The Good News is that after April 1st 2008 we will be able to use our Bus Passes for bus travel throughout England.
However the Bad News is not before 9.30am, anywhere, even in East Dorset.
Traffic travelling too fast on the Wimborne Road in the east of Corfe Mullen has been troubling residents for some years. We have apparently had several minor accidents in the last few weeks, collisions with telegraph poles and the bus shelter.
After many representations the County Council are co-operating with the Parish Council is trying to address this problem, but it is not easy as the road is narrow.
The pavement has now been improved to make it safer for pedestrians. In a couple of weeks the 30mph speed limit will be extended out to the edge of the village. Once we can see whether that makes a difference the County has a couple of remaining plans for traffic calming like painting lines along the edge of the pavement.
The report on the Examination in Public of the Draft RSS (Regional Spatial Strategy) for the South West Region was published on Thursday, January 10th. Rather a mouthful !!
In laymens terms you may remember that we have been protesting for a couple of years about a suggestion that Corfe Mullen should be asked to accept 700 new houses, probably down Pardy’s Hill. Last Spring a delegation from the Parish Council went down to Exeter to put our protests to the Panel there. We said that that village was too crowded already. We said our infrastructure was groaning, the schools were full, the Doctor’s surgery groaning, no dentist, the roads were crowded and the A31 stationary most of the summer months. We couldn’t accept any more houses until we addressed these problems.
In addition this land was Green Belt and we expected and wanted it to stay that way. It is pretty, it is home to wild animals, birds and wild flowers, we have little enough green space left and not enough places to walk as it is. We can’t lose any more.
Thursday’s report was the result of all the comments of all the people of the South West. In short, it looks as though the Panel have not listened to a word we said.
They have decided we must accept at least 700 houses, probably more, East Dorset needs to accommodate not just 2,400 but a further 1000 that means 3,400 in the next 20 years. No offers of any improvements at all. No regrets about building on our Green belt, simply move the boundaries they say.
We are very disappointed. However if we feel sore I think Lytchett Matravers and Lytchett Minster feel even worse, they have to have 2,750 houses. The Lytchett’s and Upton will merge into a seamless mass.
We all know we need houses, but do they all have to be on the South Coast ?
We will battle on, but we are running short of weapons.
Before Christmas we all had the opportunity to give our views to the County Council about their plans for the future of our library in a survey, forms for which were delivered to nearly every household. We were all asked questions like, were we prepared to volunteer to help in the library, whether we thought the Parish should pay to cover the 10 hours that we might lose, and which days would we prefer the Library to be open. However, before the results of this survey have been analysed the County is already making preparations for the future. (So much for Local Democracy!)
The Library in Corfe Mullen is to be closed for 10 days at the beginning of February for reorganisation and a bit of refurbishing. The County Council plans for the future of the library include it being closed (as a library) on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Children’s Services are already planning to use the building on those days for a Sure Start initiative programme. Not sure exactly what that entails. I hope this will benefit children in the village, but it may also include children from other areas, and some outreach work ? The Library shelves will all be changed to ones that can be pushed out of the way to open up a play area for the children. Sure Start seems to have the funds that Library Services lack.
I will tell you more when I know more. What might be good is if the Library, which would still be nice and warm after the children had been there all day, could be opened, manned by volunteers, for a couple of hours on those evenings.
Brook Road Household Waste site is to be closed for 3 days for Springcleaning ! Closed Tuesday January 22nd, 23rd and 24th and reopening all sparkly clean and rearranged on Friday morning.
