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CHAIRMANS ANNUAL REPORT 2010 Cringleford Parish Council Annual Report for 2009/10 Councillors, parishioners, Ladies and Gentlemen. Another year has flown by and it is time for our annual Parish “board meeting” to review all that has gone on and all that we have to look forward to in the coming year. I use the term board meeting because, although we are all unpaid volunteers we are in fact running a company with an annual turnover this year of around £350K. This figure is considerably higher than in previous years because of a section 106 payment we have received. This has been an interesting and busy year. We have had a fair amount of turnover within the Council this year for various reasons. In April 2009 Lavinia Gordon-Grey and Andrea Nunney both resigned and were replaced by Len Stroud and George James. In January 2010 Colin Freeman wished to retire and tendered his resignation from the Council. Colin was replaced in February by Graham Barber following a close ballot. We were very pleased to have had 5 excellent candidates to choose from at that time and it is hoped that the unsuccessful candidates are still interested in joining the council as Iain Ames has indicated that for personal reasons he will be resigning following tonight’s Parish Council meeting. Anne will advertise the vacancy as it arises. We are very sorry to have lost all of the departing councillors and I would like to take this opportunity to thank them all for all the hard work they put in over the years. To the new councillors I extend a warm welcome to their first Annual Parish Meeting and thank them for taking on this interesting and sometimes challenging role as a Parish Councillor. I said it has been an interesting an busy year and just some of things that have occurred throughout the year, and in no particular order, are:- The refurbishment of the children's playground and installation of the aerial runway – The refurbished children's play area had it's official opening in September. As Chairman I was delighted to perform this task and we had an excellent turnout including, some of our Councillors and staff, representatives from all the funding bodies, our new Vicar Reverend Heather Butcher and children and staff from Cringleford school along with several villagers. Cringleford WI also attended and presented a pic-nic bench to the council for use in the play ground. Round House Park development – Round House Park continues to grow and we are in constant discussions with the Joint Core Strategy Team to discuss the proposals for extra development in the area over and above the dwellings already sanctioned. We are making representations on density, quantity and the style of properties we would like to see and reporting back on lessons learned from the existing development such as car parking and road width. The Council has also repeatedly requested a post box for Dragonfly Lane and one was finally installed in January 2010. It may seem a small and insignificant victory but the residents were delighted and it is with the seemingly small and insignificant where a Parish Council can make a difference to the lives of the parishioners. Discussions re the revised Section 106 – alongside the proposals for additional development the Council are in discussions with the developers and South Norfolk Council to get a revised share of Section 106 monies to enable us to increase the facilities that we shall be expected to provide for additional residents. As I mentioned earlier we have received this year a sizeable amount of the original section 106 money and this has enabled us to add to our grounds staff in order to help maintain the additional land and verges. We are also in negotiation to buy additional equipment for the extra work and the Clerk and the grounds staff have been test driving tractors and grass cutters. We will need the extra equipment soon as we have to date adopted the Public Open Space in Lobelia Lane and Public Open Space and Play area in Dragonfly Lane and other areas will soon follow. Community centre discussions- coupled with the Section 106 discussions are the plans for the new community centre and the Council will soon be instigating a forum for other interested parties or potential users to participate in the preparation of the list of requirements. Speedwatch – Our speedwatch volunteers have been trained and are waiting on the speedwatch co-ordinators to instruct them further. This is not happening as quickly as the Council anticipated and as a member of the Northern River Valleys SNAP I have continuously brought this matter up. Unfortunately even trained volunteers have to be set a site and times by the co-ordinators and this is controlled by the police who are claiming lack of personnel. Norwich Unitary status – The Council have petitioned strenuously not to be included in any extended Norwich boundary for Unitary Status as the majority of the representations to the Council indicated that the residents of Cringleford did not want to be City residents. At the time of writing Norwich City Council had been awarded Unitary Status on its existing boundaries but before it can be ratified a judicial review has been instigated by Norfolk County Council and the outcome of this must be decided first. If this does happen we are aware of the potential for boundary creep when and if Unitary status is