East Cambridgeshire District Council

A new community website is looking for a select band of local people who care about where they live to become community reporters for ShapeYourPlace – East Cambridgeshire.

The award winning project which began in Fenland in 2010 is a one stop site for everything to do with the place where people live and is coming to a number of locations in East Cambridgeshire this Spring.

For the first time in East Cambridgeshire, residents can go online and join in conversations with local public services and each other. Residents can also vote in polls on local issues and find out what happened at the last Neighbourhood Panel.

ShapeYourPlace links with the local councils, the Police, the Fire and Rescue Service, the Health Service and many other organisations to ensure when issues are raised an answer can be found.

To succeed the new websites need volunteer community reporters who can be trained to write about and video community issues, events and give free publicity to community groups.

This is an important part of ensuring the sites reflect the issues which people want to talk, hear and read about.

Cllr Mac McGuire, Deputy Leader at Cambridgeshire County Council said: "ShapeYourPlace has been a fantastic success in Fenland where towns such as March and Wisbech have developed a real voice through their respective sites. So it is great news that the community website is coming to East Cambridgeshire. Each ShapeYourPlace website follows its own path, developing an identity of its own. Far from being a place to raise problems they have become a forum to celebrate all the good things which happen in the place you live, work and care about."

Councillor Anna Bailey, Vice Chair of the Community and Environment Sub- Committee at East Cambridgeshire District Council, said: "From what I have seen from Fenland, being a community reporter on ShapeYourPlace looks like an incredible experience. You get to meet some really inspiring and interesting people while being able to report on the things you care most about. The beauty of ShapeYourPlace is it brings together all the people, organisations and groups which go to make up a community and gives them a forum to discuss the issues they want to talk about. So if you think you have what it takes to become a community reporter than get in touch."

ShapeYourPlace is part of a new approach by East Cambridgeshire District Council and Cambridgeshire County Council to look at innovative ways to talk to and listen to communities and give them power to influence local decision making.

Free training is on offer for anyone wanting to volunteer as a community reporter. Contact Matthew Hall on 01223 699493 or email matthew.hall@cambridgeshire.gov.uk