a local resident and as a councillor and the experience at an area forum is one that is most valued by residents.

Cllr Newall, who represents Kearsley, said that since her election she had heard many requests from people in her area about the return of area forums and said she felt this could be key to the administration’s pledges to be “open and transparent.”