Bressingham & Fersfield Parish Plan 2011 A Plan for the 21st Century Contents 4 & 5. Introduction 6 & 7. History of the Villages 8. Our Households 9. Our Community - A joint community or separate villages? 10. Our Community - Community Information 11. Our Community - Parish Council, Recreation Ground / Playing Fields 12. Our Community - The Churches, the School and Village Hall 13. Traffic & Travel - Travel & Travel Problems 14. Traffic & Travel - Quiet Lanes 15. Planning 16. Footpaths, Country & Environment - Footpaths, Permissive Routes & Countryside 17. Footpaths, Country & Environment - Environment 18. Footpaths, Country & Environment and Local Businesses 19. Healthcare and Young Children 20. Activities and Safety 21. Young People 22. What Characteristics of the Parish do you want to see 23 - 25. Maintained? 26. Action Plan and recommendations for action groups 27. Acknowledgements 3 Introduction All in all, it’s been incredibly hard work to get to this stage in the process, and yet this is just the start!! Now we’re armed with all this important information we need to put it to use to move forward into the future. For change to happen, we need to make it happen! To help, we’ve taken the information from all your questionnaires, listened to what you want and have come up with some action plans to get things started. Your Parish Plan has finally arrived! BUT WE After two and a half years, a dream has become Community Council. STILL NEED reality thanks to the hard work of a dedicated number of local people, not to mention all of Numerous meetings later, we’re still speaking your invaluable input. to each other (just!) Among the heated YOUR discussions, we’ve had some great laughs and Back in 2008, here in the Parish of now know what a ‘she wee’ is! Babies have Bressingham and Fersfield, we formed a Parish been born and older children have left home. HELP! Plan Steering Committee to find out exactly The pub has burned down, been rebuilt and is what we – as villagers – think of our villages. almost ready to open as we go to print. But it wasn’t just as easy as asking you. Instead we’ve fought a long, hard slog to There has also been a change of Government We will be setting up action groups to take your Parish Plan to the next phase. get where we are today. We applied for since this all began. Anyone who’s heard of However little or how much time you have, please volunteer to help our community grow. grants, developed, distributed and collected The Big Society and the Localism Bill going In the meantime, all that’s left to say is a big thank you to all the members of the Committee both a questionnaire, organised public events, through parliament at the moment, will see past and present who have given up so much of their valuable time in order to get the work done. recruited more people onto the committee and just how current and important our Parish The Parish of Bressingham and Fersfield is already a fantastic place to live – together let’s make it all the while, tried to keep people informed of Plan really is, because evidence from it really even better! the process. Thankfully we’ve been helped does influence decision makers – such as the along the way by Peter Smith, our Community town, borough and county councils – about a Bressingham and Ferfield Parish Plan Committee Development Officer at Norfolk Rural community's aspirations for the future. 4 5 History of the Villages Bressingham fared better. The is still the major employer in negotiated the purchase of the school took on the Fersfield the village. There are also playing field. Bressingham and Fersfield pupils and still survives and still seven farmers living and have existed for a very long thrives today. The Post Office working in Bressingham, What has changed since then? time. The first recorded went but the shop is still although most of them also Statistically, not much. In 1978 mention of them was in 963 trading. The mill was sold to have other sources of income. there were thought to be 737 but they had probably been residents, compared with 827 around for some time before in 1931 and 777 today, in 2011. that. For the rest of the next The villages have clearly not nine hundred years they were grown in population down owned by feudal landlords, the years, mainly because of mostly the Dukes of Norfolk, planning restrictions on new and, by and large, nothing developments. What has much happened or changed. changed is the way those 777 residents live compared with In 1894 the Local Government their predecessors. Act established the Parish the residents of Fersfield we had 194, giving a combined Councils. Bressingham do not know. Interestingly, the total of 827. All the people The majority of those living and Fersfield each had Bressingham Council minutes living in the villages at that time in both villages now have to their own, but in 1935 the of that year make no mention also worked there, mostly on find work outside the villages County of Norfolk transferred of their new companions. the land. until they retire. When their the Fersfield Council to work moves they often have Bressingham, presumably for At this time both villages Then things began to change, to move with it. Work therefore administrative convenience, were fully self-contained especially for Fersfield. First is no longer what binds the although there was an communities, each with a the school went (in 1935), community together. Nor are historical precedent from 1799 church and its rectory with their then the village hall was sold people likely to be so rooted when the church parishes of own rector, their pubs (three in in 1961. The mill and the in a community where they Bressingham and Fersfield Bressingham, two in Fersfield), forge had already stopped spend their nights rather than were combined by the village shop and post office, a working, then the shop closed an outside business but is still In 1981 the Parish Council their working days. This means Bressingham and Fersfield mill and a forge, a village hall along with the pubs. Later the there. In the 1950s George commissioned a Village that the social groupings have Enclosure Act. Whether this and school. Bressingham had church and parish became Aves, a local farmer, donated Appraisal, the forerunner of to be responsible for most of later 1935 amalgamation was 633 people living there in the part of the enlarged benefice his old threshing barn to the this Parish Plan. Two major the ties that bond us. Without made with the agreement of 1931 census while Fersfield of Bressingham, Fersfield and village, to use as the village complaints were the lack of such bonds the villages can the Lophams. The rectory hall. It was repaired by local a pub and of a playing field. become, in the words of one was sold and the rector gone. volunteers. As a result a campaign was long-term resident, more like There are still working farms in launched to resurrect the henhouses than communities. Fersfield. The three pubs went, however, Chequers pub which had been although the Chequers was converted into a residential That is the challenge which Fersfield later became known later reconverted as a pub dwelling, and the Council this Plan seeks to address. for its airfield which was the and will, one trusts, soon be base for the secret project in operation again. The old codenamed Aphrodite in rectory was sold and a new 1944. This project attempted more modern one purchased, to launch robot planes against so the group rector still lives enemy targets in Europe in in Bressingham but now response to the V1 rockets. It looks after five parishes. In was not a success and, sadly, 1946 Alan Bloom bought one doomed flight resulted in Bressingham Hall and went the death over Walberswick on to make it and its gardens of the pilot Joe Kennedy, the into Blooms of Bressingham, elder brother of President John a successful business which Kennedy. 6 7 Our Households Our Community A joint community or separate villages? Currently, there seems to be a divide between the two villages with only 33% of respondents viewing Bressingham and Fersfield as one community. Looking in more detail, 29% of Fersfield residents and 35% of Bressingham residents agreed they were one community. When asked whether the two villages should be separate communities there was a split in opinion with 28% opting for separation and 29% believing they should stay as one community. Interestingly, 42% In total 304 households Of these, 21% are over-65, with a large number of of Fersfield residents showed a responded to the questionnaire 45% are aged 31-65, 10% are bungalows, semi-detached and preference to keeping the two with 55 coming from Fersfield aged 19-30, 9% are 13-18, 9% detached houses. villages separate, compared and 249 from Bressingham. are aged 5-12 and 7% are 0-4. In terms of fuel, 67% of with 24% of Bressingham More than 70% of people households use oil in their residents. Following on from In terms of occupancy, there questioned currently own their homes, while 40% use wood were 375 males and 402 property while 22% are renting. and 20% use coal. Bottled gas this, it became obvious feelings females included on the is used in 13% of homes while run high on this issue. respondents’ questionnaires – There is a good mix of types of ground source is used by 4% Survey Quotes: a total of 777 people.