Residents, businesses and people from partner organisations attended the first Bishop Auckland Town Team meeting of the year on Thursday 15th January.
Also present were Helen Goodman MP, Councillor Joy Allen, Inspector Martin Peace and Sgt Dave Hancock from Bishop Auckland Police.
Richard Smith, from Living Streets – a national charity dedicated to the creation of safe, attractive, enjoyable streets, explained that he and his colleagues were to carry out a street audit on behalf of Durham County Council.
The purpose of the audit is to evaluate the quality of streets and spaces from the viewpoint of those who use them rather than those who manage them.
The audit will involve small groups of local people – public, traders, businesses, councillors – walking a particular route in the town to identify what works well, what could be improved and what should be done.
Living Streets will then prepare a report for setting out recommendations which will be presented to the County Council.
The street audit is taking place on Saturday 21st February.
Anyone wishing to take part should meet at Auckland Castle at 10am.
County Councillor Joy Allen reported on the success of the Christmas market which was held as part of the Christmas Spectacular, on 21st November 2014.
Joy was working closely with South Durham Enterprise Agency to rejuvenate the market offer. The aim is to introduce new market stalls with a greater number of traders on a weekly basis starting from Saturday 9th May 2015. In addition, a speciality market would take place every second Saturday of the month.
Liz Fisher, Deputy Director at Auckland Castle, gave an update on the many developments taking place at Auckland Castle and around the Market Place. 2014 was described as a year of experiment for the Castle, which had achieved 12,000 visitors and helped them develop their offer and plans.
Work is now ongoing to bring those plans into fruition.
Clive Auld gave an update on the success of the recent events organised by the Town Team including Small Business Saturday and the Christmas entertainment. Lee Brownson provided an overview of the media success for the town team website, Facebook and twitter. In the last 12 months there have been over 10,000 visits to the website with over 18,000 page views from people all over the world.
The facebook page has over 1,000 likes and the twitter account currently has nearly 700 followers.
The next Town Team meeting will take place on Thursday 12th March at the 4 Clocks Centre, 154a Newgate Street.
Light refreshments will be served from 5.30pm and the meeting will start at 6pm.
Anyone with an interest in helping make Bishop Auckland an even better place is welcome to attend.
Bishop Auckland's local community newspaper.
