CHAIRMAN’S REPORT ~ Anne Thompson

My report covers the period May 2002 - April 2003

Golden Jubilee events were held throughout the parish by individual organisations, so the council decided after consultation to donate a table and benches with commemorative plaque to both schools in the parish, also to floodlight our beautiful church in Edlesborough which is a major project and will take many years to come to fruition, a sub-committee has been set up to pursue this onerous task and I am pleased to report that the Vicar Malcolm Grant has agreed to join this group. Northall and Dagnall successfully applied for a jubilee grant from AVDC, Northall purchased trees and Dagnall erected a planter outside the village hall.

The repairs to the Church are now completed and a special service will be held on the evening of Easter Day to celebrate, it will be officially opened in May. An unauthorised memorial has been erected in the lawn cemetery, correspondence between the various interested parties are underway and hopefully a suitably amicable solution will soon be agreed. The new Church notice board has been made and kindly donated by Stephen Janes and it will be erected shortly. The new contractor Keith Steers is doing a good job cutting the grass, he is also cutting around the obstacles on the green and hall

All the plots are taken on Edlesborough green site but we still have plots available on Cow Lane, Dagnall and Northall. The new Cow Lane gate will be erected shortly after Easter. Dagnall gardening Society continues to flourish providing an excellent service to gardeners throughout the Parish.

The pavilion continues to be well used by the local sports clubs and we are currently refurbishing the changing room lockers/seats. Unfortunately vandals still target the property, mostly minor but we did have one worrying situation involving a mains electricity cable fortunately it was dealt with before anyone was seriously hurt.

Memorial Hall

Bookings for the hall continue to flourish they range from 3 Brownie packs to W.I. meetings, carpet bowls to children’s and adults parties and 6 under 5’s sessions a week, all making good use of the excellent facilities

The vandalised millennium notice board has been replaced but is now screwed to the hall wall, the bollards outside the hall have also been replaced.

We were pleased, once again to host The St Mary’s Church fete on the green some tree work had to be undertaken to allow access for the floats, this was done by our skilled tree surgeons the cost being met by the fete committee, the annual fete continues to grow successful, with many local organisations benefiting from donations. The play equipment was vandalised during the summer and had to be closed for a short

period, much to the distress of our younger parishioners, but all is working again now.

Two new seats have been donated by family or friends of deceased villagers and the vandalised millennium tree seat has been re- installed, the cost was successfully covered by insurance

Police Matters

P.C. Nick Cummings is still our beat officer and continues to cover our patch although a shortfall in staff appears to make this increasingly more difficult, hopefully with the 44.6% increase for policing in our 2003/4 council tax police presence will be more obvious, when called the police do respond although Parishioners still report they are having problems with the 999 call centre which we are actively pursuing

The Northall Road light damaged by a car has been ordered and will be replaced in the next couple of weeks the cost of which has been recovered from the drivers insurers.

A survey was carried out in Northall to see if residents would like more street lights, the response was disappointing but it seemed the lighting was adequate, so no further action is planned

We continue to report areas of concern on our parish roads and footpaths, the annual survey of all roads in the parish has just been completed and copies sent to the relevant authorities we also continue to report danger spots, a survey was carried out in Pebblemore with regard to the need for a footpath 4 residents were in favour 16 were against, all letters were sent to Bucks C.C. who will decide whether to provide a path or not. Flooding has also been a problem in Pebblemoor, Bucks c.c. were notified and are dealing with the problem. The salt bin in Pebblemore damaged by a car is being replaced.

Northall continues to wait patiently for its Dynamic warning system it is definitely coming although electricity seems to be a problem at the moment. Speed monitoring in Eaton Bray Rd Northall showed significant speed abuse, as a result Bucks C.C. will be arranging for a road surface ‘30’ to be marked on the road as traffic enters from the Eaton Bray direction. Dagnall had a very successful site meeting with Bucks C.C. following a campaign by local residents led by Mr Ivor Thorne, to support the many letters sent by the Parish Council. A survey was carried out at long last by Bucks C.C. to determine the speed of cars passing through the village, this confirmed what the villages already knew and a speed camera is now a good possibility, Bucks C.C. have also agreed to fund traffic calming road markings with the Parish paying for any gates installed..

Retiring Sue & John Parker have handed over the paper work to the Clerk. Mr & Mrs Webster are the new PPP representatives. Thanks to Sue & John for all their past work on our public footpaths.

Rubbish Dumping still continues to be a major problem in the parish. Aylesbury Vale are very helpful and remove the larger loads very quickly, Many thanks as always to Tessa Williamson who continues to pick up litter two or three times a week in and around Edlesborough Village The green garden sack system is still very successful .

I reported last year the lease was with our Solicitors, this year I have to report the lease is with Aylesbury Vales Solicitors it is a very frustrating time, despite much

correspondence, numerous telephone calls three years on still no path but we will continue to pursue the various parties.

A big thank you to P.A.I.N our local campaigners who still monitor the airports activities on our behalf, thank you.

I am pleased to report we have had the all clear from the auditors with regard to the parish accounts.

We once again supported Dagnall & Northall village halls to the sum of £1,000.00 each , 2 seats to Dagnall for their recreation ground and a sum of £200.00 to Edlesborough tennis club enabling them to continue to provide coaching facilities for the pupils of Edlesborough school, the Jubilee donations were mentioned earlier in my report.

After nearly 20 years service, Sue Parker the Parish clerk retired, councillors showed their appreciation with a personal gift, cake and a bouquet of flowers at the conclusion of the December meeting, in March the parishioners held a tea party in her honour to say a special ‘thank you’. The W. I. provided cakes etc. and our M.P. John Bercow presented Sue with a garden water feature purchased with contributions received, Sue was certainly held in high esteem. In January our new clerk officially took over welcome to Maggie Kerr, immediately she set about trying to get us in the 21^st century, the e-mail arrived, I must say I had my doubts at first but I am now nearly convinced. The clerk has taken on a huge workload getting the accounts, planning and all aspects of the councils work on computer, but we are confident we have the right person for the job. A big thank you to John Parker who worked so hard behind the scenes and we welcome both John and Sue to their new rolls, looking after the hall, pavilion and green.

Our County Councillor Mrs Avril Davies continues to work diligently on our behalf

District Councillor

Mrs Pauline Hannelly continues to represent us at the District Council. Pauline attends our meetings on a regular basis and is a stalwart within the parish, both these ladies are always ready to help us when we need them, and for that we thank them

We are at the moment developing a 5 year plan for the parish, listing items that you, the parishioners would like to see happening in your village over the next 5 years.

The first week in April proved to be a momentous occasion for us all., thanks to Kevin Cubbage burning the midnight oil on numerous evenings and with a little help from John Wilkinson & Maggie Kerr our superb web site was born. To a new ‘surfer’ like myself it is joy to visit, easy to manoeuvre and very informative. A huge thank you to John & Maggie but especially to Kevin for all his enthusiasm and hard work in making www.edlesborough.gov.uk such a success.

Edlesborough Parish Council has certainly joined the 21^st century

Anne Thompson

Chairman Edlesborough Parish Council                                           

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