Cllr Keith Petty, Chairman of Marchwood Parish Council.

Aware of the ever increasing burden that everyone’s Council Tax bill is each year we have been very careful with setting the budget for the forthcoming year. Our spending plans are below inflation and, because of the increased number of dwellings in the village, this has resulted in a zero percentage rise on the Parish Council’s part of the Council Tax bill. This was unfortunately dwarfed by the County Council’s increase of just under 5%, and so I am not sure if many villagers noticed.

The Planning Committee has dealt with its usual quota of planning applications, 61 in total. The committee supported 43 and objected to 18 this year. Both the Chairman of the Committee, Alison Hoare, and Graham Walmsley, our District Councillor, have attended and spoken at several planning and development control committees at the District Council, representing our views on the more contentious applications. Planning is a very important activity of the Parish Council, ensuring the character of the village is not lost, while at the same time allowing residents to alter their homes to meet their changing needs.

Our joint project with the Junior School, the Good Citizens project, again strengthened our links with the Junior School children. As part of this year’s theme, “Making Marchwood Healthier and Safer”, the Parish Council provided reflective arm bands for each child. The forthcoming year’s theme is ‘Planting to Improve Marchwood’ and we look forward to their suggestions and have allocated £1,000 in the budget to put their ideas into action.

Parish Councillors also serve on outside bodies representing the Parish Council. This ensures that we keep in touch with organisations which also serve our community. They range from the Community Association, Citizens Advice Bureau, The Handy Trust, New Forest Environmental Protection Liaison Committee and the Friends of Marchwood Senior Citizens. One exciting development this year is the production of the Marchwood Community Plan.

The Parish Council has as one of its objectives to aid the production of a Community Plan as this will identify the needs of the village and as it is based on public opinion, it means we gain access to additional public funds and support. The group working on this is supported by the Parish Council but is an independent organisation. The results to date are excellent and, by late summer, I would expect to see a completed plan being issued to everyone in the village. It will then be adopted by the Parish Council which will have the task of implementing it. Included in the plan will be suggested actions and timescales to ensure villagers’ wishes come to fruition. One major issue which came out of the Community Plan and is one of the Parish Council’s objectives, is a lorry ban in the south of the village.

Hampshire County Council undertook a traffic survey last summer but has then delayed doing anything with the results. We asked David Harrison, our County Councillor, to intervene and he submitted a request to see this information under the Freedom of Information Act. This spurred the County Council to do something and they have promised us a report in May. We are sure this information will show that our narrow roads cannot cope with the large HGV movements we see at present.

We are pleased that we have finally got a safe crossing across Normandy Way for the residents of Admiralty Quay. This now means the people living here are able to reach the village centre and local schools in safety.
Another traffic issue we have been working on is a crossing on the A326 to provide access for villagers trapped on the National Park side of the village.

Following an article by Fiona Hardy in the Village News, we invited interested villagers to our Planning meeting where a Transport Planner from the County Council attended. A lively debate took place and the representative from the County gave a commitment to report back to us, which is likely to be in May. Building of the new multi million pound gas fired power station has started in Marchwood. The developers, Marchwood Power, have been very good at keeping the Parish Council involved; they held an open day at the Village Hall and 75 residents came to inspect the plans and find out more about what is going on. They are also holding regular update sessions which are attended by Parish Council representatives. Marchwood Power also invited two Councillors to visit a similar site in Northern Ireland to better understand how it will affect our village. We are working closely with the contractors to minimise the disruption in the village.

Bus services have changed in the village and we are disappointed that there is now only an hourly bus to Hythe, off peak. We do welcome, however, the new hourly number 7 service which goes to parts of the village other buses never reached. This is a fast service to Southampton and we are told it is on a trial basis. Use it or lose it.

We have continued our programme of upgrading our play parks which is another of our objectives. Lloyds Rec is now complete following the construction of the trim trail chosen by the children of the Infant School. We have been working on proposals for the under twelve play park behind the Village Hall and have consulted the children at the Junior School to discover what they would like to see built here. We are currently seeking funding and, if successful, hope work can start in the summer.

Facilities for a youth club in the Village still evade us despite being our number one objective. Our planned site looks to have failed now because of the time factor and because it is unlikely to receive planning permission. We have now asked the Community Plan group to suggest a way forward. In the meantime I am grateful to Derek Hawkins, our youth worker, who has been finding different venues to host temporary youth club facilities. He has recently reached an agreement with the Scouts to use their building on the Lloyds Rec for one or two nights a week. I would like to thank the Scout Group for their support with this issue.

One area we have looked at as part of our objectives is improving communication with people in the village. We have made some amendments to our award winning website, taken a stand at the Village Fete where Councillors were on hand all day and we now publish more detailed agendas and put the supporting documents on our notice boards. We have also tried this year to be more welcoming to the public attending our meetings and try to ensure they leave us feeling they have been listened to. We have also agreed a policy of informing nearby residents when we do something which might affect them. These may seem small things but the Parish Council is your Council and we want you to feel involved.

The Parish Council has been given notice on its leased Council offices on the industrial estate and we have approximately one year to vacate. These offices have never been satisfactory as only the most intrepid members of the public could ever visit. We would ideally like a central village location and are currently exploring options, including a new building by the pavilion on Lloyds Rec. One power the Parish Council has is that it can provide grants to other organisations. In this way we are able to support services which we are unable to provide ourselves. In the last year we have given grants to:

Unfortunately we didn’t achieve all of our objectives this year. We were unable to improve recreational facilities south of the railway line and we are still working on enhanced public access to the waterfront. We still haven’t taken the land on the waterfront at Admiralty Quay under our control as we are waiting for some work to be completed. I know a major concern in this area is the flood defence works which are urgently required. Money is available in the form of Developers’ Contributions but the District Council appears not to be giving this the priority it deserves. Finally, the objective to obtain funding for remedial works to the war memorial is still ongoing.

As previously reported, Marchwood Parish Council was awarded Quality Parish status, currently only one of 380 Parish Councils to receive this recognition out of over 8,000 Councils nationwide. As a Council we continue to look at ways of using this recognition to access additional funds and also at possible devolution of services to Parish level.
During the last year the Parish Council has dealt with a wide variety of issues which affect our village. I would like personally to thank every Councillor on the Council who, working as a team, have contributed to the good work already mentioned.

I want particularly to thank the Chairman of each Committee, Alison Hoare, Darryl Hindle and Graham Walmsley, for their efforts to ensure the smooth running of our meetings and all the preparation that goes into making sure everyone is as fully briefed as possible. I believe Councillors have been able to have a much more informed debate and thus make the correct decisions based on these people’s efforts.

I would like to thank the staff of the Parish Council who keep us on the straight and narrow and who also contribute to making our village a lovely place to live.

This is the last year of our term of office and on May 3rd there is an election to decide who will run the Parish Council for the next four years. There are twelve candidates for eleven positions and I would urge you all to go out and vote. One name you won’t see on the ballot paper is Carolyn Bianchi who has chosen not to stand this time. I would like to thank her on behalf of my fellow Councillors and many villagers in Marchwood for her hard work and contribution to the Parish Council. Carolyn has been on the Council for 16 years and has also been Chairman of the Council. Another person I wish to thank is Lin Francis, our second District Councillor, who is not standing for re-election in Marchwood.