Report for May 2026 from Cllr Bryn Hurren.
Firstly, I feel that the greatest tribute should be given to one of, if not the greatest person of our recent generations. I do not speak of politicians or world leaders as great in their time as they have been very sparse recently, we have mainly been saddled with greed, cowardice, coercion and downright corruption from many modern world leaders.
My person of the last two centuries would be the now 100 yr old David Attenborough, who has almost single handedly commented on and led the campaign to educate numerous generations on the value of nature, bio-diversity and climate change and how we can slow it down if not stop it entirely, to me it has always been plain common sense that if the temperature rose, ice would melt from polar ice caps, sea and river levels would rise and wild fires would break out.
Staggeringly and almost worse will be, when all the ice becomes just water and levels rise by the predicted 1200.mm, the hallowed turf of Portman Road will be frequently under water. That will surely effect people being born now.
Under David's guidance, we did seem to be doing quite well in the race against time to if not head this off, slow it down long enough to give the human race a chance of decent survival for a much longer period of time into the future.
Sadly, due to the likes of non believers and greedy wealth grabbers and those of influence such as Trump, Netanyahu, Putin and now Farage and those they attract and harbour to do their collective bidding have surely wrecked any chance of this.
Thanks Sir David for trying hard for us. We should all salute you, man ahead of his time.
As we are all aware, we now have customary County Council elections back for one last time before unitary and devolved government is finally brought into place in May 2028.
Once again I have placed my hat into the ballot box to try to win the division of Stour Valley for the increasingly forward thinking and competent Liberal Democrat Party who I have always supported for the past 50 yrs through good and even better times, hopefully we have now been forgiven for supporting the Tories in Coalition to save the country from financial annihilation after the Blair Brown years, which badly backfired on us and led quite wrongly to our own demise.
For me, I have always supported the people before the politics and my political masters have always allowed me to do that and long may that continue whatever my future role.
I am totally devastated that the Boundary Commission has for numerical reasons placed my beloved District ward of Box Vale, which I have come to love so much, into an unfamiliar County Division but I do promise to work with whoever is elected for my final two years as the Babergh Councillor for the area.
Great news for my area is that Monks Eleigh Post Office will re-open in a couple of weeks after appointment and training of new postmistress to succeed Mandy Coll, we thought she was irreplaceable but we have succeeded and are so pleased to do so.
With these outlets frequently being closed due to alleged underuse, it is great to succeed in such a good appointment to enable this facility to co-exist alongside and inside the brilliant village Community shop and to continue to serve the local and passing customers.
Also another piece of good news is the government increase in funding for a new regular public transport bus service from Hadleigh through to Stowmarket, this will be for a trial period and is designed to enable local people through a dial a ride feeder service to get to a designated bus stop along the route to connect to Hadleigh or Stowmarket for services and travel further afield, in the case of Stowmarket, this means a train service on a major route to travel further afield to Norwich, into the midlands, London and from their towards the rest of the world and beyond. Good Luck with that!!
The annual occurrence that causes myself most angst as a councillor is when the County Council announces the lists of the young scholars starting or changing schools for the first time and whether they get supported transport or not, then my inbox gets full of desperate parents who were quite rightly expecting free transport to their High school from primary feeder school, which is sometimes by a short distance not their nearest school, or to their primary school of choice which for some reason is not quite their nearest school, this policy has become a nightmare to manage and deliver and should be changed immediately to allow sensible placement into the future.
While it is sensible to not fund transport for miles away, in some of these cases the school bus is already driving near or even past their doors or even refusing to take siblings on board, when the bus has empty seats.
I will take my second annual day off on May 8th for the election count but otherwise business as usual for Bryn.
I hope to see everyone as usual at your village APMs and feel free to ask anything you think is applicable to yourself or your village. These annual parish meetings are not that formal, so do please come along and take part, you might make your own points and watch democracy at a local level at work.
Keep Well and Take Care.
If you need me-- bryn.hurren@babergh.gov.uk tel no. 07771 508348
Bryn.