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Village News Issue 96 December 2016 Page 2 Christmas Market on December 2nd 2016 The amount that the Parish Council’s Christmas Charity Collection raised for St. Clare’s Hospice was £878 Thank you all for your generosity See the village website at www.theydon.org.uk for a report & photo galleries Village News Issue 96 December 2016 Page 3 Christmas Market on December 2nd 2016 (continued) Village News Issue 96 December 2016 Page 4 Parish Council Chairman’s Report We have had a fairly busy past three months on the Parish Council and there are several things that will have occurred between the writing of this column and you getting to read it. Firstly, we will have had our annual Christmas market on the 2nd of December. This event has quickly become part of village tradition, and will see many things continuing from last year. We hope to have made some changes for the better as well. We have arranged for the presence of reindeer and a snow globe to add to the School Choir, brass band and stalls from last year. Additionally, we are bringing back the location of our Christmas Tree to the Green, near the zebra crossing. As ever, the Councillors will be collecting for our charity of the year, which this year is St Clare’s Hospice. Collecting tins will be all around the market and the Councillors will also have given up time on the Saturday morning to collect in the village centre. There is particular poignancy this year, as in September we experienced the loss of previous Councillor Peter Hammond, who spent some time in St Clare’s himself. The Council observed a minute’s silence before the September meeting and were well represented at Peter’s funeral. As a council, we remain grateful for all the time and effort Peter spent on Parish issues. The Parish Council has also spent significant time, effort and resources working on our response to EFDC’s Draft Local Plan. We had budgeted this year to allow us to employ some professional advice to assist with this task. At the time of writing, the response had not yet been produced, but we will be publicising what we have learnt and our response. It was good to see many more people at our September Council meeting and at the special Local Plan meeting in November, than we usually get to our monthly meetings. As a reminder, all our meetings are open to the public and the full Council meets on the last Thursday of each month, with the exception of December and August. Agendas are published on our notice boards and the village website contains much Parish Council information. The last Friday of November will have seen our quarterly Theydon Seniors get-together. These afternoons of tea, chat and entertainment are always enjoyed by those who are there, but it is unfortunate that we are seeing fewer people from the village attending. Again, these events are open to all in the village who are not as young as they used to be; if you are interested in coming along, please contact the parish office to find out the details of our next one. There have also been many background activities going on. The parking regulations have been implemented on the Green and repair work has been carried out on the path there as well. We have also repaired the fence by Station Hill on the Abridge Road. We are also aiming to improve the CCTV coverage in the village. The finance committee has started work on next year’s budget. Our aim, as always, is to keep the Parish Council component of the Council tax the same as last year. We will be completing the process and making the final decision at full Council in our January meeting. I want to finish by wishing everybody in Theydon Bois a happy Christmas and look forward to meeting many of you in the new year. JOHN PHILIP Village News Issue 96 December 2016 Page 5 Village News Issue 96 December 2016 Page 6 Parish Council’s School Chri stmas Card Competition Coppice OLIVIA BIRD Overall Winner Left - Harewood Above - Pakes AISHA QURESHI ABIGAIL FRY Every year the Parish Council together with Theydon NewsDesk challenge the children from the Primary School to produce a Christmas Card for our village. The judges pick a winner from each class, winners for Infants/ Reception & Juniors and an overall winner (which becomes the Parish Council’s official Christmas Card). Village News Issue 96 December 2016 Page 7 Parish Council’s School Christmas Card Competition (continued) Above - Baldocks & Infants Winner Above - Orchard ELSIE JONES JOE COYNE Above - Buxton CAITLIN KELLY Left- Forest ISABELLA LESTER Village News Issue 96 December 2016 Page 8 News from County Hall The district council’s draft local plan has been a big topic of conversation in the village. Any new development generates demand for county council services such as school places and roads. The county council already predicts we need an extra 560 primary school places and 1,300 secondary school places in Epping Forest by 2021. This is equivalent to 1½ new primary schools and a new secondary school. The numbers could increase to 700 primary places and 1,400 secondary places by 2021 because of new housing development identified in the draft local plan and will rise beyond that to meet demand from housing built after 2021. Like the parish council, the county council is a consultee on the plan. At the time of writing the county council is putting together its response. I am in contact with various county council officers in different departments to make sure they are aware of local issues and try to have them addressed in the formal response. Pavement and verge parking - Those of us at December’s parish council meeting heard a presentation from the North Essex Parking Partnership’s enforcement manager. His civil enforcement officers issue penalties where vehicles are parking on yellow lines, in residents’ parking zones or obstructing dropped kerbs. Only the police have the power to deal with vehicles causing obstructions in other locations. However the sad truth is that the police have many priorities and may not always respond (hence the demand to reverse the recent cutbacks in community policing). Pavement parking is a real issue in many roads locally and comes up so often the county council's Place Services and Economic Growth Scrutiny Committee recently held a session on it. You can download the briefing considered by councillors at http://tinyurl.com/pavementparkingbrief. Frustratingly the conclusions were that little is likely to change in terms of enforcement unless there are changes to the law such as those advocated by the Guide Dogs Association. This places the onus on the council or landowners to look at alternative ways of solving the problem, such as providing parking bays (expensive and often at the expense of grass verges), tolerating parking on grass verges or greens (often unsightly) or introducing new parking restrictions (via the North Essex Parking Partnership). Despite the frustrations it is an issue I will continue to work on. Information about care and health support - It’s not always easy to find reliable information about care services and health support. The www.livingwellessex.org website is intended to be a first port of call giving initial advice and information about the different sorts of support that are available. If you are not on the internet Healthwatch Essex runs a Freephone telephone information service on 0300 500 1895 which covers social care services as well as health. Don’t miss the deadline - A reminder that, if you have a child due to start school next year, the deadline for applying for a primary school place is Sunday 15 January. Last year every child living within Theydon Bois Primary School’s priority admission area got a place but this can change from year to year. It’s important not to miss the deadline as that may reduce your child’s chance of getting the school, you want. As this is my last column of the year I’d like to wish all readers a very happy Christmas and a peaceful New Year. Thanks to everyone who has contacted me or raised issues during 2016. Councillor Jon Whitehouse County member for Epping & Theydon Bois Telephone 01992 561875 Email: [email protected] Village News Issue 96 December 2016 Page 9 Village News Issue 96 December 2016 Page 10 Copped Hall Corner ROGRESS AT THE MANSION - The south wall of the P larger of the two School Rooms in the Mansion is actually the external wall of the eighteenth century building. This wall includes a window which originally gave light into the kitchen in the Mansion basement. The Trust has restored the brickwork around the former window and installed a window of eighteenth century design. As this window is now internal, it provides a view directly down into the basement kitchen. This is helpful to those who are unable to negotiate the stairs to the basement. The second flight of the central stone staircase has been installed; the stone for the third flight is being sourced. When complete, this will bring the staircase up to the first or principal floor in the Mansion. Work has resumed on the original 1895 lift in the Mansion Wing and includes structural work on the timber enclosing the lift shaft. This is an historic manually controlled lift which was not converted to electrical operation as the Mansion was not used by the Wythes family after the fire of 1917.