Author Archives: Ray Thompson

Stoke Ferry Parish Council – February Meeting

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DRAFT

Minutes of Stoke Ferry Parish Council Meeting

held in The Community Centre

At 7.30pm on Wednesday 8 February 2012

 

Those Attending: Cllr T Ryves (Chairman), Cllr Mrs J Buckley-Stevens (Vice-Chair), Cllr Mrs D Clements, Cllr Mrs M Leamon, Cllr J Nicholas-Letch, Mrs C Hardy (Clerk) 7 Members of the Public, also PCSO Jane Edwards (Local PCSO) and PC Maria Asker (Watlington Area Manager)

 

 Apologies: Cllr R Bivon, Cllr E Taylor and Borough Councillor Colin Sampson

 

 Police Matters:

 

PCSO Edwards and PC Asker were welcomed to the meeting. It was reported 10 calls had been received by the police since our last meeting, including a variety of incidences, violence, theft, anti-social behaviour, fire, highways issue etc. The two priorities from the last SNAP meeting were the Sincks in Shouldham and William Burt Centre in West Winch. PC Asker explained that she had three PCSO’s working with her and stressed that any incident should be reported, when doing so make sure a Call Number is asked for. Reports can also be made by e-mail -

 

sntwatlington@norfolk.pnn.police.uk

- again always ask for a report number. One query was raised – the cost per call of the new 101 Police Telephone Number – this is 15p for the entire call. The next SNAP Meeting will be held on 15 February 2012 in Stoke Ferry Village Hall commencing at 7pm. PCSO Edwards and PC Asker were thanked for attending the meeting.

 Minutes of the last Meeting:

 

Cllr Mrs M Leamon proposed acceptance of the minutes seconded by Cllr Mrs D Clements

 

 Matters Arising:

 

a) Kebab/Pizza Shop Lynn Road – The Chairman asked what the current position is regarding this – the Clerk advised she had received a call from the Environmental Health Department stating that the investigation was ongoing – she will chase this up again.

 b) The Common – Cllr Nicholas-Letch advised that the asbestos was still there. The Clerk advised she had received a call from Environmental Health stating they were looking into the matter – again she will chase this up.

 Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Meeting:

 

The Chairman read out the notes of the meeting held on 23 January to give everyone an idea of what the Parish Council were trying to organise also asking for any ideas and maybe involvement on the day. There will be a further meeting on 20 February for more discussions to take place.

 

 Cllr Nicholas-Letch advised the meeting a colleague of his who is a TV production engineer has offered to come to the village and produce a film of the event. It was felt this was a very good idea, something to remember for years to come. Cllr Nicholas-Letch will let the Clerk have the gentleman’s details.

 

 Councillors Responsibilities for Jubilee Event:

 

Some tasks had been allocated to councillors, unfortunately some are now not able to be present at the event therefore some task will have to be reallocated, this will be done at the meeting on 20 February.

 

 Possibility of School Drama Event:

 

The Chairman wondered if a small drama event by the children would be an idea for the event, Cllr Mrs Leamon advised that the school do not have drama lessons so this would not be possible.

 

 Special Grant for Historic Year:

 

The Clerk advised the meeting that there was a Special Grant for the Historic Year for which there was the possibility of being granted £200 towards the costs of the Diamond Jubilee events. An application has been submitted.

 

 Progress on Sports Event for the Olympic Torch Day:

 

Unfortunately not much progress has been made on this front, no one seems that interested in trying to organise an event. Cllr Nicholas-Letch advised he would look into a Sports Taster event to see what was available.

 

 Planning:

 

The question of planning applications was raised at the last meeting when some councillors asked whether these could be looked at on line or could the PC go down the internet route. The Chairman advised that he would prefer a meeting to be held when any planning application is received when hard copies can be inspected and discussed. It was therefore agreed that the PC continue with receiving hard copies, councillors can always look at applications on line if they so wish.

 

 Telephone Box:

 

The Chairman raised the question of perhaps the telephone box could be used as a Defibrillator Unit. This would mean the PC having to adopt the telephone box. Cllr Mrs Leamon did not feel this was a good idea as the box is always being vandalised and possibly would be in future. Cllr Mrs Buckley-Stevens advised you would need at least 14 people to operate the scheme otherwise it would not be considered. The Chairman said he would look into this further.

