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Parish Council Report – September 2016

Key Issues

Devolution, Buses & Ash Dieback

Highlights from Ipsos- MORI Residents Consultation

  • 53% supported the principle of devolution while 16% expressed they opposed this.
  • There was strong support for more decisions to be taken locally across a range of issues with a new housing strategy (82%), development of new homes (75%), creating a transport plan (77%) and road maintenance (85%) being the top 4.
  • There was 52% support for a Mayor and 58% support for councils to come together as a Combined Authority. 29% opposed election of a Mayor and 25% opposed establishing a Combined Authority.

Highlights from Online Consultation

  • 50.9% supported the principle of devolution while 38.7% expresses they opposed this.
  • There was a strong support for more decisions to be taken locally across a range of issues with most support being shown for roads maintenance (74.6%), developing a new housing strategy (71%), development of new homes (69.7%) and creating a transport plan (65%)
  • There was 26.7% support for a Mayor and 34.9% support for councils to come together as a Combined Authority

Views of Businesses

Highlights from Ipsos- MORI Business Consultation 250 businesses of various sizes across the two counties were also surveyed by Mori:

  • 54% supported the principle of devolution while 12% expressed they opposed this.
  • Strong support for more decisions to be taken locally across a range of issues with decisions relating to road maintenance funding coming out on top.
  • 59%supported councils joining together as a Combined Authority and 47% supportive of a mayor, with 27% opposed.

Letters of support from business and the wider public and voluntary sector’s Business leaders with interests in Norfolk and Suffolk and leaders from the wider public and voluntary sector communities sent letters supporting devolution. Over 80 organisations endorsed a letter from the Norfolk and Suffolk Chambers and the LEP to Dr Andy Wood, the independent chair of the East Anglia Leaders’ Group, endorsing the devolution proposals as supporting the delivery of crucial projects to support economic growth, improve infrastructure and empowering the next generation with the skills to drive the economy. Many letters of support were received from the wider public sector and the voluntary sector including a number of higher education establishments, the University of East Anglia, the University of Suffolk, Clinical Commissioning groups, Visit East Anglia and Community Action Norfolk.

Overall the consultation showed a strong desire to go ahead with devolution and I suspect that my Norfolk County Council group and South Norfolk Council will support the proposal to continue the process.

Buses

I have received numerous complaints about the revised bus services particularly into the Poringland hub where users need to change buses. School transport has also come under scrutiny particularly through Thurton.

I have passed all the concerns onto the relevant officer and as you are no doubt aware the contact for the service buses id Daniel Yellop at: daniel.yellop@Norfolk.gov.uk

Boundary Review

The draft proposals have been submitted for the revised District Wards increasing the number of electors per Councillor to +-2556 (with up to a 10% variance) from 2165 for implementation at the 2019 elections.

Detail of the proposed boundary changes can be found on the South Norfolk Website at:

http://www.south-norfolk.gov.uk/CARMS/meetings/earc2016-08-30reports.pdf

Some of the proposal are listed below:

Chedgrave (includes Chedgrave, Langley with Hardley, Geldeston, Hales with Heckingham, Raveningham, Stockton, Norton Subcourse) 2,532 1 2,532 -1%

Similarly to the proposed Thurlton Ward, this ward has strong links to the Broads tourist area. The communities are linked by their association with the A146, the main road linking Norwich, Loddon and down to Beccles. Sharing a strong small, rural identity, these parishes share many similar challenges. Includes joint parish council Hales with Heckingham – this will be the former Chedgrave and Thurton Ward combined with parts of the former Gillingham Ward

Loddon will remain unchanged.

Brooke (includes Bergh Apton, Brooke, Kirstead, Mundham, Seething, Alpington with Yelverton) 2,707 1 2,707 6% This ward consists of a cluster of rural villages lying to the East of the A146, which will experience smaller scale growth. Includes joint Parish Council Alpington with Yelverton.

This takes Alpington and Yelverton from the Rockland Ward.

Rockland (includes Ashby St Mary, Carleton St Peter, Claxton, Thurton, Bramerton, Rockland St Mary with Hellington, Holverston, Rockland St Mary with Hellington, Surlingham) 2,630 1 2,630 3% This group of Parishes lie to the North of the District, and are primarily smaller villages which border the Broads Authority, with many connecting waterways. The Parishes also share a connection through the Thurton Group Benefice of 11 ecclesiastical parishes.

Includes joint Parish Council Rockland St Mary with Hellington. This now includes Thurton and Claxton from the former Chedgrave and Thurton Ward.

Communities and Environment Councillors to consider ash dieback disease

Members will consider measures which will allow the county council to effectively manage the implications of Chalara which is already affecting trees in Norfolk. These measures could include seeking financial support from Defra, and looking at how the county council can work with landowners to minimise costs to the authority Norfolk was one of the first areas in the country where Chalara was identified and councillors will hear how Norfolk is leading the way nationally in work to tackle the problem.

Details of our methodology and early survey results were well received at the national Ash Dieback Safety Intervention Meeting organised by Defra, and national body the Tree Council, are now keen to share our methodology with other authorities in the country. The County Council has a responsibility to maintain the public highway and require owners of private trees to make safe dangerous trees in the interests of public safety. The current three year plan of work, will allow the county council to identify and assess the condition of ash trees adjacent to the County’s 6000 miles of roads and footpaths.

