About us

Standish Voice was created at a public meeting in July, 2014, in the wake of Wigan Council’s planning committee agreeing to a number of housing schemes for the village.

In the first half, outline permission was granted for around 1,200 homes in Standish.

Standish Voice believes the building of these new homes – now around 1,600 – is bringing major challenges for the village, but can also bring opportunities, and local people need to have a say in the planning and delivery of these estates and the infrastructure required to serve them.

Wigan Council has acknowledged that substantial infrastructure investment is needed to ensure the new homes fit in with the existing community and Standish Voice will campaign to get the level of funding that is needed.

Standish needs a strong voice, which is why we applied to become a Neighbourhood Forum. Our application was successful and now were are the first statutory body representing the whole of Standish for more than 40 years.

A Neighbourhood Forum has the power to create Neighbourhood Plans for the village, which are blueprints for the improvement of our community over the coming decades.

We want Standish people to be at the heart of shaping those plans and consult widely in order to do that. Anyone who lives or works in Standish can be a member of Standish Voice, free of charge. As of January, 2023, we have 1,730 members in the village.

We also believe the community spirit within Standish needs to be enhanced and we continue to publicise and organise events to help do that, including Standish Christmas Market.

Standish Voice also tries to be an ‘umbrella’ organisation for all the great clubs and
groups already in Standish by bringing them together when necessary and publicising the great work they do, if they wish.

Please help us by becoming a member (you can sign up on this website or can do so at one of our meetings), give us your opinions, become part of the committee when we have a vacancy or join one of our sub-groups.

Above all, Standish Voice believes Standish is, at heart, a great place in which to live and work – and, with your help, it can become even better!

Standish Voice holds its Annual General Meetings in January where reports are given, our accounts are presented and committee members and officers are elected.

Each committee member serves a three-year tenure before standing down. They can ask to be re-elected. If you want to stand as a committee member, please read our constitution and contact us about how you can contribute.

Click on the links to read our constitution and our values. Our constitution was altered at the 2017 and 2020 AGMs to reflect the changing priorities of Standish Voice.

Committee

Currently, the committee is made up of 15 people, the maximum number, who serve a three-year term before standing for re-election if they wish.

The committee is:

Gill Foster – chair

Paul Ogden – vice chair

Karen Bliss – treasurer

Ron Wade

Fran Aiken

Janet Monks

Sarah Djali

Kathy Robertson

Rev Andrew Holliday

Ian Trafford

Nicky Ogden

Allan Foster

Diane Gore

Sharon Gerrard

Judith Atherton

To get in touch with us, email standishneighbourhoodforum@gmail.com

Facebook Policy updated

Debate on our posts on the Standish Voice Facebook page is warmly welcomed but this needs to be carried out in a respectful manner. We engender discussion on the challenges we face in Standish but this must be done in a respectful way.

We will not tolerate people making untrue or derogatory comments about Standish Voice, its committee or its members. There are other forums where these remarks can be published. We have around 1,860 members and 15 of them are on our committee. We are all volunteers who want the best for Standish and put in lots of hard work to make the village better for everyone, alongside our councillors and many other community groups.

Our policy is to delete comments made on the Standish Voice Facebook page – or its sister Facebook page Standish Christmas Market – which include libel, swearing, racism, abuse, overt aggression or malicious untruths. Our page admins decide if our rules have been breached.

People we believe have flagrantly disregarded these rules will be warned and then banned if they continue. If the breach is egregious they will be banned outright. If a comment is deleted, that is a warning. Other comments of a less serious nature will be ‘hidden’ from public view.

Standish Voice has 13,007 people following its Facebook page (June 9th, 2024). We will not let a handful of people poison it for all the others. We live in a community and we need to respect each other.

As of June 9th, 2024, only 14 people have been banned from commenting on the Standish Voice Facebook page.

Facebook users have the ability to tag or add photos to comments but this ability can be prevented if the site admin decides this. We have several site admins, who are all members of the Standish Voice committee.

On our Facebook page, only genuine profiles will be allowed to comment on our posts, any fake profiles will be blocked from the page.

Standish Voice may also use Question And Answer sessions to put over information to make sure truthful information is given out. Q&As will be for a set time and only one comment or statement will be allowed to give time for us to respond properly.

UPDATED June 9th, 2024