‘Imagine Formby’ are looking for people to get involved in the future of our beautiful village
Imagine Formby’ are looking for people of our community to get involved in the future of our beautiful village
Some of you may remember the Formby Business & Community Partnership that used to meet up and talk about how things in Formby could be improved to help local businesses but over this past year there has been a lot of activity happening as they moved away from the Formby Business & Community Partnership, to form Imagine Formby CIC.
Pat Wordley from Imagine Formby said: “It was becoming increasingly clear, that if we wanted to halt the decline of Formby Village (a nationwide problem, of course) and to reverse the trend, we needed to get organised and connect with other organisations and groups within the Community that have similar aspirations.”
“We, (and at the time that would be Blair Hilton, Kevin Haygarth, Sean Brady, Lynne Harwood, Karsten Erikson, Heather Davies (on behalf of Formby Pool Trust), and myself, Pat Wordley) agreed that firstly, we should find out what, if anything, the community value about the village, how often do they use it, what do they think needs improving, etc. So, we designed a survey that went out last summer and we got approximately 600 responses, which was pretty good.”
“Based on the ideas that came from that, we decided to rebrand as Imagine Formby (looking towards the future of the town) and form a Community Interest Company.”
“The results of the survey were very interesting (see below) and has steered us towards identifying several community projects which tend to relate to the Environment (including the appearance of the village), Arts, Culture and Heritage, Local Business or Youth and Community. As such, we have structured Imagine Formby into four sub-groups representing each of these areas of interest.”
“Aside from the initial survey, what have we been doing?”
We have grown the Arts, Culture and Heritage group over the past few months and have already kick-started a project which will transform the appearance of the alleyways that connect Chapel Lane with the carparks either side. (I will send you a separate note about this).
We have developed a survey specifically related to developing arts, culture and heritage projects and have started to share the link to this, this week (Will also send a note with the link, if you would share on the Bubble, that'd be amazing!)
We have also been developing relationships with Sefton, Formby Parish Council, CVS, local schools and businesses, other local organisations, etc., to identify where we can work together to achieve positive outcomes.
We have researched the way in which towns with successful highstreets have become so (in all cases it is through collaboration)
We have launched a Facebook page 'Imagine Formby' where we will share our news and a Facebook Group - please request to become a member.
Pat continued: “We aim to collaborate as much as possible and invite anyone with special interest in the arts or local environmental matters, local business owners or people who want to get involved in youth and community projects, to please get in touch. We also need help generally, with admin and social media support.”
Here are the survey results for anyone that is having trouble accessing them:
