Over Kellet View
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Price £1.00 to non-residents October 2020 ISSUE 131 OVER KELLET VIEW Editorial Board: Peter Clinch (Editorial & Advertising), Paul Budd (Editorial and Production), Josie Candlin (Distribution) BOARD OF MANAGEMENT Chairs of the Parish Council and Parochial Church Council We are grateful to the above organisations for their financial support HOW TO PREPARE A CONTRIBUTION We are happy to receive electronic, typed and legible hand-written contributions. For a copy of the OK View Notes for Contributors please e-mail [email protected] Electronic text contributions should ideally be in Microsoft Word format, but we can accept most other formats. Please set the page size to A4 and use 14pt Arial font. Photos and illustrations should be sent as separate files, NOT embedded within documents; most are reproduced in black and white and benefit from good contrast. Pictures intended for the front cover should be in portrait format. For help or advice phone: Peter (01524 734591), Paul (07749 897999), Josie (01524 942079). WHERE TO SEND IT Hard-copy contributions should be sent to The Editors c/o Tree Tops, Moor Close Lane, Over Kellet, LA6 1DF; electronic ones to the e-mail address: [email protected] DEADLINE For each issue the closing date for contributions is the fifteenth of the previous month, but earlier submissions are always welcome. ADVERTISING Please e-mail us at [email protected] for an advertising stylesheet, rates and guidance. We are unable to offer a design service and will only accept material electronically. DISCLAIMER The views expressed in this magazine are those of the contributors and not necessarily those of either the Editorial and/or Management Board. Every care is taken to provide accurate information, particularly in the Village Listings, Directory and Local Services. We apologise for any errors and would be pleased to have them pointed out to us. Over Kellet View is published monthly except for January and August; it is distributed to all homes within the parish of Over Kellet and is available for purchase at the Village Store. Each issue can also be seen in a colour version on the Over Kellet village website www.overkellet.org We are grateful to Gordon Galloway, the webmaster, for his expert help. ©2020 Over Kellet View, Tree Tops, Moor Close Lane [email protected] Find us on overkelletview Printed by Bay Typesetters, Morecambe Tel: 01524 850056, 07710 405864 [email protected] 2 The October View A Village Overrun by Developers On Monday 24th August, just as the September issue of OK View was going to the printer, a building contractor with heavy construction equipment arrived at the end of Greenways, drove over the strip of land at the end of the road and into the field. Security fencing was erected around the site, for which outline planning consent for fifteen houses was given in 2016. Rumours of what the workmen had said would be happening started to fly around the village. On 26th August the Parish Council held a hastily arranged Extraordinary Meeting to discuss the situation (see the report on pages 8-10). As you will read the PC has acted swiftly and decisively. The week beginning 31st August saw the start of tree felling and other work to clear the site at The Willows, Moor Close Lane, ready for the demolition of the house and the construction of a significantly larger one. A few days later site-clearance work began on the neighbouring paddock ready for a new house. Construction noise (at deafening levels on occasion) continues to be experienced by residents close to the site of West Penwith and also from the housing development on the site of the former chicken sheds off Kirkby Lonsdale Road. Noise nuisance from construction and demolition activities is governed by the Environmental Protection Act 1990 but the level of nuisance has to be considerable before a local authority can act on a complaint. A decision on the detailed planning application submitted for fifty-five houses behind Old Hall Farm is awaited from Lancaster City Council, as is one on the conversion of Old Hall Barns to housing. Should these permissions be granted there could be simultaneous construction work on three sides of the village. The patience of residents will be tried by the attendant noise of construction plant and tools, heavy goods vehicle traffic to and from the sites, and the general loss of the peace of our quiet rural area. There is a national housing shortage, but in this area it seems private developers are not keen to assist in creating affordable housing suitable for the many people living in poor-quality accommodation. The developer on the Old Hall Farm site wishes to reduce the number of affordable houses from that agreed in the outline consent. What the developer of the Greenways site intends to do remains to be seen, but it is rumoured that he wishes to increase the number of houses from the fifteen permitted in the outline consent when the detailed plans are submitted. Changes to Local Bus Services On 2nd September Stagecoach issued information about revisions to its services. The only bus route serving Over Kellet will continue to be the 49 running at the times given on page 31. The 55 service, which operated through the village up to the coronavirus lockdown in March, will no longer serve Over Kellet but run between Carnforth and Lancaster along the A6. Some of its early morning and late afternoon services have been designated for the use of school and college students only. Those vehicles will bear the letter ‘S’ in front of the route number but none will pass through Over Kellet. These changes result in there now being just one morning commuter service out of the village to Lancaster leaving The Green at 07.36, and the last evening service leaving Lancaster Bus Station at 17.15. The hourly frequency of services is broken from Monday to Friday with a nearly two-hour break 3 The October View (continued) in the Lancaster-Over Kellet service after 14.30 and nearly three hours during the afternoon on the Over Kellet-Lancaster service. In its Local Plan to 2031 Lancaster City Council designated Over Kellet a sustainable village – meaning it is ripe for further development. However, as local bus services are whittled away, more people will travel by car – to the detriment of the roads and the environment. There has been no follow-up on the provision of other services, such as a local pharmacy or GP surgery. Unlike some European countries we do not have a policy which inter-relates development, adequate provision of local facilities and regard for the environment. Happy Birthday Joan Galloway On our cover and on page 20 we mark Joan’s ninetieth birthday and the eighty-eight years since she moved to Over Kellet with her family. The Editorial Team wish her all the best for the future and hope that the celebration for her wider family, delayed owing to the coronavirus restrictions, will be able to take place soon. Peter Clinch Village Website Past and current issues of the Over Kellet View, including photographs in full colour, are available for download from the Village website at www.overkellet.org 4 Letter From The Vicar “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.” Proverbs 13:12 There’s something very hard about unfulfilled expectations. Cast your mind back to March when the lockdown was starting and we imagined that things might have settled down by the time we got to September. Life hasn’t quite worked out that way unfortunately, and Covid-19 stubbornly persists. As humans, we live on hope. We hope that things will get better; hope that we’ll see family and friends again; hope that troubles, hardship and illnesses will pass and give way to better times. When we find those hopes dashed, or postponed as they often are, the verse above from Proverbs seems very apt. Tell a child that they’ll get a chocolate bar today, but then change your mind to say it will be tomorrow instead, and the reaction isn’t a good one! The Christian faith is all about hope, but it isn’t based on our physical or material circumstances. Following Jesus isn’t an escape from the troubles of this world, far from it. All of us, whatever we believe, face the challenges of loneliness, illness, unemployment and many others. Often these challenges can go unnoticed by others, too. The restrictions of lockdown have had significant effects on our mental health, which we may not always recognise. We don’t know how long these circumstances will last. We may find our hopes and expectations raised, we may see light at the end of the tunnel, or we may not. What Christians have is hope beyond their circumstances. Jesus’ resurrection from the dead provides the hope of new life, of restoration and renewal. Even when our hopes and expectations for this life go unfulfilled or disappointed, Jesus’ promise is for new life into eternity when we trust in him. Services at St Cuthbert’s Our Sunday services continue at our usual time of 11.15am, subject to social distancing and wearing face coverings. Our Wednesday morning Zoom service at 9:30am continues jointly with St Paul’s; home groups are also meeting on-line each Wednesday evening. For log-in details please contact Rev Paul on 770300 or [email protected]. Remembrance Day and Christmas At the time of writing it is not clear whether we will be able to hold an Act of Remembrance at the War Memorial.