A late report on the Parish Council December Meeting
BECAUSE OF the earlier copy date last month it wasn't possible to include a Crier Report on the December PC Meeting. But there were important topics and a few nuggets are given below.
- ECDC are conducting trials to see whether Garbage Collection can be reduced to once a fortnight. The first trial was held at Witchford but the results were inconclusive because during the week of no collection the good citizens of Witchford dumped all the rubbish on Grunty Fen. The Swaffhams were to be included in the next trial but, with the above experience, ECDC left us out and confined the trial to Bottisham, Lode and Longmeadow. Make of that what you will.
- The application for a 30,000 attendance Pop Festival at Lode has been approved. Last year an application for 10,000 was turned down. The three councillors on the Licensing Committee came from Ely, Littleport and Fordham to ensure they had no interest which might affect their decision. Not that this matters because under the unfortunate Licensing Act of 2003 the only objections allowed are those from the police, highways department, fire service. Even though probably 98% of Lode residents object, this counts as nothing. And neither do the objections of neighbouring villages in spite of being "interested parties" who may be affected by the possible arrival of an extra 11,000 cars in the area. It could happen in our parish. If you think this is bad just consider what will happen if Kate Barker's recommendations come in to effect.
- The Development of the Water Tower Site. Saville's had submitted to the PC a plan containing five additional houses to the two already approved. Geoffrey Woollard jumped in to take charge of the discussion, and, though acknowledging that he does not live in the village, he thought we needed the houses, that our limited development status was illjudged (partly blaming his old adversary Margaret Cook for this), and that it would be silly not to welcome the houses. !00% to Geoffrey for his enthusiasm, his oratory, and his commitment. But Geoffrey is a natural developer and for this he should be treated with caution, for the following reasons. In 1988/89 a proposal was put forward for a 2,000 house development at Nine Mile Hill. At the July 1989 PC Meeting "County Councillor Geoffrey Woollard had declared an interest, and been asked by ECDC Councillor Mrs Cook to leave the chamber before the discussion started." Eventually the proposal was turned down.
At about the same time, perhaps a little earlier, an application had been made for housing on what became known as the Dencora Field. The person applying was the owner - Geoffrey Woollard. I am not sure of the details but there may have been two applications before the field was sold to Dencora. Then began another saga, the story of which many know well and which is well recorded in the Crier.
The point of this is that Geoffrey does like to develop and the meeting was brought back to order when a member asked what local people thought. The answer was that virtually everyone was against the development. One member noted that "Those exploiting the site have no interest in the village." Eric Day said that his father Bert Day had been forced to sell the land in about 1937 so that the village could have a water supply. Now that the land is no longer needed for that purpose he thought it should be returned to agriculture. This seems to be an interesting though possibly impractical proposal - but we can see what he means and there is a logic to what he says. The PC will tell Saville's that its previous opinion and objections have not changed.