Community Focus Group (3rd June 2025)

The third meeting of Darwin Green’s Community Focus Group took place on 3rd June 2025 at the Community Rooms, gathering representatives from the Community Team from the Council, and Darwin Green residents.

Please keep in mind that these are the notes from attendees. They may be incomplete, inaccurate.

Follow-up from last meeting, past events

• Electricity on Plaza: Barratt is taking care of it, Council team will not get involved, to avoid adding another layer of complexity. Some people are in touch with Barratt.
• Greenway: It’s unclear whether the lights have been fixed, but we haven’t heard complaints recently, so presumably it’s been addressed? Or it’s just because we have more daylight. In terms of CCTVs, it’s unclear what’s in place, or whether any CCTV installation is planned. To see with Barratt.
• Drop-in workspace: Several people came during the first two sessions (four or five people each time). There was no session on 26th May (bank holiday), and the session after that had no participants. More promotion required. We also need a way to make people understand it’s their space, and they can self-organise: bring snacks to share, ask for a 30-minute extension to have lunch together, …
• Plant and seed exchange: The event was successful, more than 60 people came. It was easier to manage than last year’s edition, because people didn’t come all at once and there were never more than about ten people at a time in the room. There was a lot of planting. This was an event run by a resident, supported by the Council Community team: the hall was hired free of charge.
• This was the last meeting for Steph; Julian will take over.

Summer events

• Holiday lunch (for children)
  • There will be only one holiday lunch after all, on Wednesday 30th July, from 12 pm.
  • It will be followed by a play session on the Plaza, supported by Barratt: the Community team got permission from owners (Evolution Court) to close the road around the Plaza.
  • Side note: closing the road will be next to impossible in the future, once roads are adopted or if a bus road is in place.
  • Suggestion: paddling pools?
• Evening food and music
  • Some event where people could eat and meet on the Plaza, in conjunction with food trucks venue: getting some tables outside and eating on site.
  • The Community team is looking into inviting a music band. Barratt is willing to sponsor. A provisional budget was passed to Barratt.
  • We’re waiting for Barratt to reply. After that we need to find the right date(s).
• Central Park opening: No news from Barratt. There will be a Community Forum next week, hopefully with more info.

Community development

• Carol (Neighbourhood Watch coordinator) is keen on coming to the meeting and meet residents. This would need to be a dedicated event, as we don’t have enough regular attendees showing up at the Community Meetings to make it worth.
• Should we invite Franklin Garden’s residents to the Community Focus Group meetings? Unanimously: yes!
• New website: https://dgra.cam (you found it already!)
  • There’s a person in charge of road names at the Council, let’s see if we can get them to “validate” our guess for the origin of street names in Darwin Green.

Other ideas

Several ideas for new events were suggested. We need to follow up and look into whether there’s interest, and feasibility.

• Toy swap:
  • Antoinette (Councilor) runs a toy swap in Eddington, we should see with her if she could help.
  • Once or twice a year?
  • Wednesday 6th August is National Play Day, would be a good date?
• Electricity in Plaza could be used for having big screens to retransmit specific events.
• Secret Santa, car booth sales
• Board game evenings:
  • Eddington’s residents association used to organise some, but recently stopped. This could be an opportunity to pick it up.
  • There seem to be some interest in the community. Several people have manifested some interest for board games already. Some people also mentioned they didn’t know how to meet new people in the development, this could be a good way.
  • There could be sessions with, and sessions without, children?

• ←Previous
• Next→