From a personal perspective 2006/7 has
been a year of increasing experience, consolidating changes, learning lessons
and considering the future. This has been my first year as Chairman of the
Parish Council following three years as Vice Chairman. Many important
initiatives had been started and changes implemented under the previous Chair,
Helen Huish and the past year has been a time for completing these tasks,
delivering a few more and enjoying the benefit of a more structured approach to
the Council’s business. I would like to sincerely thank Helen for her long
memory and wise counsel which I very much value.
Nikki Rush, the Clerk to the Parish
Council, has continued with her rapid development of understanding of the
legislation and processes associated with local government. Her positive
attitude and up-beat support has made this a far more enjoyable and effective
first year as Chairman. I must also thank Alan Moreton, my Vice Chair, for his
willing, straightforward, let's-do-it approach which I value very highly. Alan
dedicates a great deal of time to the village in a very quiet and understated
way and I am very grateful to him.
As the year has progressed we have
questioned some of the apparent “norms” of local government – do meetings have
to be boring, do they need to last so long, do we have to meet on
Thursdays? So we have tried moving
meetings from Thursday to Monday evenings which links better with District planning
meetings and the publication of the Parish Magazine, instead of having one
parish council meeting and one planning meeting we now have two parish council
meetings per month in a bid to spread the work more evenly, and we have tried
to encourage a lighter, more open and less stilted style of dealing with Council business. We are still
learning but I would like to thank my fellow members for supporting these
changes in such a positive way.
The Council has made very real progress
in several important areas.
The long awaited development of 11
shared-equity, affordable homes on the Henry Street site is now well under way.
Unfortunately local problems resulted in a delay of about 15 months but these
have now been resolved and the contractors and Flagship Housing have made
excellent progress during difficult building conditions at the beginning of the
year. We recognise that several people around the building site are being
inconvenienced at this time and we thank them for their understanding and
patience.
Control of the URC burial ground in Great
Back Lane has finally passed into the hands of the Parish Council after several
years of negotiation and legal hurdle jumping. We are therefore now in a
position to explore ways in which the necessary funding can be raised to
transform the site into an attractive, peaceful memorial garden with some
associated car parking. This must be our primary objective for the coming year
in order to help relieve the increasing parking problems which prevent would-be
visitors and shoppers from stopping in the village.
Other traffic problems which continue
despite our efforts include the use by heavy vehicles of the High Street and
associated roads. A requested traffic survey has been completed by Suffolk
Highways and the results of this are eagerly awaited.
The policy of the Parish Council in
relation to development within the flood plain has been tested, applied and
reinforced. We are concerned that global and local weather changes suggest that
flash flooding will become more prevalent in the future and we feel it is vital
that future owners and nearby residents should not be put at risk from this
potential flooding. We have also been delighted to learn from the Environment
Agency that the budget for Debenham has been significantly increased for
clearance work of the water courses around the village, at the Robert Hitcham
school and the Cherry Tree Green in particular.
Another long-term outstanding problem
with drainage appears to have been solved at last with sections of the
pitch-fibre pipes in Gardeners Road having been replaced. This should prevent
further occurences of the flooding problems in Vicarage Gardens and adjacent
areas which have been experienced for over 14 years.
The deterioration of the bus shelter at
the junction of Aspall Road and High Street has been causing concern for many
years. Its weight has caused the base to sink towards the river and the roof
structure is in need of total refurbishment. We are delighted that work will
start imminently on replacing the structure with that recovered from the
redundant bus stop adjacent to the Resource Centre.
We are delighted that the Woodland area
continues to mature and grow. This is a truly wonderful asset for the village
and is an important investment for the future well-being of our children's children
and beyond. The various planting days have been well supported and it is a
great pleasure to see families and organisations working together to extend
this wonderful asset.
The value and use of the village website
continues to increase and we are indebted to the editor Reeza Awoodun for his
conscientious and tireless work in supporting its development. Unfortunately
Reeza has recently had to retire from the post and we are delighted that we
have been able to recruit another experienced person,
We have been giving a great deal of
thought to the funding of some long-term projects, including a much-needed
extension to the cemetery which it is projected will be full within the next 12
to 14 years. The necessary work to develop a new cemetery, with the associated
drainage and ground works takes a long time to complete and planning in this
way is critical. This investment for the future has meant that the precept for
the coming year has had to be increased by 7 per cent which is much lower than
we feared at first but higher than we would have liked.
The Parish Council has also been thinking
about which long term changes would be need to be considered in preparing for a
new Parish Plan. Our discussions covered the possible changes which the village
will experience over the next 25 years in order to determine the areas of
primary concern and preparation. This work will form an input to the
community-wide team which we hope to form by the Autumn to produce the new
Plan.
Our sincere thanks should be forwarded to
members of the council who have had to leave office during the last year and we
are very grateful for the contribution made by Brian Fisher,
Other people who quietly provide
much-needed support and work for the Council and the village include our street
cleaner Mark Sillet, John “Brookie” Eade and his son who have maintained the
urn garden, Geoff Ridge for controlling
the rabbits and Mrs Shirley Dallison,
who we have honoured earlier . I would also like to extend a special thank you
to all the long-suffering partners of our council members, in particular Peter
Huish who gives huge support to our working parties around the village.
Several changes have been experienced
during the year in our local Constabulary. PC Anderson left his duties after
serving for many years in the village but we are pleased that PC John Gibbs
continued to provide the anchor for our local police services. We were
delighted to welcome sergeant Mercer earlier in the year whose ideas and
community work proved to be very valuable during her brief stay in the village.
A new day is now dawning and we would like to extend a very warm welcome to the
members of our new neighbourhood police team - sergeant Nick Emery and
community support officers Suzy Jessop and Chris Bales. We would like to
develop a very close working relationship with our new neighbourhood team and
we are planning to hold some joint surgeries in the village to address local
problems.
We have been exploring the possibility of
implementing a Speedwatch scheme in Debenham for about 15 months to prove
whether or not we have a speeding problem in the village. The Speedwatch
initiative has been tried in various parts of the country and we are delighted
to work with Suffolk police to carry out a similar trial in Debenham in the
very near future. I would like to thank Chief Inspector Martin Barnes- Smith
for agreeing to come to our meeting this evening to talk about this and vehicle
safety related issues in the county.
So overall it has been a year of steady
progress with a few significant successes.
The street lights have remained working, the allotments have been
managed, planning applications have been dealt with, street furniture replaced
and maintained, the toilet kept clean and working (mostly), the play areas kept
safe, trees have been lopped and felled, the grass cut and the cemetery has
continued to fill. All this does not happen by itself and I thank my Council
colleagues for all the time and effort that they feely give to keeping Debenham
such a lovely place to live. Thank you all.
Chairman