Page 15 - Phonebox Magazine October 2008

Mercury Report
Olney Town Council Meeting of Monday 1 September 2008
Pat Slaney
Before the meeting started, Jock Smail called a minute’s silence to remember Pat Slaney, Town Clerk, who passed away on Thursday 28th August following a long illness.
Public participation
No member of the public wished to speak at the start of this meeting.
Planning
Steve Clark summarised the most recent Planning Liaison Committee (PLC) meeting. As reported in an earlier Mercury, Olney Town Football Club (OTFC) was to apply for planning permission for its new Technical Area buildings. This had now been done and the PLC, while noting Olney Town Council's recommendation, expressed some concerns that the Areas' construction could make them prone to vandalism.
Tesco had submitted a planning application concerning its shop in the Market Square. The PLC did not feel it necessary or appropriate for the shop front to have an Automated Teller Machine (ATM) as there were already some in the area. While they were also unhappy with the protruding shop sign, they were otherwise generally happy with the application.
Neighbourhood Action Group (NAG)
There had been no NAG meeting since the last full meeting of Olney Town Council (OTC). John Sharp noted that it was becoming hard to get crime reports from the Police. He explained that reported crime from April to July 2008 was 30% up on the same period last year while that in Newport Pagnell was down. His gut feeling was that, due to there being more Police in Newport Pagnell, some of its anti-social behaviour problems had moved to Olney. However, he conceded that the 30% was across a range of crimes, and not particularly tied to anti-social behaviour.
Chamber of Trade
The Chamber of Trade plans to hold a late night shopping day on Wednesday 3rd December, with entertainment being laid on.
South East Plan
David Rumens had invited Ian Haynes, Chief Spatial Planner at Milton Keynes Council (MKC), to present information about Milton Keynes Unitary Authority's part of the South East Plan, which covers housing developments over the next 20 years or so. This was a useful talk but a large amount of information was presented, of which that below is just a summary. The interested reader can surf to http://gose.limehouse.co.uk/portal/rss/pcc for the full story and, as the document is open for
comment until Friday 24th October 2008, register comments on it.
Based on the Government Office South East website above, at the time of writing the Secretary of State's currently proposed changes to the South East Plan include:
“POLICY MKAV1: HOUSING DISTRIBUTION BY DISTRICT 2006-2026 (NEW)
Within Milton Keynes Unitary Authority, provision will be made for at least 46,960 dwellings between 2006 and 2026 from the following sources:
1. 34,160 dwellings in and around the Milton Keynes urban area including sites identified in the adopted local plan and additional sites to be found through strategic housing land availability assessments;
2. at least 4,800 dwellings as part of a development of 10,400 dwellings to the south east of Milton Keynes (leaving 5,600 dwellings to be found in Mid Bedfordshire subject to inclusion in the East of England RSS);
3. 2,400 dwellings in the rural area/rest of Milton Keynes, and
4. at least 5,600 dwellings by 2026 on suitable sites to the east of the M1 motorway.
The form of development east of the M1 motorway should not prejudice consideration of future development in the locality after 2026.”
Following Ian's presentation, discussion by Councillors plus a brief suspension of Standing Orders for some information from Peter Geary are summarised below.
Various proposals for the dwellings in and around the Milton Keynes urban area have been considered. MKC prefers two broad areas of expansion, one to the South East and one to the South West of the town, tied in with an improved East – West rail link. Aylesbury Vale Council prefers less development to the South West and more to the East. The Government appears to prefer (1), (2) and (4) above.
The 2,400 houses in (3) consist of around 1,200 already in the Local Plan or completed since 2006, and the remainder for which sites will need to be found. It’s worth noting that the 10,400 dwelling development in (2) does not all count towards Milton Keynes Unitary Authority’s housing quota. The size of the development in (4) could rise substantially if any of the other expansion areas cannot meet its quota.
Litter bins
As reported in last month’s Mercury, Councillors had voted to provide a number of additional litter bins around the town. A
resident had contacted Debbie Brock to ask if a bin could be placed at the junction of Lilly Hill with Driftway and, after a brief discussion, this was approved. Thus, ten additional bins are being provided. Three of these – those in the Cattle Market car park, Fountain Court and Berrills Court – will be black and pink, while the remaining seven will be black and gold.
Street light painting
A number of quotes for repainting the black street lights along the High Street had been obtained. These ranged from around £16,500 to approximately £28,000. Councillors voted to accept the cheapest quote, from Ford and McHugh Ltd, conditional on a satisfactory site meeting with Tony Evans.
Christmas lights
Olney Town Council and the Chamber of Trade have been investigating the installation of 400W floodlights in four of the trees on the Market Place for the Christmas period. Councillors voted in favour of this idea. The lights would be aimed upwards into the trees and likely be coloured blue.
Market Place car parking
John Sharp and Jock Smail had met with Pinnacle Transportation, a consultancy firm employed by Tesco, for advice on parking in the Market Square. Pinnacle had suggested that it do a survey of the car park to provide a plan for marking out parking spaces with minimal ‘T’ lines. It also suggested signage informing people that parking would be free for up to three hours but that cars overstaying this period would be clamped.
Dave Price felt that the Market Place was for the use of the town and that the association of the consultancy company with Tesco implied that the car park could be reserved for a particular purpose – a bad thing. John Sharp replied that the person they’d met worked for Pinnacle and not Tesco.
Michael Hughes, backing up John Sharp, noted that he was in favour of this free help to use as Councillors chose and that, if Councillors saw anything like a hint of ownership or reserving, they’d vote against it.
John Sharp concluded by saying that Tesco would like an unloading bay on the ‘main road’ (i.e., Market Place) reserved between 7am and 9am. Michael Hughes and some other Councillors were highly sceptical of this, feeling that it undermined John’s assertion that the car park survey had ‘nothing to do with Tesco’.
This item concluded with John Sharp saying that Councillors should wait for Pinnacle’s report before considering the matter further.
continued on page 17
Phonebox Magazine 15