A special meeting was held between the Regeneration Partnership’s Rosemarie Parsons and Cllr Neville Jones, Burnham Chamber of Trade’s Alex Turco and Jonathan Walters, and SWRDA’s Ian Thompson and Carl Budden at the Town Council Chambers on Wednesday (August 19th).
The meeting followed SWRDA’s controversial decision in June not to give Burnham any cash for the Civic Pride project which would have re-developed the town centre and included pedestrianisation of the High Street (as pictured above).
Rosemarie Parsons, Chairwoman of the Regeneration Partnership, told Burnham-On-Sea.com after Wednesday’s meeting: “The two members of the Regeneration Partnership and two members of the Burnham Chamber of Trade made a clear case to SWRDA for further investment in the Civic Pride scheme for Burnham.”
“Several questions were raised which needed further clarification and SWRDA have agreed to answer all the questions that we raised by the middle or end of September.”
“Although no clear promises were made, we hope that they will look again at Burnham as an exceptional case. This they have agreed to do.”
Burnham-On-Sea.com understoods that one question revolves around why Cinderford, a market town of a similar size to Burnham, has received SWRDA funding while Burnham missed out.
Cllr Neville Jones told Burnham-On-Sea.com he still “has not lost all hope” that a successful resolution can be found to secure funding, although there now appears to be little optimism that SRWDA will reverse its decision.
SWRDA announced in June that Burnham would not be on its line-up of regeneration schemes that would share £260million of funding.
A public meeting about regeneration was held in Burnham earlier this month, but SWRDA pulled out at the last minute and said it wanted a meeting with a smaller selection of Chamber of Trade and Regeneration Partnership representatives instead. This led to this week’s meeting.
RELATED LINKS:
Burnham Chamber of Trade official website
