Oulton

Parish meeting - At the community centre on May 11 the annual parish meeting, the annual parish council meeting and the ordinary May meeting took place.

Annual parish meeting: Minutes of the 2008 annual parish meeting were read and confirmed. A report from Ken Alexander, clerk to the Oulton Poors Trust was read, stating they had enjoyed good attendances at their meetings. They had shared their views with Suffolk Wildlife Trust on the way they were managing the marshes and the Wildlife Trust has recently purchased more marshes. The Broads Authority was also busy there and when work is finished they will have something to be proud of. The Trustees have helped 14 people in the parish with vouchers and delivered Christmas cards. Fly tipping is still a problem but Waveney District Council had been very quick to clean up the mess. Giving her annual report councillor Tina Claxton thanked all councillors and the clerk for their support in her first year as chair. There had been many positives which included upkeep of the garden around the village sign, the hedgerow survey, acquisition of a seat for the use of parishioners waiting for a bus, help to Oulton Community Council in refurbishment of the centre, the council website had an increasing number of hits and some interesting speakers at their meetings. PC Dave Boggis had now retired. Thanks were expressed to councillor Robbie Robertson for completion of the village book of remembrance which was dedicated at the Community Church. She looked forward to the coming year with optimism and intended to discuss with all parish councillors the possibility of implementing a parish plan for Oulton which will help in their endeavours to make the parish a better place to reside in.

Annual parish council meeting: Tina Claxton and Brian Hunter were unanimously re-elected as chair and vice-chair of Oulton Parish Council for the coming year and other officers re-elected en-bloc and the clerk re-elected as responsible finance officer.

Ordinary parish council meeting: Councillors present were Tina Claxton (chair), Charles Swan, Carolyn Gosling, Peter Collecott, Bill Robertson, Kevin Hodgkin, Brian Hunter (vice-chair), John Grisby and Ivan Levett as well as PCSO Sue Kershaw and seven members of the public. Apologies received from Allyson Baron and Malcolm Cherry (SCC) and PC D Stranks. Cllr Claxton suggested that some of Cllr Barron's locality budget for small highway projects could be used for a passing place in Union Lane, this will be considered at the next meeting. She said Mr Young had cut the grass as promised round the village sign. The traffic lights near the Aldi store had been monitored by Suffolk Highways and they considered there is no problem there. Several councillors disagreed, saying that the filter light when turning into Somerleyton Road from Tesco's did not always come on when the pedestrian crossing was being used. PCSO Kershaw offered to get this onto the agenda of the next Highways meeting. It was said that councillor Barron would look into the possible uses of land at Fallowfields. councillor Grisby asked when the new spine road linking Millennium Way and the A12 would be built as Bentley Drive cannot take much more traffic. Councillor Hunter suggested writing to Bob Blizzard MP again asking when this will happen. It should have been built under the Private Funding Initiative but at present there was no public money to fund it until houses are built and money then clawed back. It was hoped that funding could come from local government sources. The problems of the house in Diprose Drive were discussed. Cheltenham and Gloucester Building Society did not appear to own it now. PCSO Kershaw gave the police report for April 2009. There were eight recorded crimes, one attempted burglary from a stable tack room (nothing taken), three criminal damage, one assault occasioning actual bodily harm, one theft of a garden pot in Hobart Way, one domestic non-crime and one harassment. They had received complaints of parking on double yellow lines and the grass verge at the bottom of Sands Lane and two tickets had been issued. PC David Stranks has replaced PC Boggis on the North Safer Neighbourhood Lowestoft team. The Police annual meeting report for Oulton from May 2008 to April 2009 showed there were 94 reports crimes compared with 97 the previous year. She said Suffolk is a safe county to live in and these figures indicate this for Oulton. The SNT continue to work closely with all parish councillors, village groups, the community centre, the Happy Circle and work with all housing officers to try to resolve problems so that residents can live in harmony. The parish council decided for its annual donations to give �250 each to Suffolk Action Rescue Service, Air Ambulance and the local lifeboats plus �500 towards the upkeep of St Michael's churchyard and an annual donation to the community centre of �1000. Community centre chairman Peter Collecott thanked them for this. There was a vacancy for a new councillor and despite advertising the post it had not been filled, but a candidate made himself known at the meeting and he will meet with the chair and another officer to discuss his acceptance. The clerk reported it had been a good year and the website had promoted Oulton PC and he thanked webmaster Julian Claxton for this. In the open forum Mr Morling said he was a governor at the James Paget Hospital. He said the chief executive had left but Wendy Slaney had taken over for a year. They were putting quality of patient care up the agenda and he asked if anyone had any comments on care they had received and several councillors praised the hospital. Councillor Robertson questioned why quality of patient care was not top of the agenda anyway. Mr Morling mentioned that Bridge Road surgery were to hold a stroke awareness presentation at the community centre shortly. Mrs Small of Willowvale said no one on Waveney DC seemed to have heard of the road and drains had never been cleared until she spoke to Mike Daniels who was very helpful. Mrs Jay of Stirling Close said that no one seems to know who owns the passageway at the back of the houses which connects to Somerleyton Road, adding that the weeds need clearing. The chair said they would look into this matter. Mr Jefferson was concerned about traffic in Oulton Road North especially with children playing there on bikes. He asked why it could not be made one way, as proposed many years ago, as it will become a rat run when the new houses were built. It was commented that if this happened it would affect the buses. Lots of cars park on the bend as there is nowhere else to go. The chair will look into this and see what feedback there is. Mr Waller, speaking on behalf of a resident of Union Lane, was concerned that the old ambulance building was being pulled down to allow a new development which had been approved by WDC and he asked for support from Oulton PC. More traffic would be generated on top of that going to the health care trust and he was worried about speeding. There had also been sewer problems, two people having problems caused by sewer leaks, and he had spoken to Jason Hall at WDC but nothing had been done. Since then there had been more leaks and it appeared that this was a private sewer in a bad condition. Councillor Collecott said that the manhole cover in Airey Close had collapsed a few years ago and that Anglian Water agreed responsibility for the sewer and had put in a conduit and repaired it. Councillor Gosling read a document saying that Anglian Water admitted that part of the sewer was private. The chair told Mr Waller that councillors must meet to discuss this matter further. Under planning councillor Gosling said that the refusal of change of use of a field to use floodlighting was going to appeal and the appellants asked for councillors' comments. They agreed to stand by the comments made in 2007. Other plans considered included a side extension and new garage in Sands Lane on the corner of Pennine Way and land adjacent to Somerleyton Road with sub-division of garden to form a new plot. The clerk said they now had a list of all roads in the parish. The chair said that Oulton Medical Centre now had two new full time GPs and a new health care assistant had started. Parking problems had been sorted. Councillor Hunter mentioned that the community centre will be holding a 60s and 70s buffet dance on June 20 to celebrate the refurbishment of the centre and tickets were now on sale (tel 582901) or from committee members. Councillor Levett said that the edging for the village sign had arrived and a councillors' working party would put this in and do some weeding at the same time. Councillor Grisby said that a speed indicator display (SID) was needed along Bentley Drive and the area around Townsend Way needed weeding. He also mentioned bogus notices being nailed to two trees in Jenkins Green and although he agreed with the sentiments expressed on these they could cause damage to the trees. The WDC tree warden would be contacted. The next ordinary meeting of Oulton PC will be on Monday, June 8 at 7pm.