North Mymms Parish Council

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Previous items which had appeared on the front page.

 

Gobions Open Space

 

July 2008 - The strange sand-filled lines are the result of work to improve the drainage on this playing field.  This should complete the work started in 2005.

 

A major updating of the children’s play equipment at Gobions Open Space took place in August 2008.

 

Planning committee meeting dates

 

The parish council now has only three weeks in order to object or comment on planning applications.  Consequently the dates of meetings have had to be revised from August 2008 onwards..  See link at side to the ‘Meeting dates’ page.

 

 

Parish Plan

A meeting was held on Monday 23rd June at NM Youth and Community Centre which was attended by a number of representatives of local organisations.  The objective was to form a Steering Group which would initiate the work necessary to produce a Parish Plan.  The parish council is to make further contact with local residents and businesses on this proposal.

 

Annual Meeting – new chairman

At the council’s annual meeting held on 28th May 2008, Councillor Mrs Jacqui Boulton was elected as chairman, and Councillor Vivian Weeks as Vice Chairman.  The chairmen of the three committees were re-elected.

 

The annual accounts for the year 2007/8 were signed and will be presented for audit.  Once they have been approved by the auditors they will be added to this website.

 

Youth shelter

The ‘Welham Green As One’ group has provided a shelter for the use by local youths on the playing fields off Dellsome Lane, Welham Green which is owned by the Parish Council.  Obviously it can be used by anybody, but it has been provided, at no cost to the Parish council, to give local youths a ‘place they can call their own’.  The shelter was officially in May.

 

 

Welwyn Hatfield Council elections 1st May 2008.

The standing councillors have all been re-elected for the wards of Welham Green and of Brookmans Park and Little Heath.  See www.welhat.gov.uk for the results.

 

Minutes

 

The minutes of the 2007 Annual Public Meeting have now been approved and added to this website.  See ‘Minutes of all meetings and scroll down to March 2007.

 

New Welwyn Hatfield Councillor for Welham Green ward

 

Councillor Doug Berry was elected on 3rd January 2008.  We were very pleased that he was able to attend our full Council meeting on 30th January 2008, particularly as a representatives of the new ‘Welham Green As One’ youth project, including two of the young members, made their case for a new Youth Shelter on Parish Council land.  

 

Parish Council Precept

 

The main source of finance for the Parish Council is the ‘precept’ which is collected by Welwyn Hatfield Council as part of the annual Council Tax payment.  The Parish Council precept for 2008/9 will be £175,100, an increase of 2.5%. 

 

 

Annual accounts and balance sheet

 

This website now includes the Parish Council’s audited accounts to 31 March 2006 and 2007. (see Minutes of all meetings)

 

North Mymms calendar 2008

 

Sold out – even the one intended for the office!

This double-sided A4 size calendar has lots of diary space.  Each month shows comparable pictures of a current scene and what it looked like 50-100 or more years ago. 

 

North Mymms calendar 2008

 

This double-sided A4 size calendar has lots of diary space.  Each month shows comparable pictures of a current scene and what it looked like 50-100 or more years ago. 

 

The price is £6.  If buying from the parish council office by mail the price is £6.60 including postage and your cheque should be payable to ‘North Mymms Parish Council’.

It is now on sale at

-        Brookmans Park News on Bradmore Green,

-        Dellsome Lane Post Office in Welham Green,

-        Welham Greens, greengrocers on Dellsome Lane,

-        Potterells Medical Centre,

-        Dutch Nursery, and

-        the Parish Council office (address below). 

 

 

North Mymms Calendar

The parish council has produced a calendar for 2007 showing pictures of 13 North Mymms.  The price is now £2 (was £5) plus postage and packing of 50p for UK addresses.  It is now on sale at the Parish Council office (address below), at the Brookmans Park News on Bradmore Green, at Dellsome Lane Post Office, and the Dutch Nursery (on the wall near the cash desks).  If purchasing from the Parish Council office, please make your cheque payable to ‘North Mymms Parish Council’.

 

 

Police Community Support Officer

Earlier in 2006, Herts Constabulary offered the services of a PCSO to the parish if the council would provide 50% of the funding for two years.  The cost in a full year was originally stated as roughly £16,000 but this was later reduced to about £14,000.

