Hemingstone Annual Parish Meeting

Why do the smaller villages appear to have more active organisations than the larger?  Perhaps they just tend to report at the annual village meeting.

Mid Suffolk planning procedures didn’t meet with approval.  The level of debate at the committee is too limited ,with issues that worry villagers not examined in detail.  The few powerful contributors tend to short circuit the process.  Just the same views as were expressed after the SnOasis meeting some time ago.  How do we councillors provide more challenge?

The County’s traffic survey to find where HGV’s go on the B1078 met with approval but the five buses every morning and evening from Otley College cause consternation on narrow country roads like Clay Lane.  Is there an alternative route? I need to take this up again . 

Footpath issues still exist and County Highways short-lived attempts to rebuild damaged verges with earth that promptly gets spread across the road, was felt to be a waste of money.  Not the first village with this concern.  I must take it up again but we would not want great ditches left by the road side.  Perhaps such areas should be made into passing places.

No Incinerator in Great Blakenham

A typical Municipal Incinerator
A typical Municipal Incinerator

 Suffolk County Council has been consulting about five sites it is proposing for waste disposal. Two of these are located in Great Blakenham.  I am concerned that the roads are not adequate to carry extra traffic from SnOasis and the planned new housing developments in the area, let alone two new waste sites.  I have asked the District Council to look at this and can’t see why they don’t have a realistic plan for the area.  The other sites are at Sproughton, Stanton and Eye where protest groups are forming.

The County has declared that its preference is to site an incinerator at Great Blakenham to burn domestic waste. I think that the long term effect on people’s health from chimney stack emissions cause grave concern.  I favour Mechanical Biological Treatment (MBT), which is becoming the technology of choice in the UK.  This involves several flexible and adaptable operations. After mechanical sorting, anaerobic digestion is used to process the biodegradable waste producing gas which generates electricity efficiently.  Metals recovered in the sorting process can be re-cycled.

Please let me have your views.

The County position can still be changed. Planning consent for a mass burn incinerator in Surrey is to be quashed following a hearing in the High Court in January 2009.

Gipping Valley News from John Field