 

 Village Liaison Meeting:

 

Cllr Mrs Clements advised that Vion had only received two complaints since the last meeting, noise and transport. She also advised that Vion had kindly offered to sponsor the cost of posters for the Diamond Jubilee Celebrations, also will supply a raffle prize. A query had been made relating to the dust monitor being moved to another part of the village, the Clerk will look back at minutes to see what the situation is. The Chairman asked if the matter of the cottages butting onto Lynn Road being repainted had been raised, the Clerk to write to ask if these can be painted prior to the Jubilee Celebrations.

 

 Councillors E-mail Addresses:

 

The Chairman asked which councillors did not have e-mail access, Cllr Mrs Leamon advised she did not have this amenity. He then asked Cllr Nicholas-Letch why he would not use his e-mail address, he responded by saying he does not look at his e-mails for at least a week. The reason for asking was it would save the Clerk time and expense in having to drop paperwork off, printing items which could be e-mailed, it would make things more efficient. Cllr Nicholas-Letch did not feel this matter should be discussed in public and would write to the Chairman and put his position in writing. The Chairman advised he does not like all this confrontation.

 

 Community Car Share Scheme:

 

Cllr Nicholas-Letch updated the meeting with the scheme so far advising he was to have a meeting in Norwich with NCC the following day. The Chairman raised a point about another scheme which is already in existence and that it seems odd to have two schemes running at the same time, was there any way the two could be combined. After considerable consideration Cllrs Mrs Leamon and Mrs Clements felt that the PC should go with the scheme that Cllr Nicholas-Letch is setting up. He will report to the next meeting.

 

 Common Management:

 

See under Matters Arising item b)

 

 SFPC Meeting 9 November 2011:

 

Cllr Nicholas-Letch did not wish to say anything

 

 Establishment of Brownies/Scout Group in Village:

 

The Chairman raised this subject asking if there were any local groups, he was informed there were in Wereham and Methwold, also it would be very difficult to set up groups because there are not sufficient volunteers to carry out this work.

 

 Planning:

 

Outline Application construction of 3 bungalows on land north east of telephone exchange Lynn Road – supported by the Parish Council

 

 Accounts for Approval

 

MHB Services Ltd – £70.55 – Lighting Maintenance January/February

 

Mrs C Hardy – £332.37 – Salary/Expenses January

 

James Bradfield School – £30.88 – Hire of Hall – November and January

 

Highline Adventure – £159.00 – Deposit for Climbing Wall

 

E-on – Direct Debit – £45.70 – Lighting – January

 

 Statement of Account as at 31 January 2011 – Balance in Bank – Community Account £952.19 Business Saver Account £7959.94 A total of £8912.13

 

 Cllr Mrs Leamon proposed approval for payment seconded by Cllr Mrs Clements

 

 Correspondence:

 

Mr Bryan Seymour resigning as Parish Councillor

 

Norwich & West Norfolk Citizens Advice Bureau requesting donation – refused

 

BCKLWN – Planning System Training

 

NALC – Neighbourhood Planning Meeting – Swaffham

 

NALC – Training for Clerks & Councillors/Affordable Housing

 

 Councillors Other Business:

 

Cllr Mrs Leamon asked if it was possible for the PC to organise gritting of side roads in the village. It was agreed that an estimate be obtained for this work to be carried out perhaps two or three times per year depending on weather conditions. A list of roads to be submitted to the next meeting.

Cllr Mrs Clements raised the problem of parking on the grassed area in front of bungalows 1-4 Buckenham Drive – the Clerk will raise this again with Freebridge, BCKLWN and Highways. There now seem to be around 8 cars parking on this area.

 

Public Other Business

 

Again the question of gritting side roads was raised.

 

The Clerk thanked Mrs Stocking for the work Bonnetts had carried out on the new steps in The Cemetery.

 

 There being no further business the meeting closed at 9.30pm

 

 Next Meeting

 

The next meeting will be on Wednesday 14 March 2012 commencing at 7.30pm

 

 

 

 

 

　

 

　

 

　

 

Whittington Church News

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 Bonus Ball is a weekly competition we run based on Saturday’s bonus ball number in the National Lottery.

 Just to update you on what we have been doing in our church this year:

 Besides using the church for regular worship we also make use of it as a community centre.  A charity knitting/sewing club meets in the church every third Thursday from10to12 noon. We are now having our ‘Winter Recess’ and start again in March when everyone will be welcome to come along.  Many garments have been produced for the children of Novagradvolinsky, a village in theUkraine, and also for the premature Baby Unit at theQueenElizabethHospital. One member made a beautiful new altar cover forStokeFerrySchool. But if anyone wants to come and bring their own handicraft for a natter over a cuppa they would be most welcome.

