That Village Assembly
The annual Village Meeting was better attended than the last one I went to (three years ago, I think - oh dear). They even had to put some more chairs. A good start.
Proceedings started with the PC report, which in turn started with a group photo on the large projection screen (a welcome technological advance) to help us identify the current PC members (the usual suspects.. plus some newer blood). Alas, the naming did not progress logically from one side to the other, so I'm still a bit confused about one or two. Never mind - attend more PC meetings, and get to know them.
They seem to have done their usual excellent job throughout the year, and dealt with a wide range of routine matters including: The Play Area (improved, new attractions, got a grant, thank you Steve), granted money to good causes (school pool, Village Hall oil tank), street signs (Highways Dept still bonkers, Jonathan Cook making a new post for the bottom of Rogers Road), planning applications (Chapel conversion approved, water tower site sold on to another developer). Then we get on to the more serious stuff - Affordable Housing - Hastow, who gave an interesting presentation last year, haven't found a site in the village, but another organisation may have done - the PC are pleased, but only if it turns out to be in the right place (can't have them putting up these things just anywhere, you know). There's a bit of village policy for you - make a note; it comes back later in this report..
Then the big one - Mill Hill traffic. Pressure from the PC and the CC has succeeded in getting a £30,000 grant to the Highways Authority for traffic calming on Mill Hill, and there were plans on display. Residents of Mill Hill were not impressed, and a lengthy discussion ensued. It became apparent that £30k really won't go very far, and various regulations seem to make the obvious solutions impossible. For reasons that must make sense to someone we cannot a) reduce the speed limit, b) widen the road to allow for Six Mile Bottom-style chicanes, c) have a pedestrian crossing or d) big nasty speed bumps. Geoffrey made a big thing of the proposed island in the middle of the road, but it turns out to be narrower than the average pedestrian. The only practical suggestion was to use the £30k to buy, tax and insure a number of old bangers and leave them badly parked at awkward intervals along the kerb. It is a shame that all the effort that people have put into this still can't make the lives of Mill Hill pedestrians any safer.
On to the National Trust's 'Wicken Fen Vision' plan, which would swamp most of the land between here and Cambridge, as picked apart by (who else but) Geoffrey. From his perspective it really doesn't make sense, destroying good food-growing land and abandoning the lodes. According to him there are plans for a big car park for the wildlife tourists beside the water just beyond the Allix Arms on Station Road, and the Vision will be obscured by huge clouds of insects. If you think as he does, don't forget to fill in the questionnaire on the back of the brochure recently delivered to you by the NT, and hunt for the very little box that indicates that you don't like it. The PC certainly don't.
Hazel Williams presented a report from the County Council - she wasn't impressed by the diligence of some of her colleagues, who can't be bothered to show up for Road Safety meetings. The most interesting fact was that new criteria for funding branch-line loops of the bus service (e.g. Reach and Lode) may lead to improvements in the service, and the most curious is the entry "not serving tea" in my notes about the guided bus service - now what on earth can that have been about?.. She was quizzed about recycling and waste disposal procedures, and happily pointed out that the CC was only responsible for the far end of the chain and any views on the collection should be addressed to Allen. They were. Another little source of happiness was that whilst the County had to pay for free bus trips by senior citizens into Cambridge, the City had to pay to ferry them out again. Tee Hee.
There followed a welcome bit of light relief in the form of the Scouts - now a happy band of some 16 or more who seem to get up to the most wonderfully incorrect things in this day and age, under the influence of Tim Doe and his assistants, who must take great credit for encouraging things like night hikes, making your own shelter to sleep in, cooking on real camp fires and getting wet in rivers. Right on.
Back to ECDC business with Allen - who started off by reading a prepared script in the manner of the speaking clock - I lost track at the third stroke - but then got ambushed by queries about rubbish collection and recycling. Did you know that houses 'down the fen' only have their black bags collected once a fortnight? Not many people knew that, including Allen, who was probably regretting his earlier confident statement that ECDC was one of the few remaining councils who always collected on a weekly basis. The other beef was the limit of four brown recycling sacks provided free on the doorstep; he pointed out (quite reasonably, I thought) that at a time of diminishing budgets it was not a great hardship, particularly as one could always pay for more, or use cardboard boxes instead.
Back on track, he pointed out (as had Hazel) that the rate support grants they received were ridiculously low (£66,000 total for ECDC, doesn't buy many brown bags). He confirmed that the council was 100% in support of his and Hazel's objections to the Environment Agency's plans to abandon the Lodes, and then went on to mention the Neighbourhood Panel. Eh? What's that? (They're in the Crier this month. Eds) Apparently some inter-committee committee - perhaps the one that wants us to have a Parish Plan - should have paid more attention.
Second last on the evening's bill was The Village Hall itself, which has good rate of use (and is presumably a going concern as a result), but still relies on good old-fashioned volunteer labour for such things a spring cleaning. Nowadays o ne must use an expensively-hired scaffolding tower to do the upper bits, and it has to be dismantled and reassembled each time to pass between the ceiling trusses, so the whole thing is a bit of chore. They only want to hire it for one day, which is 26 May, so mark it in your diary and be prepared to roll your sleeves up.
And then finally the closing number - The Parish Plan - a process which every parish is invited to embark upon. The case for doing this was ably presented by John Jordan from the viewpoint of a recently-elected Parish Councillor - when debating Affordable Housing and asking what the village's general opinion is about it - apparently nobody knows (except that it needs to be in the right place.. ). So far, so good - it might indeed be useful to have a consensus about what 'the village' thought about all sorts of things. But then it all started to get complicated, and cool was lost (including mine - never will learn to keep my mouth shut).
An early questioner asked who would make use of the plan - the PC?? Well, yes. But isn't the PC elected to represent the parish? So why do they need it?. At this point Allen stepped in and assured us that ECDC made good use of it - and added that Bulbeck produced a plan several years ago, and their views had therefore been taken into consideration for the Structure Plan. We haven't, so ours aren't. And what's more, there's not much time left so we should get a move on.
Outrage. Cries of Blackmail. Study of some of the handouts available show that it's ECDC who are promoting the idea, and producing lengthy leaflets describing the process. In summary, you establish a committee of committed people who are not already on the PC, who can design questionnaires that stand up to statistical scrutiny, are prepared to pester their neighbours with them, are fluent in GovSpeak, and have a year or two of free time on their hands. The more accessible of the helpful brochures lists a mere 49 bullet points for primary actions.
The workload implied by this far exceeds the reasonable expectations of a Parish Council, and we can't always fill the posts on that. Sorry to sound negative, but there is not a snowball's chance in hell of recruiting and organising these sorts of resources in this parish. So we are likely to remain unconsidered by the ECDC's committees - unless of course our elected representative could make our case for us? After all, he attends the Parish Council meetings, so will know what the village thinks.. .. ..