The Hamlets’ Voice Staploe, Duloe, Honeydon, Upper Staploe, Bushmead and Begwary Issue 21 – March 2017 Welcome to the Spring edition of your local parish newsletter ……………………………………………………………………… In this issue: the latest news about the A1, the next instalment of Frankenfowl news and a brief encounter… ……………………………………………………………………… Just for Fun… At a very well attended and enjoyable Curry Night in early February, the Hamlets Quiz was won by Jane Paveley, from Duloe. For those who weren’t there on the night, here’s a copy of the quiz questions, just for fun. Answers in the next issue! 1. In which decade did the Gospel Hall in Staploe cease to be used as a religious meeting place - 1970s, 1980s or 1990s? 2. Name one of the charities that the BegFest music festival has supported. 3. Which family was associated with Upper Goodwick Farm in Honeydon for most of the 20th Century - Sheard family, Spencer- Thomas family or Bath family? 4. Which of our hamlet names (or very similar names) can also be found elsewhere in the country… 5. … and where in the country are they? 6. When did the Parish Council first register the land around the Duloe village sign as a Common - 1964, 1970 or 1975? 7. On which day of the week does the public bus pass through the hamlets? 8. What used to exist at Mount Pleasant - cottages, duck pond or barn? 9. Roughly how old is the round barrow near Hail Weston - 1,000 years, 1 year or 3,500 years? 10. After which type of tree is the barrow named? 2 Brief Encounter A few days ago I was driving up Shakers Way, a narrow lane one car width but with wide verges and dense hedges on either side and beyond arable fields. An attractive ancient road. I love the wide open spaces. Driving along I came across a battered old Golf parked on the verge with its back door open and a man dumping rubbish from the car into the ditch alongside the hedgerow. As I drove past I slowed right down and our eyes met. We both knew what was going on. In my Squtopia littering is the only offence that carries the death penalty and in my mind’s eye he was already standing beneath the gallows with the rope around his neck. I think a lot of people feel like that. Is it because littering expresses a degree of alienation, not just a lack of belonging but a frightening indifference to the environment, to the world, to the rest of us? I did not stop and did not even have the presence of mind to take the registration number. The next day I returned on my bicycle to inspect the ditch and to examine its contents. There was plenty of rubbish lining the bottom of the ditch and clinging to the brambles hanging into the deep dark ditch – coke cans, a Becks beer bottle, greasy KFC wrappers, empty fizzy drinks cans including many cans of Red Bull, the energy drink that gives you wings. Also an empty blister pack of Tramodol which is an opiate for relieving severe pain and available only on prescription. What does one glean from these items? If it was a murder enquiry there would be enough here to identify him: DNA from the cans; local doctors would have been ordered to supply details of patients prescribed with Tramodol; tyre prints from the verge; CCTV evidence not from Shakers Way but from roads in the neighbourhood; DVLA records of old black Golfs; an identity parade. A fine mesh of information would have netted our man. There would be no hiding place. If you live in a house or flat you have access to a dustbin so perhaps this is a man who sleeps in his car; alleviates his loneliness with alcohol; feeds on Kentucky Fried Chicken; sleeps badly in the cold confines of his small car; uses Red Bull to keep himself awake during the day; and eases his pain with opiates. A man unhoused, disappointed and alienated. Frank Squire ……………………………………………………………………… 3 Parish Council News A1 Update The A1 East of England Strategic Study was commissioned by Highways England and overseen by the Department for Transport to identify potential improvements to the A1, between the M25 (Junction 1) and Peterborough (Junction 17). Most of this section is of motorway standard but our 26 mile middle section of the A1 is not and has five roundabouts, numerous unnumbered junctions and accesses, and is of variable layout and quality, with settlements and housing in close proximity. A Stage 3 Report on this study has been published and is available on the Staploe Parish Council website or a hard copy is available in the Hamlets Exchange phone box in Staploe (please do not remove). The report identifies the following key issues: poor journey time reliability with variable speed and congestion, long delays, constrained road and restricted free traffic flow, collisions, capacity, poor conditions for public transport, noise and poor air quality, impact on landscape and townscape, impact on biodiversity, contributing to undermining growth potential and anticipated pressure on existing road network as a result of estimated population growth. An initial list of more than fifty options was generated to address these problems and meet the study objectives and this was then shortlisted to five options which were formed into three packages and appraised. A Strategic Outline Business Case is being prepared for these Packages. A proposal which involved upgrading the existing A1 non-motorway section to online motorway was not taken forward. The scale and impact of property demolition on established communities was deemed unacceptable, particularly as most of the properties to be demolished would be residential. Additionally, the option increases severance, public acceptability is likely to be low and issues with the practical feasibility of the option were anticipated. The three packages which have been proposed are Package A, which would come west through the middle of our parish probably somewhere between Staploe and Duloe; Package B, which would improve the road in situ and get rid of the roundabouts and build smaller local bypasses and Package C, which would do nothing to improve the non-motorway section of the A1 but focus on Jn 3 and 4 of the motorway section near Hatfield to the south of us. Package C might be combined with Packages A or B. See the tables and diagram on the following pages. 4 5 6 At the moment progress is slow because Cambridgeshire and Bedford Borough Councils do not have adopted local plans yet. Bedford Borough Council has received 4 applications to build “super sites” with large housing developments in Wyboston (which would affect the A1), Thurleigh, Clapham and Sharnbrook. They are likely to choose one of these but the decision is currently scheduled for 2018. In addition, they are having to work closely with the new A14 development and the A428. What are the Parish Council doing about it? We will be writing to our MP Alistair Burt, Borough Councillor Tom Wootton and Madeline Russell of Bedfordshire Association of Town and Parish Councils (BATPC) in support of Package B. Madeline is representing all the Bedfordshire Parishes on the Stakeholder Committee. We are not able to have a Parish Council representative on the Committee at this stage (we have asked and been turned down as they are not going down to parish level yet). We have complained to BATPC about being informed so late about this report. We are also making sure other Parish Councils in the area who may be affected are aware eg. Roxton, Wyboston and Hail Weston. We will be forming a sub-committee (Parish Councillors only) or a working group (can include members of the public who are not Councillors) to focus on the A1 at the next Parish Council 7 meeting on 21st March. If you would like to be involved with this, please contact the Parish Clerk, Lucy Crawford. We are investigating the possibility of employing a road consultant to help us campaign effectively. We may set up a protest group but we are not at that stage yet. We have large maps of the area with overlays which show: the 1994 route for the A1 through the parish the proposed route for the A428 the route for the new section of A14 proposed housing developments etc. a very rough idea of where the Package A new motorway might go. These will be available to view at Parish Councils meetings or by appointment with the Parish Clerk. ……………………………………………………………………… PARISH COUNCIL CONTACT DETAILS Parish Clerk Lucy Crawford 33 Staploe St Neots PE19 5JA Email: [email protected] Tel: 01480 471526 Website www.staploeduloehoneydonparishcouncil.bedsparishes.gov.uk 8 Reflections on My Time in This District I first came to Staploe in the spring of 1982. Back then it was just to look at the site that my late husband John and I bought subsequently from Peter Squire. To the unknowing eye, the place probably looks as if it has not changed much in many more years than those during which we lived here. But, the details are immensely changed. A few residents have lived here longer than we have. Some date from around the time we arrived. Most have come to live here much more recently. There have been changes in the occupants of the houses. At one time - before I came to Staploe - all the houses were lived in by farmers or farm workers. Until the 1930s, there were old, more picturesque houses with thatched roofs in the part between Falling Water House and Old Farm Cottage.