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UPDATE THE NORTHAW & CUFFLEY PARISH COUNCIL MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 2019 ISSUE 66 Celebrating 125 Years 1894 - 2019 Northaw & Cuffley Parish Council UPDATE FEBRUARY 2019 Travis Perkins Supplies more than 100,000 product lines including general building Materials, timber, plumbing & heating, kitchens, bathrooms, Landscaping materials & tool hire. Next day delivery service Branch Manager Assistant Manager Ryan Shrives Craig Knight Why not take advantage of the Northaw & Cuffley Parish Council Cash Card which offers discount on all our product lines. Simply bring in a copy of this advert. Cuffley Branch Sopers Road, Cuffley, Herts EN6 4SE Tel: 01707 873536 E-mail: [email protected] www.travisperkins.co.uk Opening Times Monday to Friday 7.30am – 5.00pm Saturday 8.00am – 12 noon UPDATE ISSUE 66 CONTENTS Editor: Carol Branigan Page Chairman’s Update . 3-5 The Parish Council – Who we are and what we do . 6 The Kidston Institute . 7 NCRA – 89 Years & Still Going Strong . 8 Northaw Community Orchard . 9 Cuffley Village – 1894 . 10-11 What’s On At Cuffley Hall . 13 SCANGB Update . 14-15 Spooky Coincidences in the Parish History . 16-19 Commemorations for William Leefe Robinson VC . 20 Encouraging butterflies and other wildlife into your garden . 22 Local Woman Wins Lifetime Achievement Award . 24 Cuffley Horticultural Society . 25 The History of the Whitewebbs Museum . 26-27 Gallery . 28-29 Northaw & Cuffley Parish Local Organisations & Socieites . 31 2 ISSUE 66 Chair’s Update Welcome to Update. This is the first of four editions this year so hopefully after reading it you will have found out a bit more about our Villages and found something you may want to get involved in. Although we are very close to London and have fragile separation from Potters Bar, Goffs Oak and Enfield, we hope to strengthen our community to offer you the environment and support to enjoy living here and to make friends and memories for life. 125 years of Northaw and Cuffley Parish Council The Parish Council has been in existence covering both Villages and their surroundings since 1894. Northaw, as the older village, has a long history with parish records going back to the 16th Century. The total population of our two villages in 1881 was 500, living in 100 houses. Two thirds of the population were either farm labourers or domestic servants. As you can read on our website History page, the population didn’t change much until the Great Northern Railway built the line through Cuffley in 1910. At the last census we had a population of over 5,000. To celebrate 125 years, we will be running a number of events, exhibitions, tree plantings (125 of them) and articles about our History but also about our future. We hope you will watch out in Update, on our website and on our office windows for information about what is on. eW look forward to meeting you at one of our events. Neighbourhood Plan Our neighbourhood plan has been on hold for two years awaiting the outcome of Welwyn Hatfield Borough Councils Local Plan. We have decided not to wait any longer to define what our future as a Parish should look like in all areas that we have control and influence.This seemed an appropriate project for our 125 years to finish and ensure our residents are in agreement. We will be running a workshop to look at a variety of areas that we want your input on. These will be areas such as our playing fields and playgrounds, the main road through Cuffley, options for business space, density and style of housing and traffic control amongst others. Please contact us if you want to be at the workshop or be involved over the next couple of months. Green Belt Review Welwyn Hatfield have now completed their Green Belt Review and have gone out to call for more potential sites for housing. The Parish Council employed Consultants to help us with our response to the methodology they used for identifying the harm to the green belt that would be brought about if a variety of green belt sites were built upon. One of our main areas of concern was the suggestion that Northaw would no longer have washed over green belt status which provides some protection against further building. The response we made is available on the website. 3 UPDATE FEBRUARY 2019 We now wait to see which other areas landowners put forward as potential building sites. We will continue to work with consultants to try and ensure any new builds identified are suitable and fulfil the needs of our residents and future residents and there is only an amount of expansion that our infrastructure can support. Council Elections Parish Council Elections will take place this year on May 2nd. All eight posts are up for election so if you are interested in influencing what happens in your local villages and are interested in getting involved in local politics this would be your opportunity. Parish councillors have the advantage of not being tied by party politics so can make decisions that are not necessarily related to National political priorities. The posts are unpaid but training is funded and you will be supported in your work by our employed staff. Council meetings are open to the public so why not come to a Planning, Policy & Resources or full Council meeting in March to get a better idea of what we do and whether you might want to stand. Fly tipping Fly tipping is not only unsightly and at times dangerous, it is also a rural crime that is on the increase. At a recent Barn Meet with Hertfordshire police we were encouraged to report it to the police as well as to Welwyn Hatfield borough Council so that if the police can find evidence of where the rubbish came from, they can take action. The police are finding rogue builders are travelling out into our countryside from North London and tipping building rubble. They have the power to seize vehicles but need the information from us. We have a few hot spots, Coopers Lane Road, the Ridgeway, Cuffley and behind the Youth Centre in Cuffley. Contact for the police is through 101 or if the crime is in progress 999. Antisocial Behaviour We have a number of regular incidents of anti-social behaviour in our villages at the moment particularly starting fires and vandalism in our playgrounds and playing fields. Please report these to the police if you see them happening as they are becoming more frequent and eventually could lead to serious damage. As many of you know our brand new playground had the zipwire broken, we are unsure whether this was a group of over enthusiastic people using the zipwire at the same time or it was deliberate damage. The CCTV has now been upgraded and is being monitored 24 hours a day with direct reporting into the police. We understand that young people in Cuffley and Northaw may be limited in what is on offer locally so if you are young, bored and have got some good ideas of what would make things better please get in touch as we are keen to try and develop King George V Playing Field and other areas to offer something more interesting for young people. 4 ISSUE 66 Grants If you are a local group or organisation and need some financial help to develop and grow please come and talk to us about our one off grants for projects. Grant applications are made in May. Previous projects have upgraded kitchens in the Scout hut, made an accessible toilet in a church, upgraded the Football clubhouse and provided a hitting wall at the Tennis club. We are keen to see a range of projects from different groups. A total fund of £25,000 is available with a maximum grant of £5,000 per project and a minimum of £250. Local Organisations and Businesses Our Local Organisations and Businesses need your support. We are very lucky that in our two villages we have many local organisations that offer a range of opportunities for you to make friends, learn new skills or raise money for your favourite cause. These organisations are always looking for new volunteers. Come and meet some of them at Village Day or look at the back of Update where many of them are listed. We also need to be supporting our local shops and businesses. We don’t want empty shops on our main street or pubs and cafes going out of business. In Cuffley we have empty shops at the moment. If you think Cuffley needs a particular kind of shop or service now or in the future, let us know so that we can try and incorporate it in our Neighbourhood plan. Northaw and Cuffley Village Day Our Village Day this year will be Sunday 23rd June. Slightly earlier this year to try and prevent some of the clashes we had with other events last year. We are trying to theme it around 125 years of the Parish Council so will be encouraging stall holders to choose a decade and dress in that way. We will be looking for anything from Victorian to Punk so a chance for everyone to look in the back of wardrobes. We also hope to run a fun run on that day so if you have experience of running one and would be happy to get involved please let us know. Extra prizes will be on offer for those running in our themed fancy dress. As usual we will be looking for volunteers to help on the day or join the organising committee.