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CHAIRMANS ANNUAL REPORT 2011 Parishioners, Ladies and Gentlemen, District and County Councillors, Parish Councillors and staff welcome to the 2011 Annual Parish meeting of Cringleford Parish Council. Firstly let me tender apologies for both myself and the deputy chairman, Councillor Tony Chater, who are both unavailable for this meeting and I would like to thank Councillor Ian Bartlett for chairing tonight's meetings and presenting this report on my behalf. I closed last years report with an anticipation that it would be business as usual for 2010 with the day to day tasks of caring for this lovely village coupled with the extra issues of the continuing development of Round House Park, The Community Centre, Norwich Unitary status and making arrangements for the Queens Diamond Jubilee in 2012. Well we have done all that and more and I shall endeavour to cover a busy and packed 12 months as succinctly as possible in this round up of the Parish Year. But before I do that I would just like to explain some of the differing responsibilities held between the Parish Council, South Norfolk District Council and Norfolk County Council. This is by no means a definitive list but covers some of the issues that often get confused as being totally within the remit of the Parish Council. I have to say that anything within the control of the District and County Council we cannot over rule, as much as we would like to sometimes but what we can do is, negotiate, lobby, discuss and generally liaise between all parties to make the views of the Parish Council and the parishioners known. The District Council, South Norfolk, cover things like the environment, environmental health, wheelie bins and waste collection, planning, housing revenues and benefits, community charge, licensing and local elections. The County Council are responsible for Highways, Education, Adult and Children's Social care, waste management and recycling of everything the district councils have collected, parking legislation and management (including the Park and Rides), licensing and monitoring Childcare, Libraries and street lighting. The Parish Council do all the good bits. We look after the village and the local environment. This includes, amongst other things, grass cutting, verge maintenance, woodland management, ensuring safe and enjoyable play areas, some street lighting, providing grit bins and dog poo bins (OK maybe not one of the good bits), hedgerow maintenance, liaising between the parishioners, the Council and the County and District Councils and negotiating with third parties such as the developers. In mentioning all of the above I haven't forgotten the recreation ground in Oakfields Road but I think this deserves a separate mention, along with the Council groundsmen Chris Meeson and Nick Clark, who do a superb job in maintaining the area and indeed the whole village to a very high standard. Whatever the weather or whatever churning up the ground gets when sport is played it is always ready for the next session and as we come to the end of the football season and the beginning of the cricket session I am sure you will all notice the smooth transition. I know they are both looking forward to getting Parklands up and running as soon as we can. Well done Chris and Nick and thank you. Obviously, I can't mention the staff without including Anne Barnes who, as the Parish Clerk and Responsible Financial Officer for the Parish Council, takes a supervisory and line management role in managing the staff and carrying out the wishes of the council. She is very adept at managing the budgets and generally keeping the accounts in order. She advises the councillors well and helps us to maintain our strong financial position. She has been commended by the council on numerous occasions following excellent reports from external auditors and this year was no exception. Thank you Anne – for everything you do. Now to report on some of the other things that the Council have been involved in during the past 12 months. Norwich City Council was granted their Unitary status in April but on existing boundaries and even then their Unitary status was subsequently rescinded in May when there was a change of government. The Council will make sure we monitor and respond should this crop up again. Discussions and negotiations regarding the new Community Centre have taken up a lot of council time and the parish clerk's time. We are nearing a conclusion to the consultations and discussions on the layout and costs of the community centre and Councillors have visited other community centres at Costessey and Poringland and got the feedback from those Parish Councils as to what the good and bad points were, what are the “must haves” and what pitfalls to look out for. We are now happy that we have the scope of the requirements and we are evaluating how much the Parish Council needs to raise towards the cost of this as the section 106 money of £875k will not cover the full building costs. Anti-social and illegal parking in Round House Park has come up on numerous occasions as it is causing a major problem to the residents. In fact it is THE major issue for the residents and it appears to be the one constant niggle on what is a very pleasant place to live. Some of the problem is caused by the residents having more cars than the allotted parking spaces per dwelling or parking in the road rather than the garages or allotted parking spaces but unfortunately it has also become an overflow car park for the hospital, the Science Park and commuters into the city. We have discovered recently that commuters are using Round House Park as a substitute for the Park and Ride ever since Norfolk County Council put the bus fares to a per person fare rather than per car. Apparently it is cheaper to park in Cringleford and get the regular bus into the city rather than pay the Park and Ride fares. I expect this congestion to worsen since the announcement that from 1st April senior bus pass holders will be charged £1 to use the Park and Ride Buses but other bus journeys will remain free. Not an idea that has been completely thought through by the County Council. The chairman