2024 is elections year, taking place on May 2nd. If you are interested in becoming a Parish Councillor, I will have nomination packs towards the end of February, so do get in touch if you wish to be part of the Parish Council representing views and making decisions in the future of the Community. There will be lots of information coming out, if you would like to receive e-mails, please sign up to them from the Parish Council website, or contact myself.
Just before Christmas the Parish Council purchased new picnic tables for the playing field, now installed and ready for summer picnics.
The Parish Council has a new logo, designed by Ruth Taylor, (see at the top of this e-mail!) this should soon be in place on all our headed paper.
The Pavilion has had some new tables and chairs and more will be coming soon. We will need to get rid of the old wooden / metal chairs, so if anyone can make use of them, please contact me.
The Parish Council have set the precept for 2024/25 with an increase of just over 7% which equates to £9.94 increase per year based on a Band D property (83pence per month / 19pence per week).
The projects the Parish Council are looking at this year are the Pavilion water and heating replacement, renewing the Village entrance signs to remove the ‘Twinning’ element, drainage on the playing field car park and new Biodiversity projects (this is new legislation which we have to accommodate). The Biodiversity policies require audits of what the parish has, and how we can increase biodiversity – this could be planting more wildflowers, creating wildlife corridors, bird and bat boxes. If you wish to be involved in any of this or have skills that would enable us to put together an audit of the parish, please get in touch. We should be getting more information from what is required from Stroud District Council in the coming months, and I will send updates on how to be involved.
Ongoing projects of 20mph and restoration of the 24 listed tombs in the churchyard are also continuing, the Faculty application has now been put up, and funding will be applied for too.
The Battery Storage application is now likely to go to Development Control Committee around April time (a small chance for February, but planning officers have indicated this is unlikely). For those wishing to go to DCC, there are procedures to follow and very limited times to speak, so if for example residents wish to speak, it would be worth forming a group and having one representative speak on behalf of everyone.
The recent police event at the coffee morning was successful with a number of bikes and scooters being marked up.
And lastly the Inspector has now signed off the Neighbourhood Development Plan (available on the website); the next stages are going to SDC Environment Committee and hopefully being up for referendum at the same time the elections take place.