A new council year
May always represents the beginning of the new year for the Parish Council. This is when we review our roles and responsibilities and hold our annual meeting, which is distinct from the villages own Annual Parish Meeting – see below. We currently have 10 councillors, with one vacancy that we hope to fill soon. Following the voting from councillors, I will continue as Chair, with Councillor Andrew Huggins as Vice-Chair.
Our aim, as always, is to work on your behalf to maintain and improve our village facilities and environment. To do this, we have organised a number of working groups that can focus on the delivery of these much needed projects. The working groups are a combination of parish councillors and residents with a common purpose. If you would like to know more, or join in with anything specific, please contact either myself or the Parish Clerk.
Village Environment WG: Chair – Cllr Ken Morgan
Goal: Development and improvement of village amenities, principally in PC control, including applications for land transfers from Dorset Council (Youth Hall, Library and Astro / Horse field)
Current focus: Recreation Ground area (Hannams gateway, pond restoration, storage area between Sports Pavilion & Scout Hut, boules, table tennis, Rocket Park), footpath improvements, Library Green (between library and pharmacy), notice board replacement and Finger post restoration.
Youth Hall WG: Chair – Cllr Beverly Barker
Goal: To bring the YH back into full use for principally youth activities
Current focus: Stage 1 build to get building into use and develop long term plan. Stage 2 to renovate the building to ensures sustainability and energy efficiency
Highways WG: Chair – Cllr Andrew Huggins
Goal: Work with Dorset Council Highways team to improve pedestrian and vehicular access and safety around the village
Current focus: Wareham Rd School Crossing, High Street Crossing, Tesco Forecourt, 20 MPH application, Huntick Cycleway extension, Drop kerbs expansion
Primary School Liaison WG – Chair – Cllr Micki Atteridge
Goal: to promote cooperation between school and PC
Current focus: Wareham Rd School Crossing, Astro overflow parking, walk to school routes.
Neighbourhood plan 2 WG: Chair – Cllr Alf Bush
Goal: to revise and update our Neighbourhood Plan
Current focus: Monitor and respond to PLP2 and DLP updates.
Along with these key areas there are a number of other initiatives that the council are working on. These include:
- Planning: identifying issue in planning applications within the village and Green Belt areas
- Finance: identify additional funding sources and grant applications to provide resources for the village
- Policies: undertaking a full review of all PCs policies and procedures to ensure they are current
As always, if there is anything that you feel we should be looking at or you would like to get involved with please get in touch.
Annual Parish Meeting
This year’s APM was on Saturday 10th June 2023, 10am-12pm and took place as an open forum on Library Green. This seems to have worked well and the warm weather certainly was a bonus. We were pleased to discuss issues and ideas with more than 25 people from the village. The APM is your opportunity to express views on any subject to the Parish Council, but you can also do that at any of our meetings or directly be email.
Next Paediatric First Aid Course
The June course was unfortunately cancelled at short notice due to ill health but we will be booking in a new date in the Autumn
Celebrating 80-years of D-Day
June 6th 2024 will mark the 80th anniversary of the -Day Landings, which remains a landmark date in history for forging peace across Europe. As a result we are planning to hold our next village celebration around this time. Our current thoughts are to have a beacon lighting on the Rec on the Thursday evening (June 6th), with supporting pop-up bar and perhaps BBQ to come together as a community. We could extend this to have a full village picnic, fete and party on the Saturday or Sunday as everyone seemed to really enjoy this year’s Big Picnic. If you would like to help with this and be involved with organising the events please get in touch. If you have any ideas about what types of entertainment or stalls we could have to create a vibrant and fun afternoon for everyone, please let us know.
July meetings
The July Parish Council meetings will be on Wednesday 12th and 26th at 7pm in the Blanchard Room of the Village Hall. As a reminder, we will hold just one meeting in August on the 9th. All agendas will be available by the preceding Saturday and you can find minutes of all previous meetings online. If you would like more regular updates, please register for our emails and newsletter on the LMPC website.
Alf Bush,
Chair, Lytchett Matravers Parish Council