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Meon Matters News, Views & Comment from East Meon £1.00 Spring 2021 Issue Number 208 meonmatters.com 11 Plumbing & Heating [email protected] 551073 Mobile 07775 866690 William Home 01329 830379 Fleming All aspects of Plumbing & Heating 39 years experience Boilers :- Servicing, Replaced, upgrades Free estimates Central Heating :- Flushed £350 No call out charge Gas, LPG, Oil Log Burners Breakdown . Service Domestic & Commercial New Installs 30832 02392 632 275 Selling, Letting & Managing properties in East Meon countryhousecompany.co.uk 02392 632 275 countryhousecompany.co.uk Cover Picture: Charlie and Monty pupils at East Meon Primary with hedgehog home 1 EDITORIAL Dear Readers Spring has sprung and as I write, by the time this edition of Meon Matters has dropped through your letterbox, schools will be open, the lifting of further Covid restrictions will be near and we’ll be eager-ly awaiting the arrival of the Easter Bunny! You may have noticed that the Meon Matters website (www.meonmatters.com) has been refreshed thanks to Andrew Hughes who’s done a sterling job. The focus is on village events, photos and any news that doesn’t fit the quarterly magazine. Contributions are welcomed (email [email protected]). We hope to start Meon Matters Village Diary - an email alerts service for events - as lockdown eases. Lastly, the Editors would like to give a shout-out to our team of 26 distributors headed up by Rosemary Ryder who, voluntarily and come rain or shine, deliver your magazine to some 630 house-holds - THANK YOU TEAM! Wishing you all a lovely Easter and here’s hoping for a more sociable summer ahead! Annabel Tyrwhitt-Drake Deadline for submission of articles etc for the Summer Issue is 18th June. The Editorial Team: [email protected] Editors: Marc Atkinson, Clare de Lotbiniere, Sigi Goolden, Andrew Hughes, Anna Tebbutt, Annabel Tyrwhitt-Drake Contributing Editors: Ron Ingerson, Debs Evans Roving Reporter: Charlie Gaisford Advertising and Finance: Andy Hales Distribution: Rosemary Ryder Layout and Printing: Wildly Upbeat Printers LOCAL INFORMATION 2 Useful Numbers POLICE: 101 or 01962 841534 POLICE HAMPSHIRE COUNTRY WATCH Anna Presswell 07469 562221 WEST MEON SURGERY 01730 829666 OUT OF HOURS DOCTOR 111 EAST MEON STORES 01730 823276 CITIZENS ADVICE BUREAU 03444 111306 / 0300 3300650 EHDC 01730 266551 EAST HAMPSHIRE COUNCILLOR Rob Mocatta 01730 823908 EAST MEON PARISH COUNCIL Susan Davenport, Chair 01730 776207 Suzie Brooker, Parish Clerk 07913559579 HAMPSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL 0845 603 5638 VICAR Jane Ball 01730 823221 EAST MEON CARE GROUP 0705 017 7505 EAST MEON VILLAGE HALL BOOKINGS 07956 783061 3 PARISH COUNCIL Parish Council Update With lockdown having exhausted our supplies of TV boxsets and Scandi-noir, it’s no surprise that we are turning to our Parish Councils as an additional source of light entertainment. Fortuitously, EMPC has so far been negligent in this regard, although truth be told, many of us on the Council would lack the social media awareness to even begin to know if one of our meetings had gone viral. And we are hoping our latest March meeting will be our final one on Zoom, although we will roll-the-dice one last time with an online Annual Parish Assembly at 7pm on Monday 26 April. We do hope you will be able to join us, and please do submit any of your questions in advance if possible. And so, to business. And it’s a double, seamlessly covering our January and March meetings. Spring has sprung, and so have our stiles. Well, 4 kissing and wicket gates to be strictly accurate, all kindly provided by SDNPA and to be installed in time for your Easter walks. Supported by our County and District Councillor, Rob Mocatta, we are in communication with SDNPA to better protect our byways. To help us, please do continue to supply Susan Davenport with photographic evidence of any motorised abuse, ideally ahead of our early summer meeting with SDNPA to discuss this matter. Moving from byways to roads, we are storing up a worthy list of topics for EHDC’s highways engineer as soon as he is allowed to visit. Subjects include (i) yellow line repainting; (ii) better signage to deter unnecessary traffic from Workhouse Lane, the Cross and Ramsdean Lane; (iii) possible measures to prevent recurring damage to the kerb on the bridge opposite the George; and (iv) our quest to reduce speed limits in the village where accident risk is highest. On speed limits, we have been cautioned that this will require long term persistence on our part, hopefully aided by more weighting being given to climate change considerations. Again, you can help us by providing photographic evidence of any motoring incidents. You will be heartened to learn it’s not just East Meon banging on about this - in late 2020 the UN (presumably following in East Meon’s wake?) endorsed the