Writtle Annual Parish
Meeting
Wednesday 8.00 pm 25th April 2001
A parishioner's View |
Many of us probably
have a fixed vision of what our parish councillors do and look like. I
am probably no exception my impressions were that they are a collection of
old fuddy-duddies with nothing better to do with their time but to interfere
in other peoples business. So when, a big leaflet advertising
the Parish meeting came through my door, I thought I would go along and see
what it was all about. So armed with pencil and paper and a
small camera I duly attended on the day! |
I
arrived at about 7.45 pm to see the hall three
quarters full and along the front
of the hall below the stage was a row of tables behind which sat our
parish councillors. I did not realize that we have 15, they are all listed
in the back of Writtle News, and most of them were there.
Those of you who are members of organized clubs or societies will know
about all the procedural stuff that has to be done: Apologies
for absence, Approve last years meeting's minutes. This
fortunately was done swiftly, and we could get on to some serious
business....
During last year we saw the departure of our Village Bobby and village
policing being carried out from Chelmsford. This change caused great
stirrings in the community at large. |
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Sergeant
Bernie Dawson from the Chelmsford Community Policing Team had come along to
explain the new community policing policy in Chelmsford and how it would
effect Writtle and other small communities around Chelmsford. There
were several disgruntled (pardon the joke) members of the Writtle community
who wondered where the police were when called, and whether their calls were
regarded with any seriousness. Sergeant Dawson was articulate and patient
under the barrage of complaints. He countered with brief details
of a newly formulated local policing, policy that would he assured us would
help response times and result in a more efficient and visible service. An
article on the perils of local policing from the Police side and on this new
policy is planned for later in the month/next issue. : |
During his talk
Sergeant quoted some interesting figures about crime in the area. The
figure quoted are from my notes which may not be totally accurate, as I have
trouble reading my own hand writing!. Full stats will be published
when I have found them on the Essex Police website www.essex.police.uk
Essex is the fourth safest county in the UK and the crime figures for
Writtle last year were from my notes.
330 reported crimes
43 detected
13 affected dwellings
41 affected other property (sheds?)
42 affected motor vehicles
16 against persons
From figures published in the accounts there are 4512 electors in the
Parish, which results in 1 crime/13.6 electors and only 1
against person crime/282 electors
Are things that bad? Tell us what you think. |
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Eventually we moved
on to more sedate matters a bit of patting on the back mainly for the
wonderful job the Millennium Committee had done. Everyone agreed that last
years event at the end or beginning of the millennium were a great
success.
After that brief interlude back to to the nitty-gritty! The green belt and
possible village expansion and incursion into the green belt. Again a
lot of disgruntled feeling about this topic, mainly due to miss-information
and rumours. It was stated that the Village Plan did not include any
development of the Green belt for the next 10 years, but we had to hold a
realistic view that development will come in the future. At present
a facilities balance between population and services exists
which in some planners view precludes any development. But for the
next few years the much cherished barrier between Chelmsford and Writtle
will survive. |
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The next subjects for
discussion (I have covered them somewhat lighthearted in this
issue already) were you guessed, it traffic/parking and dog pooh. I'm
not going to dwell to long on this subject but it does seem to be of great
concern to a many of the residents of Writtle and the views expressed
elsewhere in this publication are not too distant from those expressed at
this meeting. We will be publishing a photographic survey of parking
and road obstructions in the village carried out at various times of
the day and week during last month. This should be up by the
second week in May.
Finally all that was left was any other business, but by that time we were
all to exhausted and desperate for drink. The meeting was closed and a
general free for all declared and after a few words with the Chairman and
the Sergeant I retired for what I believed a well deserved couple of pints |
Well!
was it worthwhile?
Yes
As I stated in my opening
comments I expected well, Fuddy-duddies, but what we have is mostly genuine
hardworking people giving up their time trying to steer the future of the
village. Why do they do it? I don't know. Could be an interesting
article , any volunteers from the council? They probably have very little
power and only a small amount of influence but as one of them said (my
paraphrasing) " if you keep knocking on the door someone
will eventually let you in" In general they get a bad
press probably due to the lack of any Press bar some notes in the Writtle
News. The effect of a bit of advertising has been enormous. The
leaflet through our doors resulted in about a 100 people attending the
meeting compared to 17 last year. I do not think things are any worse
than last year, but more people got to know about it via the leaflet.
Let us know what is going on more often, spend some of the money we pay to
the parish keeping us informed. Not everyone reads the Writtle
News. Lets have a bit of colour, blow your own trumpet more
often and possibly the next Annual Meeting could be full of positive
comments and less disgruntled-of-writtle.
We live in, on the whole, in a
pleasant village. Let's not forget our senses of humour
and or get things out of perspective. If all we have to worry
about is dog pooh and some traffic congestion, life can't be all that
bad can it.
Editor
Disgruntled of Writtle
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