 On 21st May a very successful 50/50 auction was held in the church – many people went away with lots of bargains; and £257.80 went to church funds.

 On 14th June Sarah Lee held a Fund Raising event for a special bicycle for her disabled son Kieran. This was a great success and following this the PCC decided to hold a Christmas Concert in the church on 9th December for Kieran. It was a light-hearted evening with mince pies & mulled wine, a Christmas stall & raffle.

 A Winter Quiz was held in the church on 19th November – a stimulating quiz and tasty supper of sausage, mash, beans & onions followed by apple pie & custard, with an unlimited supply of hot punch all evening. A real fun evening enjoyed by a packed church.  Many thanks to the members of the former Whittington Amenities Group who organised this event.

 As Whittington churchyard is almost full, we are going through the formal process of having it closed. The most likely place to have a new graveyard is to be a very small part of the playing field. A lot of scrub land on the south side of the field could be cleared and suitably screened off with hedging in the hope that a new cemetery would hardly impinge upon the playing field at all.  Planning permission and investigations into land suitability are still in the early stages.

Jenny Elsey 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

West Dereham Heritage Group

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DRAINAGE OF THE FENS & THE CIVIL WAR

To continue the report of the lecture by Mike Petty in October of last year when he spoke about the improvements made by the Dutch engineer Cornelius Vermuyden to the drainage of the Fens to the east and south of Peterborough. This work was continued after the war and helped to a great extend with the introduction of wind powered drainage mills.

Walter Blinth published instructions in 1652 to landowners to draw a substantial master drain though all your lands to the lowest part and here set up a water engine to be driven by the wind, the strength of a horse or even two or three men.

It had been the practice of some to throw up banks around their land and allow the water to drain naturally into the rivers but in many places the land was not high enough to do so. Protecting one own holdings often resulted in flooding your neighbours land which lead to heated exchanges between land owners when this was reported to them.

The use of wind driven mills dates back to the middle ages and the adaptation of the windmill from grinding corn to raising water was first accomplished in the Netherlands but the true origins remain obscure. There were reported to be 16 working around Delft by 1470 and 8 north of Amsterdam in 1514.

These dates suggest that some wind drainage mills could have been working in the Fens as early as this.

These early mills were based on the Dutch wipmolen which were lighter than smock or tower mills and more suited for use in marshy areas. In the wipmolen the supporting post of a post mill was made hollow so that a vertical shaft could pass through it connected by gears at the top to drive the axle of the scoop wheel at the bottom.

It was the design that was being built by the 1580s and the type commonly drawn on early English maps. There is mention of one in the Holland district of Lincolnshire in 1555 where remains of a windmill beside the old sea bank with two ditches leading up to it, so it was obviously used to move water. It was mentioned again in 1604 by the Commissioners of Sewers as an engine for raising water.

The soil in the fens is peat based so as the drainage improved the soil level shrunk the banks became higher thus increasing the work load of a mill.

Once the Civil War ended and the monarchy restored a more integrated system was employed and consequently dozens of mills were erected from the 1670s.

The fens were slow in employing steam power to raise water although it had been used in mines for some time before 1712 developed by Thomas Newcomen and formed the basis of steam engine design until the end of the 19th century. These were known as Beam Engines There are examples of windmills with pulley wheels connected to the axels to allow the use of portable steam engines if there was no wind.

All these improvements cost money and much of it was raised in taxes, rates and tolls of up to one shilling per acre but it did not really solve the problems. By 1769 land was still being flooded as the Reverend William Cole, Curate at Waterbeach, wrote in his letters Horace Walpole in which he describes the flooding of his estate by violent rains which caused the banks to burst and overflow covering all this part of the country. His land had been drowned for the third time in six years, it depressed him so much that he decided to sell his estate and retired to Milton.

The Level remained in a chronic state of debt and it was realised that the one shilling acre tax was totally inadequate and this was doubled to pay off the debt of £2,000.

It took the whole of the 19th century and part of the 20th to finally tame the Fens and make it the area we see today.

Mike Petty. October 13th 2011.

As reported by Richard C. French for West Dereham Heritage Group.

Programme for 2012 is available from our website. New members welcome, annual subscription is now £15.00.

