General Meeting July 2026: Minutes

Minutes from the DGRA General Meeting on 14 July 2026
By Quentin |
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Here are the minutes for the General Meeting for DGRA from 14 July 2026. Many thanks to all who attended!

Welcome and introduction

Attendees:

  • DGRA Committee: Konstantina Stamati (Chair), Graham Steed (Treasurer), Quentin Monnet (Secretary), Mel Hersey
  • Official representatives: Rory Clark (County Councillor), Ann Muston (Girton Parish Councillor)
  • 7 residents, from Darwin Green and Franklin Gardens; 1 dog

Faith Oyepeju and Joanna Gould (both from the Committee) sent apologies.

Chair’s update

Stakeholders engagement

The association has been working on establishing contacts with different stakeholders. This includes:

  • Communicating with Barratt, following the Community Forum and drop-in sessions from the GCSP Planning Officer
  • Approaching and meeting Alex Sage, new Cambridge City Councillor for Castle Ward
  • Approaching and meeting with representatives from the Eddington Residents Association
  • Meeting people from Rural Solutions, the landscape consultants from Barratt for the audit regarding the trees and plants
    • Vegetation has overgrown on the allotments (BDW2), they’ll need some care and cleaning before the handover completes
    • The electricity hub on the allotments is not protected enough, lots of children may play in the area, and it can be a safety hazard.
    • The consultants were still to transmit their finalised report to Barratt.

Community initiatives

The association promised £750 for a Junior ParkRun in Darwin Green, but we’re waiting for the organiser to come back to us. Last we heard, they were still missing some funds.

Development updates

See updates from the latest Community Forum: handover for the Sports Pavilion, Allotments, and Library are all supposed to happen during summer, although the Central Park’s handover has been delayed because Anglian Water needs some easement (and the Council wants nothing to do with it).

Questions/Answers:

  • Can we have a sign post on Huntingdon Road to signal the cut through? -> Maybe doable, we should ask.

  • There’s a safety issue for people crossing the road near that cut through – it needs a pelican crossing. This takes a long time to get sorted so we’d need to start thinking about it now.

  • Also people would like another crossing between Darwin Green and Eddington, where it’s leading to the physics labs. It might be done by the University, they have some ownership on the road.

  • Will there be a hill in the park like on commercial pictures? -> Unlikely to happen from Barratt, the landscape is done and they don’t want to touch anything (except for tree maintenance) until they hand over to the Council.

  • Residents found rubbish or tools (including sharp/cutting tools such as saws or razor blades!) or a mini skip full of materials removed from houses left by Barratt workers outside of the fenced site, and reported it to Barratt. Let us (or Barratt) know when you see something wrong. Similarly, for any noise complaints related to the work, for example outside of work hours (from 8 am to 6 pm Monday–Friday, from 8 am to 1 pm on Saturday), take a video with date and time and report to Barratt or the GCSP Planning Officer.

  • Vandalised bins have been reported; the bins around library corner are to be moved.

  • Transportation: What about buses?

    • We need to push. Many people work at the University but live on Darwin Green’s side of Huntingdon and are not willing to drive, it could work.
    • We could maybe have U1, 5, or 6 stop in Darwin Green.
    • Ann mentioned the association should also talk with Girton about buses. There was a big meeting about buses in Girton, but nobody’s really ready to take it on, perhaps we should all join forces.

  • Ann raised multiple times that communication was essential between the stakeholders in multiple areas. Girton is very close to Cambridge and the lack of communication may lead to duplicated efforts, wasted money, or insufficient resources for lack of working together on some issues.

Barratt has communicated that they have a referral scheme in place, by which home owners in Darwin Green and Franklin Gardens can claim £1,000 if they introduce people to Barratt, and this leads to a home purchase. (Note that this sum is available only once per household, and the scheme is not available to tenants). Barratt explained that the idea is to encourage people to bring in their friends and family to grow a strong community. Requests for details, and claims, should be addressed to Barratt’s sales office. The association passes on the information, but is not otherwise involved in this referral scheme.

Association infrastructure

Don’t hesitate to reach out at hello@dgra.cam, or via the website’s contact form, so the association can get an idea about residents’ concerns and priorities. The association wants to take your concerns to Barratt or authorities on your behalf to get more weight, through one official channel rather than dispersing the message over several avenues.

The association is also looking into setting up an organisational framework to ensure that future Committees can take over easily, when the time comes. Along with that, it also needs a set of policies that will help define its process, and should help with grant applications in the future.

Anti-social behaviour

Konstantina has started exploring a few things to help organise the community to tackle anti-social behaviour (ASB):

  • We talked with ERA (Eddington Residents’ Association); they work differently: they have a management community that can help, they have cameras at entry points of the site, and they can help recognise people committing ASB. They have connections with a police representative in the area (Coffee with a cop). At the moment, this liaison officer has retired and we’re waiting for the next one; DGRA will try to liaise as well. It would be good to have Coffee with a cop at the Community Rooms as well.

  • Regarding the Neighbourhood Watch, Konstantina found two volunteers to help with the local scheme, and will chat with Carol, local coordinator for the Neighbourhood Watch. At this time it’s tricky to get everybody to reply because of holidays, but activity will likely resume in September.

  • The Council, the Neighbourhood Watch representative, and maybe the police are trying to organise a dedicated community meeting as soon as possible.