setting of 20mph speed limits where pedestrians and cyclists mix with motor vehicles. PARISH COUNCIL 4 Inevitably, Speed Watch has been more Speed Wait during the Lockdown, but our team of eager volunteers is just beginning to regroup and start limbering-up - so it’s time to be on your best motoring behaviour. In parallel, our portable electronic speed warning sign has been returned to base for an upgrade, potentially incorporating better visuals and data acquisition capabilities to further inform our speed limits campaign. Talking of local volunteers, you recall EMNG - our highly active Nature Group? Well, they are still bursting with energy. On Coombe Road, they have pressed on with toad crossing warning signs. You cannot miss them.........and the toads themselves are thriving under EMNG’s care. Based on the latest count, some 350 toads and almost 100 newts have been ferried safely across the road! Hats-off to the EMNG team for sustaining over a month of evening patrols, particularly considering these wonderful amphibians are most active when it’s raining! With energy seemingly to spare, EMNG are now turning their attention to an experimental wildflower area on the north side of the Sports Pavillion. We too are focused on the Sports Pavillion, progressing with a partial change of use planning application and obtaining quotes for the associated works. We are also in line to receive a welcome grant from EHDC which we will put to making necessary repairs to the fabric of the Pavillion and potentially for CCTV provision. Whilst on buildings, planning applications continue apace, with everything from modest doer-uppers to a pre-application for Westbury House and new plans for the Coombe Road development, on which we have commented extensively. Thank you for doing so too, and please do keep your observations coming through the usual planning channels. Finally, a big thank you to EHDC for providing the recycling flyer included with your magazine. EHDC incur considerable costs re-sorting waste, so it’s in all our interests to get our recycling as accurate as possible. You may have recently received your 21/22 council tax demand which offers a limited breakdown of where your money is spent. We have posted more detail on our website, which we hope will satisfy you on the appropriately cost-conscious nature of our Parish and District Councils. 5 PARISH COUNCIL Annual Parish Report 2020 was a year of opportunity as much as it was a year of cancelled events - the Annual Parish Assembly, VE Day Celebrations, the Sewage Open Meeting and the Village Autumn Picnic, to name a few. Liaising with public bodies has been in some cases frustrating and several initiatives have had to be delayed. In general however it has been “Business as Usual” with all the councillors honing their PC skills to join webinars and our bi-monthly Zoom Parish Council Meetings. We have completed or initiated an enormous number of infrastructure improvements notwithstanding Covid and thanks to the dedication of the Planning Committee have continued to comment on all the applications within the parish (see below). Recreation During the year the All Sports Court and our two play areas have been locked and unlocked in accordance with government guidelines. Following extensive repairs and improvements to the play equipment last year this year our annual Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) report highlighted only a couple of minor repairs. Sadly, Clanfield FC Juniors who have rented our Football Field for many years have found cheaper and less waterlogged pitches elsewhere which has left us with a shortfall in our annual income of £1200. Conscious that there is a market for renting out office space in the village but aware that we need to retain changing facilities we are looking into a partial change of use of the Pavilion. Rest assured we will not allow the Pavilion to be used either as a cafe or other retail outlet which would result in even more traffic in Workhouse Lane. The All Sports Court has been professionally cleaned, will have a new tennis net and posts in the spring and can now be booked online via the PC website. Speeding/ Traffic Calming East Meon has been subjected to increased numbers of vehicles driving through the village. Some are taking short cuts directed by SatNav others using the High Street as a rat run. Prompted by justifiable concern expressed by residents at the eastern end of the High Street we commissioned a Traffic Count by Hampshire Police and also have set up a Speed Watch Campaign in the village headed by Helen Galliano. Once Covid restrictions are lifted Helen and her team of 7 volunteers will be able to go ahead with their training and will become familiar figures reminding drivers to slow down as they record and report to the police the registration numbers of cars exceeding the speed limit in various locations round the village.