Mercury Report
 Olney Colts FC changing rooms
As reported last month, OlneyTown Colts Football Club has raised sufficient funds to build changing rooms, so they are no longer reliant on the facilities of Olney Town FC. The Recreations and Services Committee of Olney Town Council (OTC) had recommended that it be built adjacent to the existing tractor shed and should reflect the style of the existing building.
to the costs and all but one or two had agreed. Joe Stacey questioned whether the specification needed to be so high for a residential road that gets very little use, particularly now that adoption is not being proposed. Liam agreed to seek alternative quotes for a lower spec. Ben Brock and Deidre Bethune wondered if residents who contributed to the work would be able to claim ownership once it was done. (For a wonderful moment Mercury had a vision of them installing a toll booth and charging the recalcitrant few for access to their properties!) Jeremy Rawlings expressed his displeasure with the whole proposal, declaring it 'a farce'.
Landscaping Services
As previously reported, M KC has recently approved a procurement process to test the market in terms of both cost and service standards, as part of a 'value for money' review of the landscape services, that include grass cutting, shrub, hedge and tree maintenance and weed control. OTC has been asked whether it wishes MKC to retain responsibility for the services, which would be put out to tender, or take responsibility for the services themselves. A working party of Cllrs Evans, Geary, Boardman, Bull and Clark were appointed to look at the pros and cons of each option and have produced a detailed report which recommends
that OTC take on the devolved service in house for an initial three year period, employing a part-time worker and leasing any additional equipment required. At the end of the three-year period, OTC can chose to hand the service back to MKC if it does not prove successful. The recommendation was put to a vote and passed unanimously.
Neighbourhood Plan
The Localism Act introduced a right for communities to draw up 'Neighbourhood Plans' that can become part of the formal planning framework for the area. Once adopted, these Neighbourhood Plans form part of the statutory Development Plan for the area and give the local community more say and control over development in the area. They cannot be used to counteract or override existing core strategies but are more to provide a local input to the implementation of those strategies. At a previous meeting, Joe Stacey had strongly urged OTC to produce such a plan and had agreed to be part of a working group to investigate the feasibility. Joe had consulted members of other communities that had produced plans, including Stony Stratford, Woburn Sands and Winslow, and noted that some had obtained significant funding and produced large documents, whereas others had produced smaller documents in house at little or no cost. The working party had recommended that OTC allocate a budget of £7,000 for a Steering Group, consisting of five Town Councillors and four selected
representatives of the community, to produce a Neighbourhood Plan for the parish of Olney. A vote was taken to proceed with the recommendation, which was passed unanimously.
A point of interest: The Working Party report refers to the MKC Core Strategy, which states that collectively Newport Pagnell, Olney and Woburn Sands are earmarked for an additional 1 760 new homes over the next few years. These three settlements were chosen on the basis that they have the largest range of facilities and best public transport links in the rural area. All, bar Olney, have already embarked on producing Neighbourhood Plans, and based on historical growth patterns Olney would be expected to grow by approximately 250 properties in that time. As Olney has been identified as a key settlement, numerous landowners have put forward parcels of land to be considered for housing development. The suggested sites will now be examined in detail to see how sustainable they are, e.g. in terms of proximity of main services such as water, electricity and sewage and also how they would link in to the current highway network. One or more of the sites will then be included in the development plan as being suitable. To this end, most (if not all) of the landowners to the west of Aspreys have put forward plots of land to be considered, and the land thus far put forward is sufficient to build over 2000 dwelling, although this does not guarantee that they will be deemed acceptable and included in the development plan. The action of the landowners is not surprising bearing in mind the considerable increase in the value of green belt agricultural land that such designation would confer. Of course, any development at the Weston Road end of Aspreys would further accelerate the gradual sprawl of Olney towards Weston Underwood. Mercury is grateful to Steve Clark for clarification of the Milton Keynes Development Strategy.
Kitchener Centre
Earlier this year the council had discussed apossibleextensiontotheKitchenCentre, due to an increase in the need for day care for the elderly. Dr Brian Partridge and Centre Manager Helena Newbould, had attended to support the proposal, and explained that there were then two waiting lists in operation: The first for people wishing to join the service, and at the time there were nine on the list with another six in progress. The second list was for people who already used the centre but wanted additional sessions and that then stood at 1 2. Since then, the incumbent operator has lost the contract for running the centre and it has been bought in house by MKC. For some reason which was not made clear, there is no longer any waiting list and consequently no business justification for expansion. Debbie Brock, Cabinet Member of M KC with Portfolio responsibility for Adult, Older Years and Health, said that
Following that
engaged an architect to draw up some illustrative plans of the proposals, and he and Ian Stokes were present at the meeting to present these to the council. The building will contain two junior changing rooms, a kitchen, a changing room for match officials, showers and an over-flow changing room that could double as a function room. The entire building will be disabled friendly, said Ian. The plans met with general approval of the council and, having already agreed in principle to the proposals, agreed that The Colts could now proceed to the next stage of producing detailed plans and apply for
planning permission. Deidre Bethune asked if the issue of the blocked sewer, which the building would connect to, had been resolved. For information the sewer, which serves all of the clubs and the public toilets on the recreation ground, runs along the boundary of the football pitch but diverts under the fence and private properties before joining with the main sewer in East Street. It is partially blocked by tree roots under the private properties and occasionally backs up and overflows during periods of exceptional use. Jeremy Rawlings explained that the blocked section was the responsibility of Anglian Water, who have admitted responsibility but prefers to reactively respond to blockages on each occasion and will only consider remedial work when it becomes financially advantageous to do so.
Berrells Court resurfacing and drainage The extremely poor condition of Berrells Court, off East Street, has long been a cause of concern with huge areas of standing water often covering much of the surface. It has never been adopted by Milton Keynes Council (MKC), and according to the Land Registry it does not have an owner. Planning Permission for a new property was granted almost
two years ago, and a condition of this Permission was that the road surface should be brought up to standard with tarmac and drainage before construction could start. When OTC last discussed the matter in December 201 2, the proposal was to bring the surface up to adoption standard and seek adoption. The council has since obtained quotes for a tarmac surface with five soakaways but the fact that the soakaways would be directly under the road does not meet the standard for adoption. Town Clerk Liam Costello has contacted the residents of Berrells Court with a view to getting them to contribute
54 Phonebox Magazine
m eeting, the colts had