In June and July 2006 the Parish Council carried out a survey of all 3,600 residences in the parish to see if residents would be willing to pay up to about 10% more next year to the Parish Council to part-fund this PCSO.  About 20% replied with 319 for the proposal and 339 against.  At its meeting on 26 July 2006 the Parish Council decided not to take up this offer from the police.    

 

Co-opted Councillors

At the parish council meeting on Wednesday 28 June 2006 Teresa Travell, a Welham Green resident, was co-opted to fill one of the two vacancies in that ward.  At the meeting on 26 July 2006, Peter Hastings was co-opted to fill the other vacancy.  Although he does not live in that ward he does have business interests there.

 

East of England Plan.

The draft Plan (EEP) was consulted upon in late 2004 and an Examination in Public was held in 2005/6.  The report of the Panel was issued in June 2006, and a further round of consultation is expected in late 2006.

In the covering letter sent to Ruth Kelly MP, the Panel said that the volume of development will be controversial for many, and the Plan had to deal with climate change and ensure the creation of sustainable communities.  It finished by saying here is very widespread concern about whether resources will be found to make all this development truly sustainable.

Covering the period 2001-2021, the latest version has increased the number of dwelling for Welwyn Hatfield from the original 5,800 to 10,000.  This must entail building on the Green Belt.  At its meeting on 26 July 2006 the Parish Council decided to write to Welwyn Hatfield Council protesting against this change. 

 

 

North Mymms Memorial Hall Golden Jubilee

 

 

Located on Station Road, Welham Green, the North Mymms Memorial Hall first opened its doors on 7th November 1957.  The Parish Council and the Hall’s Management Committee intend to celebrate the Hall’s golden jubilee on 7th November 2007.  The first steps are raising awareness of this celebration, creating a Festival Team and enlisting a local celebrity to lead the Team.

 

The planning of a Memorial Hall started in 1927and it took 30 years to raise the money and build the hall.  In that time the community changed significantly with housing development and the creation of Brookmans Park in particular, and the change from an agriculture-based community.  The hall is dedicated to the memory of parish residents who gave their lives in two World Wars; 39 in the Great War and 20 in the Second World War.

 

The Hall is held in trust by North Mymms Parish Council with the running of it delegated to a management committee.  The uses of the hall range almost from A to Z, from afternoon teas and annual lunches, to dancing, drama, lectures, polling station, public meetings, salsa, Scrabble, tango and tae kwondo.  

 

Golden Jubilee celebration

A week of events is proposed from Saturday 3rd November 2007 through to Sunday 11th November 2007, Remembrance Sunday.  The Parish Council is contacting many local organisations in order to create a Festival Team.  If anyone would like to assist, could they please contact the Memorial Hall secretary? 

E-mail her at daphnedean@tiscali.co.uk  

 

Councillor Pat Storey

 

Pat Storey passed away on 4th March this year after a short illness.  Many will have known her as having represented the Welham Green ward on North Mymms Parish Council and Welwyn Hatfield Councillor for about 30 years.  She was Parish Council chairman six times and chairman of Welwyn Hatfield Council in 2004/5.

 

But that was just a part of her life.  Pat was born in Surrey and in her teens in 1940, she helped provide refreshments to troops returning from Dunkirk. She came from a farming family which may account for her lifelong interest in horses. For a time she exercised race horses including Nickel Coin, subsequently a Grand National winner.  One year she competed in the National Riding Clubs Championship; she was the only grandmother to take part and her horse was the oldest.  Like the Duke of Edinburgh, arthritis caused a change from riding horses to driving Hackney carriages.

 

Dogs were another long-term passion and she even had one which qualified for Crufts.  She still had a Rhodesian Ridgeback.

 

Pat, and her equally well-known husband Bill, moved here in 1954 and both became very involved in the area.  She had been a governor at Chancellor’s School and Brookmans Park Primary School.  Her other involvements included the Essendon District Riding Club, the Friends and Neighbours Club, North Mymms District Green Belt Society, North Mymms Memorial Hall, the Platypus Swimming Club for handicapped swimmers, the St John’s Ambulance Brigade,  and the Women’s Institute

 

Apart from all that, Pat had 3 children and 7 grandchildren.

 

A Memorial Service was held on 28 April 2006 at St Mary’s Church, North Mymms