The head of Springfields and a vicar are among the new faces on the group tasked with spending £20m on Spalding over the next ten years after it realised it needed more people who live locally.
Simon Stone, the retail director at the shopping outlet, Rev Robert Parker-McGee of St Mary and St Nicolas Church, Spalding Youth Council chairman Alexis Bradshaw and Boston College’s Lynette Leith are all confirmed at being part of the Spalding Town Board.
Agenda and minutes of the group’s meetings, which are not public, are not regularly being kept up to date.
But the most recent minutes published from a meeting on February 9 state that its chairman Robin Hancox told the committee that the ‘new guidance set out a stronger expectation for increased resident representation, with at least half of each board to be made up of local people’.
He went on to say that there had been ‘a number of expressions of interest’ to join the board.
Mr Stone had been invited to attend that meeting in an observer capacity.
Miss Bradshaw, a pupil at Spalding High School, had also been invited and Mr Hancox emphasised ‘the importance of involving younger residents in shaping the ten-year programme’, the minutes state.
Other new board members include Rev Parker-McGee, who took over as the priest at the parish church in July last year.
He is the second member of the board from a religious organisation with Alistair Main on it as a representative of The Lighthouse Church.
The original board included Claire Foster as the principal of Boston College, which has a campus in Spalding.
She has now stepped down and, according to the minutes of the February 9 meeting wanted to ‘focus on her responsibilities as chairman of the Boston Town Board’.
Ms Leith has replaced her as college principal and takes the position on the board.
The board members who weren’t on it when it started are Spalding Business Improvement District manager Sarah Fletcher who has replaced Spalding Business Board members Craig Delaney and Catherine Duce, Jacqui Bunce who is the programme directors for strategic partnerships, planning and strategic estates for the NHS Lincolnshire Integrated Care Board, Simon Wright, the places manager at Lincolnshire County Council and Dr Batul Dungerwalla, the deputy CEO of Lincolnshire Community Voluntary Service.
There are 11 still on the board including four elected politicians, Coun Nick Worth, Coun Gary Taylor, Coun Rob Gibson and MP Sir John Hayes (who the legislation states has to be on it).
Also on the board are Petronella Keeling, of Spalding Gentlemen’s Society, David Ball, of Bridge Farm, Emma Tatlow, of Active Lincolnshire, Stewart Elderkin, of PEDALS and Inspector Matt Dickinson, of Lincolnshire Police.
