From our Reporter in the Parish Council Meeting
To avoid frightening any long-standing readers, I'll say now: Alastair
Everitt is alive and well as far as I know and this was his idea. I've only
attended one PCM before, back when young men entertained themselves for years
making our lives hell driving motorbikes up and down at the end of our garden.
So I plead for clemency in advance if I got anything wrong.
I can say they are a jolly lot, to begin with at least, making merry as I was trying to check who was who, by all claiming to be Geoffrey Woollard. I tell you this not as a by-the-by but to encourage you all to take an interest because a vacancy has arisen and you should know that they are a good lot and not to be afraid of putting yourself up for a seat. The first item was the resignation of Mr J Jordon for work reasons. Can it go in the Crier? Of course. (Even your humble novice reporter was sized up later as they wondered who might be interested, but I told them I don't think I'm Parish Council material. Ah yes, maintain the independence of the press, said Geoffrey, with a gleam). This resignation puts a damper on things, said one, but the next item brightened things a bit: there is to be a review of the so-called traffic calming at Quy.
A kind of equilibrium was restored.
Geoffrey then congratulated our new CCC rep David Brown on getting onto the Local Government Association (LGA) in seemingly just a few days - it had taken him about ten years, he said. Hooray. So we were now fully cheerful again. But serious business then landed upon us. Valuable historic papers are coming up for auction at Sotheby's relating to the draining of the Fens - a subject close to Cllr Woollard's heart - and he asked that Cllr Brown do what can be done to ensure Cambridge Archives acquire them? (Plinths and £300K given to Antony Gormley got a mention here). David said he had a meeting the next day with the relevant body.
They are a gymnastically minded lot, the Parish Council: a deft flick of the mind from heritage principles to low life activity: flytipping was next. Most stuff previously noted in certain locations has gone apart from tree loppings but there was some doubt about Barston Drove. It was supposed to have been cleared but what with the rain, possibly not. Silent exasperation.
Then to more formal waste disposal: do we all know that from October rubbish and recycling will all be on the same day - Thursday? (I didn't, but that may be my fault). Same frequency ie recycling on alternate weeks, rubbish weekly. It is intended to ensure rubbish spends less time on the kerb, cut the number of rounds made, save fuel and cut emissions.(Can we expect a Council tax cut, then?) On to more enduring things: the church clock. A site meeting is to be held with the tree officer to obtain their opinion on getting line of sight of said clock. If you can see it where you couldn't see it before, something has happened. Till then, it's still under discussion.
And to things that might or might not endure in future: The Reach Lode Bridge. To join Wicken and Anglesey Abbey for walkers and cyclists. Is it a controversy? A temperature rise was detected. What was the policy on this edifice? Allen Alderson didn't have the info. Are we likely to get a planning application? It does fall to SP PC. Geoffrey had a head of steam up now. 3m wide. 20ft high, he says. (deft switch from metric to imperial) We don't want it going through on a delegated officers' decision. Cost - there was some disbelief that £300K will cover it. Cllr Woollard is keen that we all take an interest - "It's enormous" He said (present tense? Is it lurking somewhere waiting to slip across the Lode while we are not looking?) Like the Orwell Bridge, he says. Only not as elegant. Not as useful either, he added. But perhaps he's happy to drive twice as far to Wicken Fen - some of us look forward to the day we can cycle there in the same time as it would have taken to drive. (Reporter's note: How to decide what else to include? I'm on side 2 of 6 sides of notes).
General correspondence - lots. Mill Hill - Cllr Alderson favours a reduction of speed limit to 30mph. Sounds like he's not he only one. General outrage at the van that took out two of the nice new wooden posts and nothing has replaced them (nb two plastic ones have since appeared opposite the surviving wooden ones - can the people who do those makeover programmes start a roadside version? I'm no style guru but even I can see it looks awful). Apparently they have to order new wooden ones. Methinks a stock of spares when ordering the first ones wouldn't have been a bad idea.
The touchpaper was lit now - we were on to bonfires. Mr Montero has my vote if he's planning to stand for the vacancy. He's brought this up. But he wasn't with us. Should we defer till we have Mr Montero's presence? - GW. But Karen King, our assiduous clerk, had already sought E cambs guidance - there are no bylaws which forbid or restrict bonfires, but it is advised that bonfires should not cause a smoke nuisance and be lit only when absolutely necessary. (what the heck is absolutely necessary? When is there absolutely no alternative but to burn something, since the days of Joan of Arc?) John Covill, our calm and thoughtful chair, spoke for all in saying that anything bonfired should be what burns quickly, without much smoke and especially not green waste that smoulders he (my italics. Bonfire folk, I declare an interest. Fairview Grove and the old folk in the Beeches get it worse than most). Peter Hart: discourage bonfires, encourage shredding. Hear hear. Peter Almond: how do we discourage? (mental note: my answer tells me why I am not suitable PC material).