ratified and we will be constantly vigilant on this matter to try to ensure our village stays a village and doesn't become part of an impersonal Unitary authority to whom we will be financial resources rather than people. Overhanging shrubs- this has been and continues to be an ongoing issue, mainly because the hedges and shrubs keep growing, and whilst we realise that some residents find the council's stance over this somewhat inflexible we will continue to strive to see that the pavements and footpaths of the village are accessible to all. No Cold Calling Zone – Tungate Crescent has joined Brettingham Avenue as a No Cold Calling Zone. Fraudulent cheques passed on the Parish Council account – In April 2009 the Clerk had a phone call from HSBC to notify her that someone was passing fraudulent cheques on the Parish Council's bank account, we had apparently bought a car! This happened again in June with 2 more cheques. The bank acted in a most speedy and professional manner in contacting us and refunded all monies taken from the account and the Parish Council lost nothing over this. The matter has been dealt with by the police. Unfortunately because of the closure of HSBC in Eaton in January the Parish Council has moved their accounts to Barclays but as I say this is nothing to do with the service we received from HSBC but purely for location reasons. Changes in staff – as I mentioned earlier we have had some staff changes. Nick Clark has finished his trial period and has joined the staff on a permanent basis. He has proved a valuable member of staff and is settling in well. Mandy Farrow has decided not to continue as the Clerical Assistant and resigned in December. It was decided that the Parish Clerk would take on the role on a temporary basis until we got the new community centre built and we could better assess the staffing needs that would then be required. Here I would like to mention the Council's staff of Anne Barnes the Clerk, and Chris Meeson and Nick Clark the groundspersons. They do an excellent job of keeping this village such a pleasant place to live and I need to take this opportunity to say thank you to them. Much of what they do is over and above the call of duty and they all take such pride in their work. Anne has completed quite a range of qualifications this year as part of her ongoing professional development and to comply with the requirements of Quality Parish status. Our thanks also go to our district and county councillors. Chris Kemp and Gary Wheatley our district councillors have ensured that one or the other of them have attended all meetings and have given us invaluable advice over the year and kept us fully informed of everything we needed to know particularly with the Norwich Unitary bid. Judith Virgo was a regular attendant during her time as County Councillor. Judith was replaced by Daniel Cox last May. Our police representatives are also regular contributors to our meetings and give us regular updates on the crime figures for Cringleford. Thankfully these are usually fairly minor crimes although distressing enough for the victims. We did, however, have a major crime last November when tragically we had a double murder in Brettingham Avenue and I would like to offer the Councils condolences to the families of the victims. I would also like to praise the police who reacted very swiftly to re-assure local residents that the perpetrator had been apprehended and that they had nothing to worry about. They also kept the Clerk regularly informed so she could answer enquiries from worried residents. As with all annual board meetings we have to finish by looking forward to the next 12 months. I am sure it will be much of the same. We will be discussing Round House Park, the Community Centre and all the associated development issues. We will be watching Norwich Unitary for developments and stop them trying to sneak us under the wire. We will be marking out football and cricket pitches and checking hedges. We will be taking care of playground equipment and cutting grass verges. We will be following a plan of woodland management to preserve the trees and wildlife. We will no doubt be discussing speeding, parking and access issues and the state of the roads none of which are technically part of the Council's responsibility but the residents will still report it to the Council and expect us to act for them and we will because it is what we do. One thing that I am looking forward to is that I shall be setting up a group to discuss the village celebrations for the Diamond Jubilee in 2012, those that remember the success of the Golden Jubilee celebrations on 2002 will understand why we are keen to do it again as it was such a great weekend for the village community. I am planning to include all and any interested groups from the village. I know June 2012 is 2 years away but the Council feel that if we give ourselves plenty of time to plan we can put on a weekend to remember. I have one final thank you and that is to the rest of the “board of directors” my fellow councillors. You give freely of your time and expertise purely on a voluntary basis but without your interest and dedication none of the above would be possible. On behalf of the village I thank you. Susan Mackinnon Chairman Cringleford Parish Council April 8th 2010 |
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E-Mail - cringleford.pc@tiscali.co.uk |  |