Ticknall Life, Derbyshire

The Parish Council has been consulted by South Derbyshire District Council on 35 planning applications over the year, and passed their views onto SDDC which has the powers to grant or refuse plans.  We have still not seen the SDDC planned move from paper planning applications to electronic ones and continue to receive the paper plans.  The plans and decisions are on the SDDC website as well and you can always look at these by going onto the SDDC website www.south-derbys.gov.uk and clicking on to Planning.

We have honoured the Lease we have with South Derbyshire District Council on the Grange by doing some repairs to the pavilion and replaced some fencing, some trees and re-laid the hedge on one of the perimeter boundaries.

We have again booked two play facilities for the summer holidays, the Climbing Wall, Wednesday, 19th August between 6-8pm on The Grange Playing Field and the Play Mobile on Tuesday, 1st September between 2-4pm on The Grange Playing Field but this will be transferred to the Village Hall in the event of rain. There will be no charge for these activities.

There has been a small amount of crime, involving houses broken into, but we have been assured by the police that Ticknall is still a very low crime area.  We have tried to encourage villagers to organise Neighbourhood Watch Schemes in addition to the couple we already have but this has not been taken up.

There will be a Saturday Civic Amenity Service provided by South Derbyshire District Council at Ticknall Village Hall car park on 16th May and 24th October between 07.30 -11.30am, to take away rubbish.  Once again there are restrictions on what they will take, but general household waste is accepted.

The road closure to repair the culvert beneath the road was completed within the 9 week timescale and with the excellent organisation headed by Stefan Green our chairman it was completed without too many hitches.   The Parish Council would like to thank Severn Trent, Derbyshire County Council and Arriva buses.  Special thanks go to the drivers of the buses, who were extremely helpful to their passengers during this period.

One of the improvements that the road works brought was the added communication between a group of parishioners who offered to give us their email addresses so that we could keep them up to date on any urgent information regarding the road works.  They offered to pass this information on and we are very grateful to them for doing this.  We believe that it could be useful to build up this email list so that any information that is urgent can be sent out immediately, as was the case here and when the gas main was ruptured which meant that we were without gas in our homes for a weekend.

We are considering emailing our quarterly newsletter to people who would be willing to receive it electronically.  We still intend to deliver hard copies so there is no pressure to do this but ultimately communications in a small village like ours could be improved if we did this.  If you are interested in receiving an electronic version of the newsletter as well as a hard copy please send your email address and home address to the parish council email address as follows:       This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

The Carol Singing on Christmas Eve once again was very well attended and this year the money collected was £135 an increase on last year.  The Parish Council contributed another £65 to this amount and donated £100 each to St. George’s Church and Ticknall Methodist Chapel.  Thank you all for continuing to support this village tradition.

We managed to encourage seven volunteers to be trained to use the speed watch equipment in Ticknall.  Watch out for the team between 15th May to 12th June using the equipment.  Just to keep you informed, anyone logged speeding will not be fined but details will be sent to the police who will send a letter to the person caught speeding.

Also included in this report are the accounts year ending 31st March 2009, that have been audited by the internal auditor.  These accounts and all the supporting documents relating to the accounts can be inspected by any member of the electorate between the dates of 22nd June and 17th July at any reasonable time arranged with the Clerk.  You also can exercise your rights as electors with regard to the annual accounts of the Parish Council and question the Audit Commission about any items in the accounts under the Audit Commission Act 1998 and the Accounts and Audit Regulations 2003 by contacting the Audit Commission, in writing, at the following address on or after the 20th July.

Dina Pejcinovic
Audit Commission
2nd Floor
Middlebrook
Horwich
Bolton
BL6 6QQ
01204 877300

Summmary of Accounts: 1st April 2008 to 31st March 2009: Sent to Audit Commission

Included in the payments this year was an extra £200 spent on the village lengthsman for cleaning, weeding etc. and £500 was spent on bringing the pavilion up to current fire safety standards, repairs to the pavilion cost £2500.  The repair and replanting of one boundary on The Grange cost us £3800.

Finally, on behalf of the Parish Council I would like to thank Stefan, who has decided to stand down as chairman this year, for the sterling work he has put in for the Parish Council since he was first elected in May 2005.  He has been very helpful to me and the council by thoroughly redesigning how we organised our budgets, and he has certainly kept me on my toes, which has been beneficial to both me, the Parish Council and the village.  Over the years he saw us through some quite major events such as the threat of the closure of Rose Lane, which involved a public enquiry for which he put in many hours of work, the gas main incident and most recently of course the road closure.  He handled these on our behalf in a thoroughly professional manner, and to such a high standard, which knowing him as I do, he would be unable to do it any other way.  He now feels that he cannot carry on giving the position his full attention which is very important to him.  He intends to carry on as a councillor and I am sure you will all benefit from this.  Good luck to you Stefan and Anne, hopefully you can devote more time to each other and your many projects.