Thank you very much to all those that attended the general meeting last Thursday. It was a well attended meeting – next time we will need a bigger space (and a lot more cookies!) Minutes are now online (within the Committee>Meeting Minutes section).
I also am grateful to the representatives from the Parish Council and District Council who attended. I hope that the residents that came along found the meeting informative and I also hope that our local councillors have a better sense of the immediate issues and frustrations. Whilst there was some discussion about a feeling that the development was not part of the village, I think that the presence of so many of our local councillors at our meeting suggests otherwise. I also believe that the relocation of the school will help bring Foresthall Park into the broader village fold.
The issue of parking continues to cause much discussion and consternation. I would echo some of the comments made in the meeting that we as residents can make a difference – whilst it’s difficult to quantify, I suspect a lot of the cars parked around our roads belong to residents and I would appeal to everyone to use their parking spaces even if it is slightly more inconvenient. Of course, this is probably a little optimistic so additional measures will no doubt be required to tackle some of the issues raised at the meeting and in prior posts. I think we first need to establish what changes/restrictions are planned with the school move and I have already contacted ECC Highways and Mace Group (project managers) requesting this information. I will share this as soon as I have it and then a further discussion will be necessary to discuss what else can be done to mitigate the remaining issues. As a group, I think we already have a lot of good ideas within some of the discussion threads on this website.
Alan Dean discussed his recent survey of residents re. S106 Highways and Community Pot and he has summarised the results of his survey on his blog for those that could not attend the meeting last Thursday:
http://alandean.mycouncillor.org.uk/2012/02/20/listen-to-our-views-uttlesford-demand-by-residents-of-forest-hall-park/
As I said at the meeting, I would like to have an additional two people on the Committee to complete our first year. It’s clear that most people in the room had something to say so if anyone would be able to give up a little bit of their time to help us then please get in touch. In terms of commitment, we meet occasionally, there are sporadic flurries of e-mails and perhaps the odd leaflet drop but it is not meant to be an onerous task and I think I speak for whole Committee when I say we’ve even had a bit of fun along the way!
Of course, a number of other concerns and suggestions were raised at the meeting so the Committee will meet soon and we’ll do what we can to address these.
Regards,
Stephen Berry
s.berry@mac.com