 

The Village Soapbox

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The High Street

David Cameron engaged Mary Portas (Queen of Shops?) to advise on what might be done to help save town high streets from further decline.  I found her recommendations disappointing;

One suggestion was to have a National Market Day  -  What was the point of that? I can’t see how, having the market day in Lynn, Swaffham and Downham on the same day can help in anyway.  Currently there is the opportunity for market traders and market enthusiasts to attend all three, surely that must be to the advantage the three towns.

Another suggestion was to have a reduced business rate for start up businesses  -  possibly not a bad idea but it is certain to cause some resentment from any established business that is struggling to survive  -   when would the reduced rate stop?  Would it not be preferable to have a business rate related to the business turnover/profit?  Businesses could be put into ‘bands’ in the same way that residential properties are banded but reassessed at regular intervals.

A third proposal was to create disincentives to shop landlords having their shops empty by charging the full rate at all times.  (I am not sure that this does not happen already in some towns).  I would have thought that most landlords would need no incentives to let their empty shops.

She thought that the government should vet all further out-of-town developments with a view to curtailing further expansion, except for developments likely to complement town centre shops.

This idea has been around for 15years or more but there has been some reluctance to interfere with what has been an outstanding business success.  In any case most of the planned out of town shops are probably built by now.

Mary’s suggestion that there should be a ‘town management team’ is fairly obvious, but isn’t that what a Town Council is?  Many Town Councils try hard to stimulate their high street but they are often constrained by financial considerations that would constrain any management team in the same way.

I have no idea of the fee that was paid to Mary Portas, however much it was it was too much.

 We have to accept that out-of-town supermarkets are part of our way of life.  Most people want a supermarket with a large car park, preferably located where they can avoid the traffic congestion in the town.  For the same reason they like other out-of-town stores. They want to be able to buy most of their regular needs in the one place at the one time in a warm environment, they do not want to struggle down a high street going from shop to shop in the cold and rain, trying to carry several heavy shopping bags.  Of course the high streets have their appeal, it is nice to have a friendly family butcher, baker, fishmonger, greengrocer and deli, all able to give expert advice, and if one is fortunate enough to have such a high street it can be enjoyable on a nice day, but the prices are likely to be higher, although most people would like to see a thriving high street most will not want to give up the supermarkets to achieve it.  I would wager that those people in Sheringham who were so opposed to a Tesco on the edge of town (with whom I had some sympathy), often went into Cromer to Tesco or Morrisons.

The fact is that the widely owned motor car, the freezer and the refrigerator have changed the nature of shopping and the role of most town centres.  The future of the major towns remains assured for the time being.  People like the big department stores and the markets, between them they provide adequate attraction for shoppers.  The big towns are cultural and administrative centres as well as being nodal points in the transport network.  Parking may be difficult but park-and-ride schemes ease the problem for drivers.

It is the high streets in many of the smaller towns that are suffering, not necessarily because of out-of-town shops on the fringe of their town but also because of the relative ease with which people can get to other supermarkets and to the bigger towns.  Trying to restrict further out-of-town developments as a means of protecting town centres is swimming against the tide.  We have to recognise that people use their cars for shopping, they need to be able to park.  Towns have to accept the situation and find their own future, they have to accept that they cannot compete directly with the supermarkets and have to concentrate on their own strengths, they could do more to make the towns more attractive to visitors and more attractive to residents but they are restricted by falling revenue from their businesses.  It does not seem unreasonable to me to expect the supermarkets on the edges of the towns that are taking the trade from the town centre and making big profits, to pay more towards the upkeep of the town than they do currently.

Ron Watts

 

The final episode of The Diary of Emerald Green

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Today, I went for a walk, not a run, a walk. I wanted some time to think, to view the world around me. I thought about so much; my family, my home, my friends but the most important thing I thought about was my future. I decided on three simple things

  • Achievement
  • Success
  • Happiness.

This is all I want from my life not much to ask, but hard to do. Have you ever seen The Pursuit of Happiness? It’s a sad film but in it Chris Gardener (Will Smith) says that “maybe happiness is something we can only pursue.” Of course it’s thought provoking but is it true. Who knows, it’s a similar concept to those people who say that love is merely “an illusion.” I don’t know, but I want to find out, I want to experience everything I possibly can, from, jumping out of an aeroplane to dropping the cereal all over the supermarket floor.

I want to do those little things because I believe that those little things are the most important, the most memorable, but of course you usually don’t realise that until they’re gone.

Next time you hear your best friends’ giant sneeze cherish it because it won’t be there forever. Unless she’s sneezing in your face, in which case promise her to return the favour.

 Goodbye, and have a good life x

Full of love and happiness.