Olney Mercury Report
Into the New Year
  Public Participation
Farmers' Market stalls housed under BOFF's covered area, encouraged to serve hot food and to stay at the venue late into the afternoon. The Council agreed to this request.
planning issue, that there was a logical process to pass through and that, since it was a problem for only around four hours per week, there may be easier solutions such as traffic management. He also noted that, with its housing classification, this vacant parcel of land was extremely valuable and, to purchase it, the Council would likely need to request that another piece of land be classified as being for housing use. If this was done, then the money from the sale could be used to fund the purchase of the land adjacent to the car park. Tony Evans felt that having decided to reclassify this land as being for housing use, thus significantly inflating its value, Milton Keynes Council (MKC) should fund the land purchase. The only thing which seemed certain at the end of the discussion, was that this issue will run and run.
Paul Collins, Chair of Trustees at the Cowper and Newton Museum, was the only member of the public to speak in this slot. After a recent unintended schedule clash between two musical events in the town, he urged the Council to consider implementing a central calendar for town eventswhichlocalorganisationswouldbe free to use, thus reducing the possibility of such schedule related surprises in future.
Proposed Road Changes
 Olney Dementia Project _
Although only mentioned briefly in this meeting, two proposed road changes have entered their consultation period - the High Street junctions with Yardley and Weston Roads. If you visited the Council's stall at Dickens of a Christmas, you'd have seen their details on display.
The Council listened to a presentation from Joy Oehlman on the Olney Dementia Project, organised by the Friends of Cobbs Garden Surgery and made possible through generous donations from local businesses. It's in response to David Cameron's Dementia Challenge, and Joy is employed on a fixed term one year contract. Olney has a higher than average proportion of older people and, nationally, increases in dementia detection rates (currently 44%) are expected to significantly boost the proportion diagnosed with dementia.
Hearing Loop System-   
Two thirds of those diagnosed with dementia live in the community, with many of them feeling let down and misunderstood by those around them. The Project aims to increase awareness and understanding of dementia, trying to address issues such as shopping - dementia sufferers tend to feel more comfortable shopping locally - and signage. While notthe first initiative in the UK, that honour falling to York, it is the first in Milton Keynes borough.
East Street Par ng
Since the Police are generally no longer providing assistance with closing roads for local events, two three-hour training courses are being run in December, which will qualify those who complete them to be able to close roads with speed limits of 30MPH and below. They'll be attended by representatives from various local groups, and from the Council.
As reported previously, the Council has been trying to install an improved hearing loop system in the Olney Centre. This has been progressing very slowly, with an external company having agreed to install a trial system but not yet having done so. In order to guarantee some progress, Councillors voted that, if the trial system was not ready by the January full Council meeting, Jeremy Rawlings would investigate the purchase of one or two boundary microphones and equipment to connect them to the existing hearing loop, thus hopefully providing a useful fixed system for the Council Chamber.
Traffic Management Training
Parking near the Sports fields at certain times during weekends continues to be a hot issue. Various possible solutions were discussed, and those which seemed most relevant are noted here. Firstly, the Rugby Club has offered an area in the West end of Doffs Field which could be used at weekends for sports related parking. Secondly, Tony Evans suggested the compulsory purchase of the vacant land North of and adjacent to the existing East Street car park, and currently classified as beingforhousinguse.PeterGearyfeltthat the parking problem was a neighbourhood
Rugby News
 Duncan Taylor, previously a junior player at Olney Rugby Club, graduated to playing with Bedford Blues, now plays for Saracens and has six caps for Scotland. Councillors congratulated this major achievement.
 Big Olney Food Festival 2014
The next meeting will be held at 7.30pm on Monday 6th January in the Council Chamber in the Olney Centre. Members of the public are always welcome to attend and, if they wish, speak at the start of the meeting, or at any point that the mayor decides is appropriate.
 Following on from last month, the Big Olney Food Festival (BOFF) has now formally asked the Council if it can extend its September 201 4 event to two days. Sunday, the second day, would see the
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