Chairman’s report 2008/2009

Last updated: Monday, 15 June 2009, 02:51 PM

This is my sixth Hardwick Parish Council Chairman's Report and it is once again my responsibility to talk about some of the things that have taken place in the Village and discussed in the Parish Council's Meetings.

This year I will start my Report by thanking various people and organisations before moving onto what the Parish Council has done during the last year.

As in previous years my thanks go to our Vice Chairman, Grenville Chamberlain for all his help and encouragement and to all the other Parish Councillors who give up their precious time, UNPAID and without any expenses for toilet seats, dog food, moat improvements or bath plugs. Thanks also to Grenville and Tony Gill who are our "Planning Committee" and check all Applications before they come to the full Council Meeting. Thanks to Tejinder Bhachu, Alan Freeman and Jim Stewart who do monthly inspections on all our Play Areas to make sure that they are safe for the Village children to play on. My thanks also to Jeremy Dyer who picks up all the litter that is dropped around the village. Why is there so much? Thanks go to Gail Stoehr, our Parish Council Clerk, and her team for taking the Council Minutes each month and for doing all the vital backroom work that goes into keeping us legal, within the ever-increasing rules, and for carrying out all the requirements of the Council.

There are of course others who work very hard on behalf of the villagers of Hardwick. Jim Stewart, who is not only a Parish Councillor, but also our Member on South Cambridgeshire District Council, where he has been its Chairman for two years and this year I would like to thank Fiona Whelan who has done a great job in the few months that she has been our County Council Representative.

My thanks also go to Enid Ingstone-Brewer and her helpers for their great work in producing the Hardwick Happenings Magazine

Now onto what has been happening this year.

I am very pleased to say that after our representations to the Highways Agency that the two new roundabouts at the A428 junction have now been rotavated and seeded which has made that area look much better.

The junction of Grace Crescent and the Pastures has been made safer with the introduction of white lines, and in conjunction with Fiona Whelan, we are asking Highways to look at the area of the junction of the Pastures and Main Street to make that safer.

The joint project between the Parish Council and the Hardwick Sports and Social Club to erect a "Smoking Area" in front of the Pavilion doors has been completed. H.S.S.C. have continued to upgrade the Pavilion with new furniture in the Ken Turner Room and the Parish Council granted them permission to have a new door put into that room so that patrons can now go out to a fenced area during the lighter nights. The Club is a great amenity and I would urge anyone who has not been, to pay it a visit.

Hardwick Parish Council has been very vociferous in letting S.C.D.C. know that it does not like the fact that 93% of planning applications are decided by delegation to a Planning Officer, and not at the full Planning Committee, and sees this as an erosion of local democracy.

Both the Deputy Chairman and myself have attended the Comberton Area Police Panel Meetings during the year, which have been very useful. We do feel however that Cambourne should be separated out from "the Area" as a lot of time is spent dealing with its problems and not enough time on the other villages'.

This year has seen the Football and Cricket Clubs joining forces with the Parish Council to apply for Grants to cure a very long outstanding problem with the Recreation Field, the drainage. I am sure that even if you don't participate in any activities on the field that you will have seen the amount of water that stays on it after any rain has fallen. I am pleased to say that with money from the F.A. Trust in partnership with the Cambridgeshire F.A., South Cambridgeshire District Council and this Parish Council that the work is soon to start. The Contractor is going to start the drainage works on Monday, 3^rd August. This is the end of the cricket season and the start of the football season but both clubs have made arrangements to play elsewhere during the period that the work takes to be done. In the interest of safety and to ease things for the Contractor, I would ask all villagers to keep off the Recreation Field while the work is being carried out.

My thanks, as every year, go to the members of the Football and Cricket Clubs for all their good work with the youngsters of the village and also to the Scout and Guide Leaders, how can any youngster say that there is nothing to do in Hardwick.

From looking at the new allotment site, congratulations should go to all the Members of the Allotment Society who have worked so hard on this new amenity to village life.