has taken the matter up with the police at the SNAP (safer neighbourhood action panel) meetings on numerous occasions but there is little they can do unless they are called when illegal parking is taking place. They can only act on a case by case basis. The SNAP did organise a leafleting of cars in Round House Park requesting more considerate parking. The Council urges residents to report illegal parking to the police and do not approach people directly. This issue of parking is also hampered by the fact that the roads are still under the ownership of the developers and have not yet been adopted by the highways authority which is the body that will consider parking restrictions as and when appropriate. When further development for Cringleford was proposed in October, the Council made strong representation to South Norfolk planning department urging that roads layout and parking considerations be given the strongest priority in any future proposals. The Council will maintain this stance as and when we receive any formal plans for consideration and comment, as we did when the plans for Round House Park phase 2 were presented in October. As part of all the discussions on the further expansion of the village the council were advised to review our Parish Plan to set out our thoughts and views on what was a sustainable and appropriate approach to the village expansion. This task was undertaken by one of our newest councillors, Professor Malcolm Wagstaff, who joined the Council in June and he has done an exceptional job with this, turning things around from proposal to publishing in just 5 months. This proved invaluable following the publishing of the Joint Core Strategy Site Allocations document in October. The proposal was for a further 2000 dwellings on top of Round House Park. The council were able to make reasoned responses to all the proposed sites for consideration based on the data and research carried out by Councillor Wagstaff for the revised Parish Plan. Further development appears to be inevitable but the council will strive to see that it is based on reasonable grounds and managed in a sustainable way and not just a random number that someone has thought suitable. One further decision that affects the village, albeit not a Parish Council issue is the County Council has agreed a 420 place school for Cringleford at the Round House Park site. Unfortunately that meant that they dropped plans to adjust the Keswick Road/Intwood Road junction on the grounds that the village school would be moving and it was no longer considered essential as part of the safer journeys to school programme. Some of the other items from the Parish records for 2010 were:- We had discussions on updating and modernising the Councils website for when the new community centre opens in 2013. In the meantime the clerk has set up a Facebook and a Twitter page for the Parish Council. I mentioned earlier that grit bins were a Parish Council responsibility and we were very grateful that we had purchased 7 more bins before the snow descended in December and January. I know they were well used. Again I need to commend our grounds staff who couldn't do other jobs because of the snow so took it upon themselves to walk round the village and grit the priority junctions. The dressing rooms were repainted by volunteers from Cringleford Lodge Cricket Club. Our thanks to them – all help is much appreciated. In September there was damage to the grounds by vandals who were caught thanks to the clerk. The police investigated and ensured they paid for the damage caused. They were apologetic and it appeared to have been stupidity rather than maliciousness. In May a new seat was donated to the village in memory of Paul Curtis. The Parish received a gift of several pieces of outdoor Gym equipment which was installed near the play area in Dragonfly Lane, the only cost to the council was the installation costs. An official opening was held on 28th March. We are grateful to South Norfolk for suggesting us as a suitable site. Recently there were was consultation and discussions over the adoption and management of Harts Lane and several Parishioners took the trouble to come to the March Parish Council meeting to make their representations. It was good to see so many parishioners at a Parish Council meeting. The Council were saddened to learn of the death of a former councillor, Bill Smith OBE. As we had a need to purchase a new bench seat we asked Mrs Smith if we might dedicate it to Bill in memoriam. Going forward there is lots of work to do. The community centre building programme will take up as much time this coming year as it has in the past. The discussions on the Joint Core Strategy Site Allocations document will continue. The discussions on adoption and maintenance of Hart's Lane are continuing as are other day to day discussions with the developers of Round House Park. The Jubilee committee will be formed once the new council is announced in May. It promises to be another busy year for the new council. I say new Council as there are Parish Council elections in May. I know many of the existing councillors have put their names forward for election and I hope there are new candidates who will stand as well. This council has been fortunate over the years to fill its available places albeit sometimes on a rolling basis. This year we had resignations from Iain Ames in April and Graham Barber in June both for personal reasons and we thank them both for their many contributions. Following these resignations we were fortunate to replace them fairly quickly with Malcolm Wagstaff joining in June and Maxxhew Tay joining in September both of whom have proved to be valuable assets to the Council and I would like to thank them and all the councillors for their continued hard work and support that I have received as Chairman over this past year. No-one can be certain what next year will bring or indeed who will be the councillors to deal with it but I am sure whoever is elected will have an interesting and rewarding year. Susan Mackinnon Chairman Cringleford Parish Council April 14th 2011 |
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E-Mail - cringleford.pc@tiscali.co.uk |  |