Helping Dorset locals with ‘wish list’ (From Bridport and Lyme Regis News)

Helping Dorset locals with ‘wish list’

5:30pm Thursday 4th October 2012 in News

DORSET County Council is trying out a ‘Big Society’ experiment with a new initiative to help communities help themselves.

County Councillor Rebecca Knox is chairman of a new policy panel, which aims to give a communities-led highways initiative a try.

She told members of Beaminster Town Council: “It is like a ‘wish-for’ on highways – things that might not get attended to for several years.

“It might be where parish residents or communities say they are fed up with something and say: ‘Give us a little bit of training or give us some of the equipment and we will do it’.”

She cited the example of the Mapperton finger post that was completely worn and she suggested someone could paint it rather than wait for the county council to take it down and completely refurbish it.

She added: “It has been done now and that is the sort of thing this initiative can sort out. Even at times little potholes could be filled in.

“It is little steps but it is just allowing communities to get one with something that we all know might take a very long time because of the financial situation.”