COUNCILLORS want to go out and engage more with local people in Wellington rather than wait for the people to come and speak to them.

Wellington Town Council’s newly-formed community committee met on May 20 where it discussed a proposal to create a community engagement plan in 2024-25.

Town clerk Dave Farrow said: “We need to look at how we engage with the public and how the public can engage with us.

“If we hold a community event we will get the usual suspects coming along to speak to us, which isn’t a bad thing, but you know what I mean.

“But if we went out into different parts of the community we would meet more people. I like the idea of having a pop-up gazebo which we could take around the town and go out to meet the people rather than asking the people to come to us.”

Cllr Andrew Govier said: “I think community engagement is very difficult. People are not really interested in what the council is doing in the main, apart from, perhaps, discussing certain planning applications.

“I don’t think we need to spend too much time on community engagement. It’s important, but it’s one of those things that we might not get a lot out of it.”

But the Deputy Mayor, Cllr Catherine Govier, said: “I do like the idea of going out to people and engaging with them.”

Councillors agreed that the council should look to develop a community engagement plan for the future.