Charney Bassett

Diamond Jubilee Celebration

Chairman’s Report 2012

Mike Cox, (Chairman), New Road ,  868276

Dave Nellist,(Vice-chairman), Buckland Road, 868593

Jim Harper, Barnfield  868288

Doug Hughes, Main Street 868438

Pam Edwards, New Road 868787

Meetings are normally  held at 7.30 p.m. in the Village Hall on the second Wednesday of odd-numbered months. 

Judge: Cindy Stangroom (Lappakia)

Entries from 1.00 pm – Judging from 2.00 pm

4 Pedigree Classes & 8 Novelty Classes

Rosettes for 1st – 5th in all classes

Four Trophies

Entries £2.00 per class

Enquiries: Yvonne Hobbs.  tel. 01235 868428

For delivery during the month following

24 May 2012

28 June 2012

26 July 2012

30 August 2012 

27 September 2012

25 October 2012

29 November 2012  

Charney Bassett PC has considered your interim housing supply policy.  We comment as follows.

1) Your original communication of 24 November 2011 identified 10 houses for Charney Bassett.  We are unclear how you have contrived to increase that number now to 20, and we do not support such an increase.  I reiterate at points 2-6 below, the comments that I made in our response to you of 24 November 2011. These remain our position.

2)  We can envisage 10 new dwellings for Charney Bassett and we can identify two potential sites for these.  These are in private ownership, and you would need to contact the owners.

3)  We wish to maintain the present character of the village, and that means constructing homes that are similar to the existing range of housing stock.

4)  We could also envisage a modest development of two-storey apartments.  These might be for retired persons and/or single/double professional people.  Importantly, people will need to have their own transport to and from the village.

5)  There is little infrastructure in the village: a church, a pub, a post office, a playing field, a village hall and Charney Manor (which can act as a village meeting place/conference centre).  Without shops, school, medical services, garage, etc. inhabitants will need their own transport, and generally two cars if they are families with children.

6)  The community here could be enriched by the provision of a business opportunity in the form of a small “hi-tech” office suite that might provide employment to service the science centre at Harwell, for example.

7)  The PC has not been approached by the promoters of the Charney Bassett site.  We should like to know who this is, and ask you to encourage them to contact us, so that we may meet with them and discover more about their proposals.

We trust that our views will be considered and look forward to receiving your response to these comments.

Submitted to VWHDC in April , and for discussion at Annual Parish Meeting on 9th May

First, I promised to tell you each month what were the main national topics that people have written or e-mailed about. This month I got even more emails about the upcoming government consultation on same sex marriage and the proposals for increased counter-terrorism powers on the internet. I also got a great many emails from campaign websites on the issues of fuel duty and the environment. 

I get about 550 emails every month on national topics.  About a third are personally written, the rest are templates downloaded from campaign websites.  Broadly speaking a quarter of my e-mails come from Wantage and Grove; a quarter from Didcot; about 18 per cent from Wallingford and 18% from Faringdon.

The Diamond Jubilee will be a wonderful opportunity to celebrate not just Her Majesty’s amazing reign but also all that is best about South Oxfordshire. I am sure many people are preparing for the Bank Holiday Weekend in June as I am (I am especially pleased my birthday is a bank holiday – long overdue recognition!).  I also wanted to raise awareness of the new Jubilee Time Capsule project. The JTC is a unique and accessible digital project which invites people of all ages to share memories and stories of the last 60 years and it will be gifted to the Queen at the end of the year. It is a great way of engaging with the Jubilee celebrations and I encourage everyone, but particularly schools, to get involved at http://www.jubileetimecapsule.org/. 

There are also many other cultural celebrations of the Jubilee around the constituency  – Faringdon, for example, is holding a Craft Competition, Wallingford is having a big picnic in castle gardens, Didcot is having the Diamond of Didcot Awards in their new garden at the Civic Hall and Wantage and Grove have teamed up for a massive celebration across both towns. 

Other news.  From July, there will be some changes to the opening hours of our police stations in South and Vale.  Some hours will be reduced, but I have been reassured (in meetings with the police chiefs for the area) that no front counters will close in the area and our police officers will remain visible and accessible.  There is also a new telephone number on which the police can be contacted with non-emergency and routine enquiries – “101”.  Full details of the new opening hours at the Thames Valley Police front counters are available on their website: www.thamesvalley.police.uk. 

After the tragic death of their son, Guy Evans, my constituents Beth and Crispin campaigned to make use of their village’s (Long Witttenham) redundant telephone box to create a potentially life-saving medical resource.  The red box, sold to the Parish Council for just £1, now holds a defibrillator which can be used to restart a heart if a person stops breathing.  I believe this is a really innovative way to make use of unused phone boxes and might be something for other parishes to consider. 

I was really pleased to hear that (in this constituency) 100% of parents whose children applied for secondary schools got into their first preference of school.  Seeing as the national average of children who get into their first preference is around 86%, I think this is very good news.

As you may know I am the minister for film.  I am delighted that a film made by my constituents in Kingston Bagpuize will get a premiere at the re-opening of Leicester Square on May 24th. It’s called ‘Tortoise in Love’ and the website is www.tortoiseinlove.co.uk.  On the subject of film, film makers of all ages can submit their amateur films to ‘Film the House’, a competition designed to promote the wealth and variety of film in the UK. MPs have been asked to nominate the top film from their constituency and then the winners will be announced at a reception on the House of Commons Terrace in October. Categories include drama, thriller, action, comedy, music video, documentary, as well as a separate category for under 18s which can be any genre.  Get your entry in by 30th June and be in with a chance of winning a special reception and screening of your film at the House of Parliament. For more information on how to apply visit www.filmthehouse.com .

As ever please feel free to contact me at the House of Commons, SW1A 0AA, 020 7219 6350 orvaizeye@parliament.uk. Surgery details can be found at www.vaizey.com.

There are two topics on which the PC would welcome input and discussion.  The first is flooding.  The Flood Group has been working to understand what might be done to avoid a repetition of the flood of 2007.  We plan to explain what we think could sensibly be done, and why, but we wish to discuss that, and seek residents’ opinions before putting proposals to the Environment Agency.  The second topic is the VWHDC’s interim housing supply policy.  Its stated aim for Charney Bassett is the construction of 20 houses.  The PC has replied to VWHDC about this.  (We were required to respond before 20 April).  Our reply is reproduced elsewhere in Charney Chatter (see page 5).  However, this is a matter that could affect us all in the village, and wider discussion on this is necessary.

So, please do come to the Village Hall at 7.30 pm on Wednesday 9 May.  We will tell you what we know.  Tell us what you think, and would like.

Stephen Cowlam

Clerk to the Parish Council.

This involved laying 10 cubic metres of chippings over the whole area, done by four members of the Charney Army.

So, a big thank you to Dave Nellist, Dave Sibbert, Mike Welham and Mike Newman for their hard work in offloading and laying the above in far from ideal weather conditions.

CHAFT Committee.