Agenda item

Mike Rhodes advised the Forum that there had already been some adjustments to the running of LAF meetings in that there had been a reduction to 3 meetings a year, with the next meeting scheduled on Wednesday 1 November.  The proposed organisational changes would mean that PDNPA support for the LAF would be reduced, including less support from Democratic Services who currently provide much of the administrative work.  It was important to keep the momentum of the LAF work going.  Communication between meetings would be ongoing.

There followed a discussion between LAF members as to the best way to do this as a group who don’t have access to a shared network, with input on how this is done with other groups and organisations.

Jez Kenyon wanted to ensure that the purpose of the LAF was clearly set out in order to underline its importance as a statutory advisor. WhatsApp allows for easy group discussion and enables sharing of documents, either by referring to the current published documents on the website or as email attachments.  As all key information is published, WhatsApp’s main function would be to continue group discussion, with reference to relevant documents.  There would be no need to set up a separate platform for LAF members to access discussion details and documents, and therefore no requirement to set everybody up with logins and passwords.

Charlotte Gilbert emphasised the importance of the LAF working as a group. It has facilitated useful discussion amongst Forum members, which needs to continue with full agendas and presentation of information.  More sub groups and different structures for topic discussion could be considered, along with ad hoc follow up meetings and site visits.

Louise Hawson flagged an issue with having longer intervals between meetings around consultation deadlines being missed by full group meetings.  Any solutions to keeping the Forum in discussion between full meetings should be kept simple.

Further discussion was had around different platforms that could be used by the group, including some input from PDNPA Web Manager, David Higley, attending in a personal role with his involvement outside work in digital marketing, and also as part of an access community group in his local area.  He advised that a dedicated domain on the PDNPA website could be set up with members accessing through a login and password.

There was some debate on using a group discussion platform versus continuing to use email to circulate documents and information, plus what would be confidential at discussion stage as opposed to public information.

Sue Smith advised that Natural England is looking at how it can support Local Access Forums.

It was agreed to look into solutions for keeping LAF discussions moving between full meetings.