The Clerk has been successful in achieving the Certificate in Local Council Administration, and this is the final requirement needed to achieve Quality Council Status. We hope to submit our portfolio for assessment in April and to have achieved Quality Council Status by the summer. There are still only a handful of councils in the County who have achieved this.

First an appeal to people who visit graves and use the bins in the cemetery and churchyard to dispose of rubbish.  The green wheelie bin is for green waste only – in exactly the same way as the ones you have at home.  Please put any other rubbish – paper, plastic, wire from flower arrangements, bagged dog mess etc into the black bins. It has been agreed that in the summer we will be removing the leylandii trees from the edges of the cemetery, and we will be replacing them with more native species which will be slower growing and more manageable. Finally, we are about to install a sign on the gate into the cemetery which requests that it is not obstructed. Access is required by our grasscutting contractor and by funeral directors from time to time. If you are stopping just for a little while to visit a grave, it is fine to park by the gate – but we are trying to prevent vehicles from being parked there and left all day by people who are not using the cemetery.

The Parish Council are looking to employ someone on a casual basis who can do odd jobs such as cleaning, painting, minor repairs and gardening. We are looking for someone who has a couple of hours a week available, and who would like to help us to keep the village looking good. This will help towards our efforts in the Best Kept Village competition and also to help us keep on top of the maintenance jobs we need to carry out.  If you are interested, please contact the Parish Clerk for more information.

Work is due to start in April on the refurbishment of the Assembly Rooms, so our meetings from April and throughout the summer will be held in the Playing Fields Pavilion.  Our full Parish Council meetings are held on the third Monday of each month, with committees on the first Thursday. All meetings are open to any residents to attend.  Agendas for meetings are placed on the noticeboards around the village about 5 days beforehand, and there is a slot for the public to ask questions or make statements to the council near to the start of the full council meeting.

We put an appeal into the village news magazine a couple of months ago asking for any keen gardeners to plant a few extra bedding plant seedlings for us – if anyone has managed to do so, please contact the Clerk so we can make plans for planting.