The Council was very sorry to receive a letter from Graham Bird recently to say that he is moving from Hardwick and can no longer continue in his role as Webmaster for our village site. We have thanked Graham for all his work with the Website and would welcome any one coming forward to take on the Webmaster role.

Now back to the improvements that the Parish Council has undertaken this year. To bring up the area around the Sports and Social Club and the Recreation Field as a whole, your Parish Council has had the green metal fencing extended along the side of the car park. This looks so much better that the low wooden fencing, which was always getting broken.

The car parks, at the Club and on Egremont Road, have been lined for better parking and two "Disabled Driver" bays have been created.

Whilst talking about this area. In the last couple of years the village has been blighted on warm summer evening by youngsters from other villages, and Hardwick, coming to the recreation field to drink and generally make a nuisance of themselves. Can I please ask villagers to call the Police on the following numbers if they see any problems:- 0845 - 4564564 or 999.

For some time the occupiers of the bungalows on Limes Road, the ones behind the village shop, had been having problems due to the height of the trees in front of them cutting out the light into their properties meaning that they had to have their lights on even on a summer day to enable them to read a newspaper or a book. The Parish Council, after lots of representation the South Cambridgeshire District Council, have managed to get some of the offending trees chopped down, these ones being mostly self set, thus making life in the bungalows much better.

Due to vandalism, the bench to commemorate a past Parish Council Chairman, Ray Barker, has been replaced outside St Mary's Church. It is very sad that a memorial like this was damaged.

Many villagers have been asking what is going to happen to the plot of land on the corner of Cambridge Road and St. Neot's Road i.e. the burnt out building. The Parish Council has written to the owner of the site enquiring what his plans for the site are, as people were worried about the appearance and safety of the building, as well as the litter, and requesting the owner to let the Parish Council know what the position is visa v re-development. I am afraid that we do not yet have an answer.

As I reported in an open letter to the "Hardwick Happenings Magazine" recently, meetings have been taking place between the Parish Council, S.C.D.C., the Highways Department, the County Council, our local M.P. and Chivers Estates about the parking problem outside the village shop. I need not go through it all again in this report, but villagers can rest assured that all parties are doing all that they can to get the problem solved. Our County Councillor has recently informed the Parish Council that the problem is going to be put onto the County Council's road improvement list later this year to discuss the merits of our ideas.

Whilst talking about the village shop, the Council is also negotiating with the Highways Department to get a "Disabled Parking" bay in the road.

The Parish Council has asked our County Councillor if she would look into getting a Cycle Path created between Hardwick and Toft so that it would make it safe to cycle direct to Comberton Village College. I should report that Fiona Whelan has already started the ball rolling on this project for which we thank her.

In that same letter to the H.H. I gave notice that, in conjunction with the Police, members of this Parish Council, and others, are to be trained to use speed guns to help in the pursuit of reducing the speeding of traffic through Cambridgeshire villages. I hope that this will be starting very shortly and that we can look forward to vehicles travelling within the speed limits in future, if not, the offenders can look forward to a letter from the Constabulary.

As in my previous Reports, I would like to take the Chairman's prerogative and have a few moans again.

Would the person who has stolen the DOG POO BIN from the top of Millers Way, please bring it back as it will cost the Village about £200 to replace.
We still have villagers speeding around the roads of Hardwick. If this is you, please slow down before you kill someone. Remember, that we will soon be equipped with a Speedwatch radar gun; you don't want to be the first one reported, do you !!!
To go back to the parking outside the village shop. Can I please ask all drivers to exercise a little patience and to have some old fashioned respect for other drivers, and in these ways, we can alleviate a lot of the problems visa v who has the right of way on Cambridge Road.
And finally. Once again I am very pleased to say that this year, in spite of all the rises in Council Taxes etc., that all the work and improvements to our lovely Village have been carried out WITHOUT an increase in the Hardwick Parish Precept thanks to the hard work of your unpaid, voluntary, Parish Council.