Parish Chairman’s Notes August 2023
The Parish Council received five high quality nominations for the Citizen of the Year Award. Any of these would have been a worthy winner but councillors voted by a large majority for Sophie Peers who was presented with her certificate on the evening of the ‘fete-ival’ 30th June. Sophie runs Capel Community Gardening (formerly Five Oak Green in Bloom). Her nominator said of her (among other things) …Despite working pretty much full time, she has found time to plan the village planting, source the plants and rally her small team of volunteers to don wellies and gardening gloves and get stuck in! She has also raised funds via regular ‘plant sales’ outside her house and organised a very successful Bring & Buy at the Hoppers which raised over £300 towards refreshing the Community Orchard. She arranged the acquisition and planting of seven cherry trees to mark the late Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.
Sophie has £500 to spend on a community project of her choice donated by Bam Nuttall (the contractors presently upgrading the railway line for Network Southeast).
The Neighbourhood Plan Working Group considered the representations received at the recent Regulation 14 consultation (We received 20 responses from statutory consultees and 47 questionnaires) and will be incorporating many of them in the Submission version of the Neighbourhood Plan which we hope to have agreed in a meeting in mid-July. The submission version will then be presented to TWBC who will co-ordinate another round of consultation (Reg 16) in the early autumn.
Highways issues:
- i) Speed Indicator Device: KCC is expected to decide in the next few weeks about the suitability of a third potential site that has been identified for the portable Speed Indicator Device (SID) scheme. This will replace the flashing signs that were removed after damage last year. The parish council will be expected to pay for the device, but it cannot be installed or operated without the permission of KCC. We already have two approved sites but need a minimum of three.
- ii) Crossing point on Five Oak Green Road: KCC are now considering a feasible site opposite the Pemble close pathway. Once the siting is approved funding options can then be considered by the parish council.
iii) Alders Road 40 mph limit: Following the recent consultation, parish council members considered the total estimated cost of implementing a speed reduction scheme in Alders Road. The design work and the initial Traffic Regulation Order (TRO) will cost in the region of £4,000.00. If the TRO is successful there will be further costs associated with signage and road markings. The total cost of the project is estimated to be in the region of £12-15K. It was agreed to share this information with residents and to ascertain their views before deciding the way forward.
Hugh Patterson