Questions/Answers and comments from attendees:

  • Ann encouraged everybody to report everything that happens. Graham added that holidays are coming and ASB from kids will probably spike, and encouraged everyone to keep reporting, even when it seems to not lead to any reaction from the police.
  • In defense of reporting, one resident explained that they reported a separate case and the person behind the ASB was arrested shortly after, so reporting does pay off.
  • Rory noted that the police haven’t run Coffee with a cop recently because they’re on reduced capacity at the moment. One resident attended a local session (outside of Darwin Green) six months ago: it was mostly about Franklin Garden’s residents explaining their own issues.
  • One resident complained about recurrent ASB in their building, in spite of numerous reports to the police, Councillors, or the relevant L&Q person. Rory explained that the person at L&Q hasn’t responded to Councillors either (Councillors will try their superiors), and offered to take it away.

Treasurer’s update: bank and finances

Graham reported that due to the bank’s requirements, the transfer of the bank account has been slow, but this is now done. He followed up with invoices for the food truck owners for the last months (May, June). Accounts are ready.

There is about £1,820 on the account, coming mostly from the pitch fee from food truck owners. Some of this is committed to the Junior ParkRun, but this still leaves over £1k so the association can help fund things. Talks are beginning about some potential social events.

One of the next steps will be to look into insurance, necessary for food trucks and for other events the association might contribute to. There will also be some policies/process to determine who in the Committee can spend, up to what amount, and so on.

Secretary’s update: contacts, website, WhatsApp

Quentin has initiated communications with various associations, on behalf of DGRA: ERA (Eddington), WIRE (Windsor Road), ORRA (Oxford Road), FeCRA (residents’ associations federation), FOHRR (Friends of Histon Road Recreation Ground). Some of these were just to say hi, others already led to in-person discussions about possible synergies.

Quentin has updated the website with the Constitution adopted during the AGM, and reworked some sections, in particular to display more information about the association. He also maintains the list of people to notify by email about future meetings.

The handover of the WhatsApp groups to the association has been completed, the same rules remain in place. The main group got about 60 new members due to the AGM. This is due in part to Mel who advertised the community group on social media.

This is also due to Quentin and Konstantina reaching out to Barratt to ship welcome leaflets in the “welcome packs” containing documents that they leave in new residents’ homes. Barratt kindly agreed to print and ship the leaflets, and new residents confirmed they received it. The association is thankful to Barratt for shipping the leaflets, and to Tom, who helped with the graphic design.

Social media

The handover for the Facebook group administration (PLAZA) is complete, the group was mostly left as it was. We’re still learning; there has been some spam in the group, and Mel is trying to keep an eye on it.

New pages were set up on Facebook, Instagram, X, Threads. Mel has been sharing events on these.

There has been a discussion about what to do with the Buy/Sell/Gift chat. Residents have complained about it being open to everybody, and some users abusing it (too much posting resulting in other posts lost in the flood, pick-up location too far away, buyers not showing up, and so on). It seems worth redefining the scope for this group, even though some attendees raised that Darwin Green neighbours also use and benefit from the chat; others raised that there are other marketplaces (such as on Facebook) available in the broader area anyway. The association will run a WhatsApp poll to determine what people prefer. The precise options, and the fate of the existing group (if we were to create a new one), are still to be defined.

Food trucks

Handover was already complete for the AGM; it just keeps going. It is now time to review the list of food trucks in the schedule; Joanna is open to suggestions (reach out if you have some). New trucks need a 5-star hygiene rating. The review will also cover the amount of the pitch fee (currently £30).

One attendee asked for a coffee truck in the morning.

We tried once in the past to open the Community Rooms when a food truck was here so that people could sit and chat. Only 14 people came, but it was not well advertised at the time. The Council said they can still pay (for the rooms) for one other occurrence: the association needs to follow up and find a date to give it another try.

Events organisation

Faith has been running several events for children (see association website and calendar).

The location for the outdoors table tennis table is still in discussion with Barratt.

For this summer, the association is looking at some late summer social event (in September?). It first needs running accounts (now done) and insurance (in progress). Various ideas have been floated: it could be some sort of international day where people bring dishes from their home country to share, and children might dress up. More information to follow.

There has been a discussion between Faith and the Council about the association “enhancing” events in Darwin Green from the Council, and having a notice board to display everything happening in the area. The association also plans to add a dedicated page on its website to promote events to come. These are ideas at this stage, nothing concrete yet.

Ann raised that she wants to open some buildings to the community in Girton so that people can use them, if it rains, or if they need space, for example, and this could happen in Darwin Green when the library opens, maybe; but it needs forward planning.

Call for volunteers

There are a lot of things that need to come in place, for example for doing events, so volunteers are most welcome. One area that needs people is events organisation. Another is the “Friends of Central Park” group (attached to the association), for defining and run actions to improve the park or the landscape in the development. Reach out if you’re interested!

Call for feedback

The current Committee is still defining a vision for the area, and the association, and will hopefully be able to present more of this at the next meeting. But it really needs residents’ input, so please do reach out to share your feedback, concerns, ideas, or priorities!

Future meetings

There was a discussion on the time of the meeting, 8 pm being possibly a better option for people coming back from work, although we don’t want to end too late, either. Another proposal was to make them coincide with the food truck days. No decision yet.

Note there will be a public consultation on the Darwin Green Academy (future secondary school in Darwin Green 2&3) on Thursday 16 July from 4:30 pm to 7:30 pm at the Darwin Green Community Rooms.

The next General Meeting is scheduled for 12 October (time to be confirmed).

Thanks again to all who helped organise and attended the meeting!