1.1         The Chair welcomed everyone to the meeting.

1.2         Apologies for absence had been received from Chris Mansell, Stewart Pickering and Mark Weston.

To receive any questions, statements or petitions of which notice has been received from members of the public.

2.1       There were no questions from members of the public.

Members are reminded that they must not participate in the discussion or voting on any matter in which they have a Disclosable Pecuniary Interest and should leave the room prior to the commencement of the debate.

3.1       There were no declarations of interest made.

The minutes of the meeting held on 7 February 2019 are attached for confirmation

4.1       The minutes of the meeting held on 7 February 2019 had been circulated.

4.2       Resolved:

That the minutes of the meeting of the Shropshire Outdoors Strategy Board held on 7 February 2019 be agreed as a true record and signed by the Chairman.

To receive a presentation from Interim Head of Culture and Heritage on progress against SGO Strategy and priorities for 2019/20

Members are asked to agree actions to be taken forward by SGO Strategy Board.

5.1       Members received a presentation from the Interim Head of Culture and Heritage which gave an update on progress made against the Shropshire Great Outdoors Strategy and priorities for 2019 – 20. An updated Action Plan was circulated to Members.

5.2       The Interim Head of Culture & Heritage advised the meeting that:

·         Funding for the Wild Teams had been secured for the forthcoming year and work was ongoing to secure future funding.

·         There was further work to be done on the Shropshire Great Outdoors Website, but this was on hold as there was no capacity within the team to progress this at this time

·         The Leader project had been extended to June to enable the final allocation of remaining funds.

·         Place Plan meetings had been held and it was felt that Parish Councils now had a better understanding of the Place Plan process.

·         Work was ongoing to increase income from outside contracts and an A4 leaflet had been produced to advertise the service.

5.3       The Chairman thanked the Interim Head of Culture and Heritage for her presentation and asked Members to email the Head of Culture & Heritage if they had any further queries of comments.    

The Interim Head of Culture and Heritage will introduce a new working group to develop a Cultural Strategy for Shropshire.

Members are asked to agree the involvement of SGO Strategy Board.

6.1       The Interim Head of Culture & Strategy advised that a working group had been set up to formulate a Cultural Strategy for Shropshire.

6.2       A discussion took place around the differing definitions of culture and heritage that people had.

6.3       Members agreed that the strategy needed to feed in to all parts of the community.

6.4       The Interim Head of Culture and Leisure informed the meeting that the Working Group would produce a draft strategy which would go out to consultation and asked members to feed any comments to her by email.

The Rural Services Network has called for a new Rural Strategy:

https://rsnonline.org.uk/images/publications/rural-strategy-2019/rsn_rural_strategy_online.pdf

the Committee will receive an update on the response from Shropshire Council from the Interim Head of Culture and Heritage.

Members are asked to agree how the SGO Strategy Board should be involved.

7.1       Members were informed that the Rural Services Network had issued a document calling on Government to produce a rural strategy.

7.2       Mrs Motley commented that it was important that the needs of rural areas were considered and that all policies were “rural proofed”. She advised members that a lot of work was being done on this in Westminster and that a House of Lords select Committee had produced a report on the state of the rural economy.

7.3       Mrs Motley advised that the RSN was keen that all Councils produced their own strategies and that Councillor Gwilym Butler, and the Director of Place were leading on this for Shropshire Council.  Members were keen that this should run alongside the Cultural Strategy and that it should ensure that the needs of rural areas were firmly at the top of the agenda.

7.4       Members asked that they be kept updated with progress with the Strategy. 

All members are asked to give a short update on key activities/ priorities/ issues

8.1       There were no updates from Members

·         Wild teams Update

9.1       An update on the Wild Teams had been given as part of agenda item 5

Members are asked to discuss key priorities for future meetings.

10.1    The following items were suggested for inclusion on future agendas:

·         Green infrastructure strategy

·         Local Enterprise Partnership

To agree dates of future meetings

11.1    It was agreed that the Committee Officer would circulate dates of future meetings when they were to hand.