Report for March and April from Cllr Bryn Hurren.
March
As I write this report, it is St Valentines weekend and love was certainly all around in the village yesterday, I lost count of the number of bunches, posies and bouquets of flowers being carried through the churchyard, either bought from Boxford stores, or taken through to lay on graves of loved ones in our cemetery.
Also many families waking through to and from lunches at one of our thriving hostelries.
We are so fortunate to have such a good range of businesses in this village and it is important that we keep them as well. This is one thing that sets Boxford apart from many other larger villages within the Babergh area. Long may that continue and they continue to be supported and patronised by villagers and visitors alike.
I spent a long day in Boxford myself, not on a love mission, although some might call it that, but I was working hard to change the hefty church gateposts at the main entrance to our church and apart from 3 ladies I knew well, the only thing I got to hug was the old dirty rotten posts as we levered and bear-hugged them out of their metre deep holes where they had stood for probably 50 years or more.
I’ve been trying to do this work as commissioned by the village PC since Xmas but the 14th of February was the first day this year without rain at all, which enabled this much needed work to be carried out at last. Thank you to all those who stopped to chat and offer general encouragement, I always love working in Boxford and other local villages.
Our next big mission at the District Council, is to set a balanced budget for years April 26/27. This has not been easy again with costs going up and the need to keep any rises below inflation if possible for the year ahead, we have managed to achieve this again through careful financial planning and the Babergh share of the budget will once again be below a fiver per week for Band D properties for all we do, that’s less than a cup of coffee, if you go posh and I think is a tribute to our councillors and staff alike.
I am aware of course that my councils share of the total budget is only now only around 8.5% of your total Council tax bill and other authorities are going for larger than inflation increases. Also that it contains a rise in car parking charges which I feel is contrary to what was promised a year ago and a bad move all round. No one is more aware than myself of the horrendous increase in the Governments business rates on our Babergh owned car parks but I make the point once again that these areas were originally purchased and made available by the council to help businesses within our market towns and shouldn’t be penalised by business rates at all.
An even bigger task for Babergh at the moment is to implement the new government initiative for statutory recycling throughout and across all council areas in England and Wales. This is a good thing to save confusion and increase recycling rates, which is something we all support and we certainly need to keep the wastage down in society as a whole. We have gone for a 3 weekly collection of black bin rubbish which could get smelly in a hot summer and we know that, but it is impossible to achieve everything we have to do by any other method, without then having to invest in more collection vehicles at a cool cost of approx. £500,000 per vehicle. A hard choice indeed!! At least now we will be recycling more materials at kerbside including tetrapaks, lower grades of plastics/film, carrier bags etc.
Also we endeavour to update our JLP (joint local plan) across both councils and to include within it the new housebuilding ambitions of this government, although Angela Raynor has long gone the housebuilding targets remain for the present moment and into the short term future at least, the problem for the longer term is whether we can maintain supply of skilled labour and materials with which to build 775 new dwellings across Babergh district each year. We have carried out a call for sites that has certainly produced some quite possible sites for providing housing into the coming 30 yrs of the plan, we have to be careful of what we plan and where we put it and have environmental and commercial plans that link together as well. This requires skill and good consultation, but we will reflect everyone’s views as well as we possibly can and we will be trying not to be putting housing in rural areas and villages except where it is wanted, needed or accepted under rural exception policies. Green field areas will I expect be protected for the next ten years of the plan and hopefully after that as well. Also I hope we will go back to building houses that are needed for families of all sizes to be lived in, including first time buyers renters and down sizers, not just for the profit of national housebuilders and their shareholders.
This is all a very ambitious programme but can be done successfully, without destroying the good stuff we have already put into place.
April
At last we have sunshine and our lovely area is beginning to drain and dry out from one of the wettest winters on record, six months rain in six weeks in some areas and not too much less here, where we are normally the driest area in the whole uk, we may well still be despite our own deluges. At least the gales have dried out the waterlogged fields now and spring tilling and sowing is at last underway. We must hope and pray that we have better farming weather this year, otherwise I feel that many of my farming friends will not make it through to another growing and harvest season, with politicians and government remaining clueless as to the value of our agricultural industry has upon our food security and well being and health of our whole nation, Napoleon said that an army marches on its stomach and although he met his Waterloo, he was correct at the time. A diet of junk food and regurgitated pap is no good for anyone, young or old. No industry can invest millions, work for little or no return and just keep going indefinitely.
Certainly at the council, our main task at this moment is to implement the new government “Better recycling initiative” We are doing this a couple of months later than we would have liked but on schedule now for launching the project in early/mid June. The financial burden of doing this has been quite crippling for many councils including BaberghMidSuffolk but we seem to be there now with a good team and management in place and once more good trained operatives to help us get the right stuff in correct Bin. There will be teething problems to start with I am sure and we are having to think on our feet and put new things in place as we go along. As well as better recycling we are also aiming for more recycling and less going into the Power from Waste project even as important as that is in the quest for net zero. By next month everything will become a little clearer and I can be a little more firm on where we are at with this. Main problem for us is a serious cut in funding inflicted upon us as we finalised this years budget and just as we had agreed purchase of two specialist vehicles for split collections. Not great decision or thinking from our Whitehall masters, while appreciating that the previous shower has cleaned the financial cupboard out for themselves, we now more than ever have to live within our means and not promise what we can not deliver.
As most will now know, we do once again have elections this May 7th and the return to democracy is something that should be welcomed, not a good idea to try to dodge the verdict of the people on the past 5 yrs, I hope that the two political parties who seemed to be colluding together here in Suffolk are punished at the ballot box and receive nil points, that sort of gimmick is what can shake our democracy and let in extreme politics along with its masters and shady backers with deep pockets. These folk are sometimes so desperate to get your vote at any cost, they are sometimes very economical with the truth, how else can they pay back the piper who calls the tune. Please check you have a vote and question the candidates, if they come to visit you!!!!
I am at this moment in time reflecting on the number of funerals I have attending this year, so many friends and colleagues have finally come to the end of their personal road and leave this world and its keeping to others left behind. Hard to lose the ones you love but the ones I knew have all left their mark in a good way so we should celebrate the life they had and the good they left behind.
I felt quite vulnerable at the end of this last week and began to doubt my own invincibility but feeling recovered now and six hours on the allotment and a good win for the superblues has steadied the wobble and set me up for the challenges ahead.
Are we wiser as the new generation take up the reigns? I think we are but the world still seems to be run by older has-been’s, or those who never were anything to begin with. Its just like crazed old men who should have been imprisoned long ago having a last hurrah and firing missiles at each other without a care for all the normal people or even the world itself. The lunatics have truly taken over the asylum and much more besides.
Nice to see the Public Realm road sweepers out in the rural villages in the spring sunshine last week, regrettably they are somewhat hampered by parked cars quite often now, this means that it is difficult to get to the edges of the road or sometimes sweep at all, if you spot the sweeper coming by, please move your car to a different place and he will catch up on your bit on the return sweep. Also a major problem now is the condition of the roads, in some places they are so potholed and neglected that we are sweeping on dirt and it harms the brushes Hopefully the elections will bring a new coalition of councillors in charge to manage this and all other functions of the County much better. Where is your money Going???
I will be at a Parish Council near you this month for questions and also at all the Annual Parish Meetings throughout next month, so just stop me and ask one.
Kind Regards and Love to All. Bryn.hurren@babergh.gov.uk 07771 508348