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Your local Mobile Library Service

Mobile libraries are free to join and are open to people of all ages.  Items can be chosen from the vehicle or reserved via the online catalogue for collection from a mobile library. They can be returned to any branch library or mobile library in Norfolk.  All mobile libraries are equipped with a lift for people with mobility problems and wheelchair users.

Our mobile libraries offer:

  • Fiction books for adults and children (book request: adults – 60p, children – free)
  • Non-fiction books for adults and children (subject requests are free)
  • Large print books (book request 60p)
  • DVDs for adults and children (a small charge applies)
  • Audio books on CD and tape (tapes – free, a small charge applies for CDs for adults, children – free)
  • Jigsaw puzzles (free)

The mobile library service offers an e-mail reminder system to advise mobile library users that the mobile library will be in their area within the next two days.  If you wish to be added to the mailing lists, please ask your mobile library driver for the green e-mail slip to complete or alternatively contact us direct with your name, e-mail address and mobile library route number.

The mobile library service is keen to recruit more ‘Mobile Library Friends’ – volunteers who help us to promote the service by doing any of the following:

  • telling their friends/neighbours about the mobile library
  • delivering fliers locally
  • putting up posters
  • suggesting improvements/alternative stops.

If you are interested, please speak to the mobile library driver or contact us direct.

To check the mobile library timetables for your area, please click on the link: www.norfolk.gov.uk/libraries-local-history-and-archives/libraries/your-local-library/routes-and-timetables and choose your village from the list.

More information is available on the Norfolk County Council website: www.norfolk.gov.uk  (search ‘mobile libraries’), or contact the mobile library office on 01603 222303 or e-mail: central.mobiles.lib@norfolk.gov.uk .

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THE HAWTHORN TREE

 

‘Spring goeth all in white,

Crowned with milk-white may;’

Robert Bridges

Almost over night it seemed Spring had spelled the hawthorn tree in the hedge and great clouds of white blossom ruffed its branches. The notched leaves witched to a bright leathery green. The anthers are red, like the head of a match, so each flower resembles a speckled bird’s egg. Now, in mid-summer, clutches of small green berries hang on tightly and, as summer ages will, like traffic lights, turn to amber and then red. This is not the enamelled red of rowan berries or the polished sheen of rose hips but a modest, sombre red. Old ballads and legends tell that the hawthorn is a tree of mystery and enchantment, a faerie tree. It is said the crown of thorns with which Christ was mockingly crowned was made from hawthorn. In the Lady Chapel at Ely there is a carving showing Mary with her Child set against a background of hawthorn leaves. Mary holds one haw, a sign of what is to come for the Child. At some Palaeolithic cave dwellers burial sites, the bodies have been found wearing similar crowns of hawthorn.

Mary’s uncle, Joseph of Arimathea, was a merchant trading in tin and, so the stories go, he came to our ancient kingdom, to the West Country to do business with the tin miners. On one occasion, at least, he brought his great nephew, the Boy Jesus with him and this story was known to William Blake, hence the opening words in ‘Jerusalem’,

‘And did those feet, in ancient time

Walk upon England’s mountains green?

And was the Holy Lamb of God

On England’s pleasant pastures seen?

Glastonbury is an ancient town in Somerset and another legend is that Joseph of Arimathea came here after the Crucifixion of Christ and brought the Cup used at the Last Supper, the Holy Grail of Arthurian legend, with him. He was tired and distressed after his long journey to reach this land. He paused to sleep and thrust his staff into the ground beside him, the hand that held it had smoothed precious oils into the body of Christ when it was taken from the Cross. It took root and every year at Christmas it burst into leaf and flowers. It is the humble hawthorn, quickthorn or whitethorn which, in bleak winter, flowers to greet the coming of the Light not the exotic rose or lily. A sprig from the Holy Thorn is sent to the Queen every year so she has it on her table at

The hawthorn tree is believed to be a dwelling place for faeries and an entrance to their country. An ancient ballad from the Borders tells how Thomas the Rhymer or, True Thomas as he is known, sat under a hawthorn , known as the Eildon Tree and the Queen of Faeries rode by in a dress of ‘grass-green silk’ and on her steed’s mane ‘hung fifty silver bells and nine’. She dares him to kiss her lips and, of course, he does.

She carries him off as he must now serve her. In Elfland she offers him food which he eats and, as we all know, one must never, never, never, eat food offered by the Little People. When he returns he thinks he has only been away for a day instead of seven long years. It is believed he lives on in the hollow Eildon hills. So do not sit under a hawthorn tree unless you have the protection of a twig each of oak, ash and hawthorn bound together by a red ribbon, as one never knows who might come

Westminster Abbey is built on what was known as Thorney Island in the River Tyburn and named after a sacred stand of hawthorn trees. Edward the Confessor built a church here and the present building altered and added to by other monarchs was built originally by Henry 111 in 1245.

The Hawthorn is also known as May as this is when it flowers. There is the nursery rhyme, ‘Here we come gathering nuts in May’. This should read as ‘knots’ not ‘nuts’. Sprigs and bunches of hawthorn were gathered in days gone by and even in some places nowadays to celebrate the Merry Month of May.’

Henry vii chose the hawthorn as his emblem after the Battle of Bosworth as the crown worn by Richard iii as he rode to battle was found in a hawthorn after Richard was killed. Henry, the first of the Tudor dynasty, received this crown on what is known as Crown Hill.

A small tree, a hedge tree, gnarled, twisted and thorny, crabbed. It bends and knots, spiky bones knitted together against wind and weather.