Written 21/07/04

There was an exceptionally long meeting of the parish council on Monday night, finishing close to 11pm. The first hour and a half was spent on the issue of the travellers who recently visited the village. Officers from SCDC and the County Council attended, along with local police.

After a long debate, and after the residents had had their say too, council decided to review the whole village and consider whether we should be securing other sites too and, if so, how given that our previous attempt had failed.

Going on to other matters we had a presentation about buying our own PCSO. This would cost the village about £26,000 in the first year and £22,000 in subsequent years (equivalent to about £12 per annum on a band D property). Councillors were concerned that we would end up paying for our policing twice, but there seems to be a widely held view in the village that PCSO Lee Page was an excellent asset to the village so perhaps it would be worth biting the bullet and paying for a PCSO. Council agreed to return to this issue in September and may decide to do a formal consultation exercise with the village before proceeding as going ahead would increase the village rate by about 25%.

On planning the two that may be of interest were an application for an entertainments licence for the Country Park for this Saturday for eight live bands from 12:30pm to 8:30pm (on which council made no comment) and an application from NTL for two dishes at the mast behind Milton Hall. On this council made no objection "so long as these antennae do no interfere with TV reception for Milton residents (as happened with previous installations". An amendment, narrowly passed, added a comment that council was concerned about the proliferation of antennae on the masts in the village.

Council agreed to go ahead with the purchase of replacement play equipment at the play area on the Rowans (near Shapers) to replace old items which are coming to their end of their life.

Lots of other ground was covered too - it was a very long meeting, but you will have to wait for the minutes if you want the gory details.

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