90 Strong: Thank You for a Fantastic Community Evening

Thank you to the 90 hardy souls who braved the flooding on Tuesday evening to attend the CAofP Planning General Meeting. It was wonderful to see so many of you there, and the energy in the room made it clear just how much people care about this community.

Our Chair, Zoe Bell opened the meeting with a warm welcome, and we were privileged to hear from two inspiring speakers.

The Mayor of Dorchester, Andy Canning, reflected on what community means and how Poundbury is very much part of Dorchester. He was followed by the CEO of Talk About Trust, Steve Morton, who gave a keynote speech about how important community is and how our community in Poundbury has developed.

The CAofP team, Tim Wilmot, Graham Chapman, Jerry and Sue Cooke, Laura Hirst, Emma Taylor, and Adele Brothwell went through the fantastic progress that

CAofP has made since its inception in April 2025.

From the start, our mission has been the development of a community spirit in Poundbury that enhances the quality of life here, whilst addressing local needs and celebrating the diversity and skills within our community.

The team then went through our plans for 2026, and members shared valuable feedback and ideas.

The final part of the evening was a Stakeholder Q&A session that covered many diverse topics, thanks to the questions that our members put forward in advance.

We're grateful to our panel members which included representatives from Places for People, Dorset Council, the Duchy of Cornwall, Dorchester Town Council, MANCOs, local business, and Dorset Police, for their time and thoughtful responses.

We will be publishing detailed Q&A articles in our newsletter, as this proved to be a very popular feature following last year's Q&A session.

A more detailed summary of the meeting and formal minutes will be published in next week's newsletter.

Meantime, the slides from the meeting are available for people to see at the following link: https://www.lovepoundbury.org/documents-archive