But we were on an antisocial roll now. Bird scarers - someone was being woken at 6am. GW - pigeons are quite capable of starting breakfast at 3.30am and feeding till 11pm (mental note - what do they need wings for, then? They'll be pretty useless after all that eating and they have no headlights for night flight). Rural noise, said Peter Hart. A balance is required, said Geoffrey, who knows more than some about farming. No-one present had heard them recently. Cllr Alderson recalled having had a problem once with bird scarers, phoned the farmer and that had fixed it. There you go, then. So long as you know who to phone (do they put 'How's my banging? Phone 0845...'on those things?) you can sort it.
Down to earth again - onto dog fouling now. Or rather, we weren't, but they were. Swaffham Bulbeck are looking to increase their number of bins. Competitive hackles were almost visibly rising. If SP wants to join the scheme the council would add a further 2 to the 6 bins we might buy. They will instal. Bulbeck have already installed. Does it reduce the problem? The novelty seems to have worn off in Bulbeck, apparently. Hackles lowered again.
Who empties the bins? Why, Veolia, of course. On Thursdays, from October. A triple benefit, then...
Cllr Woollard made a confession. He had been provoked, he said, at a neighbourhood panel meeting, where the Chair had said the increase in fouling was due to the dog warden being away. It's not, he'd retorted: it's stupid dogs with stupid owners. (Several councillors at this point rushed to the defence of the dogs). We need to gather evidence! Someone said. Interesting if not entirely focused discussion ensued regarding CCTV with slow motion replays, and vigilante groups (- Steve Kent -Phillips, but I'm pretty sure he wasn't offering to start one) in which my notes record Cllr Woollard saying 'Let's get right behind 'em'and David Almond: 'It's not nice carrying it in your hand. It'd be nice if there was a bin within 100 yards.'But I think this did include the use of a plastic bag.
A voice of reason cut though this, fortunately - much more of the above and I'd have not been able to continue writing. Sandra Gynn: 'When we've got our bins people might be more community aware.'
Everything after this was an anticlimax. The Pound sign needs repairs (there's a joke in there somewhere, submit yours to next issue of the Crier) Peter Hart will look at what needs doing.
Village hall driveway repairs, and Eric Day will oversee cutting back of the driveway vegetation but he warned he is not a moderate in these things. It will be more than a gentle trim.
Planning applications - fences, windows, utility rooms added to the Mill Hill conurbation, rendering now not being rendered; the utility rooms didn't seem to add much; the only bit that seemed to matter was that nobody was standing for a chain link fence between the new houses and around the boundary. 2 metre high closeboard as previously agreed or nothing. Except that nothing wasn't one of the options. So that settled that.
Clerk's report - the cemetery water supply is an issue. Pony keepers in adjacent field, turn the tap off when finished. Or else. Andrew has cleared the cemetery path - a job well done. I was put in mind of the number of times I've thought that a lot of people in small communities sem to think there is some council fairy that comes round and makes their area functional and pleasant. But it's not. It's local people making an effort. So take a look outside your own front doors and see what you can do. (nb: it's a good while since SP was a serious contender for best kept village - why's that, then?) The village seats need a coat of something with some urgency. Someone suggested scouts do it. I was keen to provide my daughter & friends with brushes and pots of wood preserver but it will take a more skilled hand. Neighbourhood panel - mutterings at the news that our village hall is considered too small to host such an event. (I've always been told that it's in a downturn that plans for expansion should be made. Any takers?)
Very sad, though, is the continuing vandalism of the memorial noticeboard in the bus shelter. There is a long and dishonourable culture of grafitti in this country and in a bus shelter anything that can be will be. This correspondent confesses that yes, that might have been me in my teenage days a long time ago, but I wonder if I would have defaced anything that said it was a memorial? It needs a new but still central location, and several ideas were put forward. Also, someone in Fairview Grove had asked for a noticeboard but when grilled in open questions, this writer did not feel he had a mandate to speak for our little community as such. Inconclusive. Any ideas? Send them to the Crier and/or any PC member. I took a few notes in the open questions part of the meeting but nothing coherent remains except:
'You can't see the church clock? We're going to move the church, mate'. ...why did I write that?