CORPORATE plans for both Dorchester and Weymouth town councils are underway – but are waiting for Dorset Council to decide its plan for the future.

Weymouth councillors will be getting together this Saturday to discuss ideas while a similar exercise has already been held in Dorchester, aided by an external facilitator.

Both towns are likely to produce a ‘wish list’ of things they would like to achieve from the exercise and to set out their financial strategy for the years ahead, but Dorchester town clerk Adrian Stuart has told councillors: “the big gap in our knowledge remains the impact of service changes at Dorset Council and it would be unwise to commit to new initiatives until the full implication of these is known.”

The Dorchester council had been hoping to put its draft corporate plan out the public consultation next month and then re-work as necessary until the end of the year, adopting the new plan and a new medium term financial strategy in January.

Cllr Molly Rennie, who sits on both councils, said at a policy committee meeting on Tuesday evening that the Dorset Council strategy was in the process of being developed in a series of workshops and would, eventually, come to town and parish councils and others for their views. She said she was unsure of the timetable for this.

Cllr Alistair Chisholm said he hoped the process would be transparent: ”So far Dorset Council don’t seem to have made this very public..they did say that others would also be involved in their corporate plan and let’s hope they are, if not their rhetoric will count for nothing.”