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ONE Haverhill has featured in two national-level events in the past couple of weeks.

The group was invited to speak at a national communities conference and then was quizzed by Government ministers about the town’s community budget.

Sarah Howard, chairman of ONE Haverhill Board, represented the partnership at the seventh Annual Communities Conference in London on Thursday, November 21, where she spoke about how Haverhill’s Community Budget came about.

Then on Tuesday, November 26, Sarah was invited to take part in a ministerial round-table event hosted by Stephen Williams MP at the Department for Local Government and Communities at Westminster.

Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Charities, Social Enterprise and Volunteering Nick Hurd MP and Minister of State for Crime Prevention Norman Baker MP had a chance to ask about the Haverhill’s successful community budget.

Also present were Glen Mason, director for people, communities and local government; Andrew Battarbee, deputy director for skills at BIS; and Cllr Peter Fleming, leader of Sevenoaks Council and chair of the LGA's improvement board.

At the event, four pilot projects were asked to talk about their community budgets to ministers and senior Government officials from six different departments and had an opportunity to tell them how they thought the Government could contribute further.

Sarah said: “This was a great opportunity to shout nationally about the great work organisations in Haverhill are doing and how we are working together for the good of the community.

“Nick Hurd was particularly interested in involving chambers and business and they all appreciated that one of the successes of the pilots is that people care about their immediate community and are willing and able to put some time into it.

“As a pilot in the Neighbourhood Community Budget scheme, now called Our Place, Haverhill was one of only 12 UK pilots to test if a community budget could work. We are proud of the achievements and I was privileged to represent such a fantastic partnership.”