General Meeting October 2026: Minutes

Minutes from the DGRA General Meeting on 12 October 2026

By Quentin | Tuesday, October 20, 2026

Welcome and introduction

Attendees

DGRA Committee: Konstantina Stamati (Chair), Graham Steed (Treasurer), Quentin Monnet (Secretary), Faith Oyepeju, Joanna Gould, Mel Hersey
Official representatives: Cheney Payne (City Councillor), Rory Clark (County Councillor)
Maysie Stedman (Active Lifestyle Officer for City Council)
Simon Smith (Chair of the Community Planning Meetings)
9 residents

Carol (Neighbourhood Watch Coordinator) and Veronica (resident) sent apologies.

Approval of minutes

Minutes from July’s General Meeting have been approved.

New Committee Member

Alice Lewis was voted as “Community Support” Officer in DGRA Committee, to help liaise with other communities (such as Girton Parish Council, or Eddington).

Active Lifestyle Officer

Maysie introduced herself to the residents, as the new Active Lifestyle Officer for the City Council, covering North-West Cambridge. This is an opportunity for people to find ways to exercise. Maysie tries to understand what the community wants. Some activities are funded by Barratt, other through grants; not all activities are free but they’re usually rather affordable. Once the Pavilion has been handed over to the City, Maysie will be looking into organising sessions such as meditation classes, etc. In the meantime, there will be some free tennis coaching sessions during half-term. There should be “active family” events in Darwin Green next summer.

See also Maysie’s introduction in the blog. Please fill the related survey. Welcome Maysie!

Planning Meetings

Simon Smith, new Chair of the Planning Meetings, explained what these meetings are about:

They were initiated at the time of the foundation issues to bring Barratt and residents into one room, track issues and follow-up actions. Barratt was surprised by the degree of involvement from residents at first, and has been very cooperative since then.
Now attendees include Barratt project managers, sometimes John from GCSP, residents (and residents associations) for Darwin Green and Franklin Gardens (DGRA), but also Windsor Road (WIRE) or Woodlark Road, Councillors.
Example topics: ditch, layout of houses in Franklin Gardens, cycle ways, environmental issues, signage, lighting, …
Out of scope: higher-level planning such as schools (addressed at Community Forums).

Everyone is welcome to contribute, by joining the meetings in person, or by contacting the association via WhatsApp or the website.

Updates

Finance

There is ~£2,300 on the bank account.
Graham is trying to sort out public liability insurance; he’s trying to check with Barratt (as owner of the land) about how responsibilities are shared.
Most of the money comes from pitch fees from food trucks. One concern is whether the association is supposed to pay corporate tax on the fees it collects. Graham is investigating. It’s unclear at the moment, and may depend on whether the money is spent on charitable endeavours.

Grants

Konstantina is looking into the process for grant applications. The Council offers several kinds of grants (up to £5k, £10k, £40k). The association needs to have some specific policies in place to apply.

The next steps will be to figure out what projects to apply for, and then to apply. If you know people interested or active in that area please spread the word.

Events

Faith is looking into organising a get-together event around Christmas.

The association is looking for volunteers to help, and to submit ideas to help define what this event will look like.

Faith will also ask Barratt if it’s possible to get a Christmas tree on the Plaza (but hopefully one that looks better than last year’s).

Food trucks

Kiwi Coffee has been a success so far and proved very beneficial to the community, and ensures a regular presence on the Plaza.

There was a debate on whether to raise pitch fees for food trucks. Currently, food trucks pay £30 per venue to the association (Note: Kiwi Coffee comes more often and pays a different price). Joanna tried to see how other communities do, but our arrangement (the residents’ association directly collecting the fees) seems rather unique. In Trumpington, trucks pay from £40 to £60, but there are three times as many residents.

In the end, Joanna will not raise the fees for now. First, the association will see whether it needs to pay taxes on this, as this may impact the amount it desires to collect. Another route for raising more money is to have more frequent venues: starting next year, Joanna will experiment with food trucks on one Saturday per month (in addition to the current schedule). She wants to try new types of food, too.

Joanna may run a poll in WhatsApp to figure out what residents are interested in (type, frequency).

Another question is whether to open the community rooms to allow people to sit and eat (providing access to toilets, and shelter in winter). This would require finding funds to book the Community Rooms; the association needs to see if it can find a grant for this.

Atmosphere

Previous WhatsApp admins did a great job at moderation. Since the groups were handed over to the association in May this year, admins have been looking for the right balance between freedom of speech and moderation and this has occasionally led to an unfriendly atmosphere in the chat. Admins are aware and are now trying to take a more proactive stance for moderation. They also hope that discussions following antisocial behaviour reports will soon have a dedicated channel, rather than the Friendly Neighbours group.

Buy Sell Gift chat updates

During the meeting, residents voted on whether the Buy Sell Gift chat should:

Change to be buy, sell, gift, for local residents only (DG/FG/KC)
Change to be gift only, for local residents only (DG/FG/KC)
Remain unchanged (buy, sell, gift for people in the broader area)

The second proposition won the vote: the group will change soon to become gift-only, for local residents only.

Policies

Konstantina announced that policies to help with WhatsApp moderation are in the process, coming on the website soon.

Neighbourhood Watch

Konstantina has been working with Carol to form a team to help with and follow-up antisocial behaviour cases resolution. The team includes Alex, Andy, Kristian (local residents), although at the moment it is just the initial stage of the process. Hopefully by next meeting Konstantina will be able to ask representatives to come and present what they do.

Alex emphasised the importance of reporting all ASB occurrences to the police: “don’t get discouraged, keep reporting, even if there’s no apparent or immediate resolution, in the end it matters a lot”.

Community Forum

The Community Forum was scheduled for 15 October, but has been postponed and the new date has not been announced yet.

The association expects the usual set of updates on the library, the retail units, the allotments, the schools, etc.

Retail units in particular are more and more pressing, and the communication from Barratt on the topic is not transparent (the opening has been delayed multiple times, who will own the shops is not clear (retail owners, or real estate investor), it would be good to get more details. Residents asked whether there was any planning obligation regarding a date for opening the units, but Simon replied there were none.

The association also wants to ask an update on coming work to improve the Plaza.

If you have other questions or concerns that you would like to express during the Forum, but cannot attend in person (or online), get in touch.

Any other business

Some other notes related to the developments:

The consultation on the Howes Green planning applications closed on 13 October and is now awaiting for the Council’s Planning Committee’s decision.
The PR firm working with Barratt reached out to contribute towards a book club (hosting events in show rooms, or donating books). The association doesn’t know any book club to point them to at the moment, but if anyone wants to start one, get in touch.
There has been a demand for post boxes in Darwin Green; but this was also raised at the Planning Meetings, and Barratt is already working on that case.
Residents have been asking about buses in Darwin Green. Alice and Rory reported that two new lines, U3 and U4, between Addenbrooke and North Cambridge, are planned, and should have stops in Darwin Green (once the road between Darwin Green and Franklin Gardens allows it). Rory will share the related document if he can.

Future meetings

The next Planning Meeting is booked for 4 November, 11:00 am.

The next General Meeting is scheduled for 25 January, 7:30 pm.

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