We were delighted to have success in two areas last month on the playing field. The first was the setting up of a Basket ball hoop and kick wall goal; this was started by the previous Parish Council and we are pleased to bring it to fruition. We hope that the young people in our village will have enjoyed using them in the school holidays. Secondly, alongside the school, we worked hard to negotiate with Suffolk County Council (SCC) to ensure that the gates on the playing field were unlocked for the Summer. We agreed to restricted opening times, volunteers to check the field for litter etc regularly and for us to pay for a professional cleaning company to go in at the end of the holiday. This is to ensure that the school pupils have a safe space to play on their return to school. When you read this, I hope this has been successful and we can build on it in the future.
These were the main matters discussed at the Annual Parish Council meeting in June:
Parking around the Shop
We have purchased planters and posts to put on the edge of Green Acre opposite the shop to prevent parking on Green Acre itself by those visiting the Takeaway. We hope the planters will look more attractive than simply a row of posts.
We continue to try and get a definitive price from Highways to enable double yellow lines around the junction and down to the zebra crossing.
Overgrown footpaths
We are well aware that over the Summer there are constant frustrations for you regarding uncut footpaths. We share this frustration as it is SCC’s responsibility to cut these and, despite asking, they are unable to tell us when they will be cutting them.
In the light of this, we are exploring taking this in-house so that the cuts will be more under our control. We’ll keep you updated on this, but hopefully we can improve it for next year.
State of the road near the Bowls Club
This has been done! Many thanks to SCC.
Playing Field and Pavilion
Still waiting for a response from SCC’s legal department.
Action Plan
We have created our next year’s Action Plan which will be up on the website shortly. Every Parish Council has to have General Reserves in their bank account – this is an amount kept by the PC for emergencies and to cover possible future costs for maintaining buildings and equipment that we own. Any additional amounts can be spent on projects to improve things in the village such as legal fees to purchase extra land, double yellow lines or play equipment. We have decided to link our General Reserves much more clearly to our Action Plan so that it is easier for you to see what your money is being spent on.
Community Self-Help Scheme
Sometimes there are jobs that need doing in the village and it is difficult to find someone to do them so we have decided to set up a team of volunteers under SCC’s Community Self Help Scheme. This is where you come in! We are looking for people who like doing practical tasks and would be willing to help out with things such as weed clearance, sign cleaning, painting street furniture, grass cutting, hedge cutting, tree pruning/branch removal. Please let us know if you’d like to be involved.
Councillor Vacancy
We do still have a vacancy on the Parish Council. Please do contact me on ckiely.gwpc@greatwaldingfield.uk to arrange a time to chat and find out if this is something for you.
Monthly PC surgery
We feel that it’s much better to meet face-to-face to discuss any issues that might occur in the village and to that end we are going to offer a time when parishioners can come and meet members of the Council with their problems (or come and tell us what we’re doing well!) We hope to start these in October.
If you have anything you wish either to bring to the Council’s attention or for the Council to consider at the next meeting (Monday 8th July), please email Mark Freeman on parishclerk.gwpc@waldingfield.uk or phone on 07922 336386. Alternatively the Clerk is at the village hall every morning between 9-11.30 apart from Wednesday.
Many thanks, Clare Kiely, Chair of the Parish Council
