From our Reporter at the Parish Council Meeting
This may have been the fullest PC Meeting in the history of the village
-arriving with 5 minutes to spare and expecting to join one other member of the
public in the visitors'gallery, I was lucky to get a seat, and they kept
coming. When there was no room for any more inside, they clustered round the
window to listen from the outside. This was of course all to do with the news
that had been flashing round the village for the previous couple of days about
a proposal from East Cambs for a permanent Gipsy (yes, that's what it says
in the official document) encampment on Heath Road. One got the impression that
the idea was not universally welcomed...
The Chairman very sensibly suspended the business of the PC meeting to allow for a period of consultation on the issue, which he (also very sensibly) proposed should last not more than 30 minutes, and very nearly kept them to it.
First up on behalf of the PC was Steve K-P, who had managed to work through enough of 107 pages of the Local Development Framework document to identify the relevant bits in their context, and gave his opinion that they (ECDC) were trying it on, flying lots of kites to see what happened, and pointed out that even if it did proceed, there could be no agreement before 2013. He suggested that a concerted campaign during the consultation period would see the end of it.
Various PC members followed up with observations, including that the site lies outside the village envelope -which may mean that the PC can veto it, that the document states that there is a shortage of spaces in this corner of the District, although there are already two sites nearby, and that the Government had just scrapped the relevant Targets, so why was the Council going ahead with the proposal anyway? Further points made from the public gallery included the effect on housing values, that it did not comply with the current planning rules for the village, that the school is over-subscribed, and that the land belonged to the CC, not ECDC, and the CC's rules might not allow them to sell it for the purpose.
Several people noted that the document claimed to have been prepared 'following discussion with the County Council'; David Brown, our CC Councillor, was adamant that he had not been consulted, and didn't know of anyone who had. It may have been fortunate for Allen Alderson (ECDC Councillor) that he was away on holiday, for he would certainly have been given a hard time even though he probably knew nothing about it either. There was a general feeling that the whole thing had been deliberately kept quiet by ECDC, who had tried to slide it out under the radar.
The informal session finished with agreement that the first move should be for everyone to make use of the consultation facility on the ECDC website, make their views known and list grounds for objection. There was a suggestion amongst the public that people might be prepared to club together to hire the services of a specialist advisor to take the matter further, and an agreement to hold a public meeting to pursue the whole matter further (a meeting has subsequently been arranged for Tuesday 13 July at the Village Hall).
At this point the PC was left to get on with its routine business, and rattled through the formalities before embarking on the Agenda. David Brown presented his report on CC matters, which have been dominated by lots of input from the Government about cuts in budgets and specific projects (A14, Chesterton Station) and lots of meetings about nearly everything (except the ECDC document...). Of local interest is the fact Burwell has a problem with water and energy provision (hang on a minute -energy? Burwell? must have written that down wrong) and that there will be changes to the bus timetable (one can only hope..). Then they got into a string of points about litter and moved on -so shall I. Karen listed all the Consultation Documents which the PC should have absorbed and be prepared to talk about, and did a good impression of a teacher expressing doubt that her pupils really had done their homework - she would now make sure everything was available on the web, so no more excuses (my pet gerbil ate the wire from the modem -honest).
Planning permission -yes, the listed barn which fell down can be rebuilt, no it will no longer need Listed Building status because it will be new, yes to works at the rear of a house in Lower End, ECDC seem to want 6 copies of paperwork about mending the Pound -or perhaps not, their letter wasn't clear.
Odds and Ends included the tale of a tree (or more than one tree) at the allotments which may (or may not) have been planted years ago and recently removed again - all very difficult to follow, but apologies are being offered if anyone has felt aggrieved by some former statements on the subject. Discussions on who is responsible for the Beeches footpath and lack of clearly-needed handrail, new hiring charges for the Village Hall, a new tap at the allotments, and a very positive safety inspection of the play area. The Cubs have been at it again, excelling themselves in setting up their new home on land off the Cadenham -S K-P attended their opening party, was most impressed and reported that a donation made by the PC was being well spent. He anticipated a further request for funds to help put up a gate 'to deter unauthorised campers', and would encourage the PC to be generous again.
Eventually everything came back inevitably to discussion about the ECDC proposal, with lots more input from various Councillors - Geoffrey reminded everyone about the 1968 Caravan Sites Act which gave councils a duty to provide for people who 'reside in or resort to'the area -important considering the number of regulars that passing through. He let everyone know after the meeting that this particular Act is in fact no longer in force, but the principle behind it remains. Because the ECDC document only surfaced a couple of days before the PC meeting, it was not on the agenda, so could not formally be responded to. So the Chairman exercised for the first time a little-used procedure by which he could propose to add an emergency item to the agenda, and so it was; this allowed the committee to make their discussions official and resolve to send an initial letter expressing their opposition to the plan and listing the principle headings for objections to which the detail will be added later.
The survivors made it to the pub by about 10.00, met up with the remnants of the earlier crowd, and the discussions started all over again. We haven't heard the last of this.