The Parish Council has been chaired this year by Dr Malcolm Wright. All of the Parish Council members have an area of responsibility and many also serve on one or more of the council’s committees or working parties, reports of which are below. This enables the council to thoroughly consider the many areas of its business and plan and implement its projects effectively during the year. The Chairman is ex-officio on all committees and working groups. The following reports have been written by the members whose names are in brackets.

Chairman's Report (Malcolm Wright)

The Chairman reported at the Annual Parish Meeting on the Parish Council's involvement in the following during the past year: Traffic Calming; Village Memorial;

Litter; Village Appraisal/Action Plan; Village Maps; Planning Applications; Trees; Grass Cutting; Flower Beds; Footpaths; New Village Hall; Recreation Ground; History of the Village; Christmas Lights; Open Air Concert; Golden Jubilee Celebrations(plans);Safer Routes to School; Drainage & Flooding; Housing Development (Thornbury).

More detail on some of these is given in the following reports by individual members below.

It has been a very active year for the Council justifying in part Comberton's recent description as a 'vibrant' village by the Countryside Agency.

The Council has been very happy to continue giving financial support to the following very worthwhile activities; Mobile Warden Scheme; Contact; Churchyard maintenance; Scouts. The Mobile Warden Scheme continues to thrive and is a great asset to our village - thanks to all who administer it. 'Contact ' is a village magazine that we can all be very proud of - congratulations to the Editor and all the Contact team. The Churchyard is looking very good and the Scouts are repaying our support by kindly agreeing to set off the fireworks at the Golden Jubilee Celebrations.

We no longer receive telephone messages from our Beat officer, we receive e-mails via Julie Gilbert. Some-times they can be a week old, some-times days, it depends who is on duty, and who is not! If I think it is necessary I ring the N.Watch Co-ordinator.

We seem to be having a fairly quiet time at the moment, is that tempting fate or not?

I also receive messages from Country Side Watch very regularly, again if I think it is necessary these also go down the telephone.

Julie Caine is still working hard at keeping our N.Watch Co-ordinator together, recently organising a meeting to meet the new Beat Officer, I do hope he will give us the same support as P.C. Stewart Hilton, with so many Villages to cover, plus Cambourne how can this be done? We will have to wait and see.

I, together with Councillor Dorothy Morison, are the representatives of our Parish Council, on the Cambridgeshire Association of Local Councils. This is a body which meets to discuss mutual problems with other parish councils in the county, where they try to present united views on the major policies of the principle councils, such as strategic planning, road schemes, public transport & development. As well as asking public agencies to explain their actions, such as the Department of the Environment after the recent flooding. We also appoint members to the liaison committees of the principal authorities As well as the transport area joint committee, where we are represented by Councillor Morrison.

I also have the job of trying to make sense of the governments proposals for local powers for villages, and with the performance of parish councils. This is very difficult, as these proposals have been produced in London by people who have little idea what small parish councils are all about. If we perform well in providing our services and this means extensive consultation, we can become recognised as a quality council and obtain the right to take over some services provided by the principle councils such as footpath maintenance, streetlights, litter clearing if we wish probably in partnership with one or two neighbouring councils. We already carry out the village grass cutting on behalf of the County Council. However to do this we will have to become a ‘Best Value Council’, which means performance plans for delivering services and then monitoring them to see that they are achieved, as well as comparing them with our neighbours to see if we are cost effective.

The above is fine in principle and can be implemented by large parish councils without much difficulty. But for us a lot is already being done, and no doubt we can improve, but to do everything that is requested will not be practical.

The recreation ground is beset by the same problems as in the past years.

It ranks amongst the prettiest in local villages but suffers as many do by vandalism and overuse of some of the playing surfaces.

The actual grass playing areas are very heavily used at times and rely very much on the weather pattern as to how long they take to recover.

The main sports pavilion is now almost ten years old and needs a programme of refurbishment to upgrade its interior and some parts of its exterior.

The children’s play equipment is in need of constant maintenance very largely due to misuse by elder children.

The boundary hedges and fences again are in need of weekly repair the southern boundary fence being cut down as an almost daily happening

Dog fouling is still with us largely when younger children are walking the animals and will not clear up the waste.

All the above sounds like a sad reflection on today’s youth, the bottom line being that today’s youngsters are not being taught to respect the equipment and use it correctly too much time and money is being spent repairing rather than adding to the facilities.

The extension to the recreation ground is urgently needed to allow some areas to recover and new sporting interests to grow.

Last September the village appraisal questionnaire, with some 70 questions on all aspects of village life, went out to every house in the village to be completed by everyone in the household. The response was excellent, with 80% of people taking the trouble to fill in and return the forms ensuring that the results were truly representative of village feeling.

The next, and difficult, stage has been reached of turning all the ideas into plans for the future. Five separate groups have been formed and these are working on village design, transport, environment, public services, and recreation and social facilities. These informal groups are run by people from around the village and anyone interested is still very welcome to join either to discuss specific projects or ideas or more major plans. Short term achievable projects are being drawn up at the same time as the longer term plans. It is hoped that initial reports will be produced by the autumn so that budgeting can begin.

Comberton is ahead of most villages in having a Parish Plan at this stage of development and the impetus needs to be kept up. Thanks are due to everyone who took the trouble to fill in the forms, those who did the collecting, and those on the co-ordinating team, as well as those who are now working on everyone's behalf to draw up plans for the development of our community.

The responsibilities of the Parish Council are carried out by a committee of five members who consider all planning applications and make recommendations to the District Council, for their approval or refusal. The full Parish Council considers larger applications.

The planning committee considers a wide range of applications including residential, commercial, industrial and agricultural developments. More planning applications have been received in this year than in previous years. During the year up to early April 2002 the following plans have been received (figures in brackets are for the previous year) and subsequently approved by the District Council, some after refinements:

16 (8) domestic extensions, 1 (0) church extension, 1 (0) shop extension, 4 (4) garages, 1 (0) conservatory, 5 (1) listed building changes , 3 (0) conversion of Barns/outhouses to dwellings or annexes, 1 (0) conversion of barn to offices, 2 (1) changes to Madingley Telecom aerials site, 1 (0) new dwelling, 2 (0) stable blocks and live stock shelters, 2 (0) vehicular access, 1 (0) air handling unit, 1 (0) temporary storage for agricultural equipment. The following applications are still outstanding: 1 conservatory, 1 garage, 1 stable block and a development of 25 houses on Barton Road. The Parish Council is also consulted on planning applications in neighbouring parishes, for example all applications at Comberton Village College.

A small number of applications were refused. One was a change to a listed building, one a proposal for a domestic garage close to a difficult road junction.

The Scheme is funded by the Parish Council supplemented by a small weekly charge to members and is managed by the Village Help Scheme Committee. The Saturday morning cover is funded by a grant from Social Services.

The Warden, Elaine Daum, works for 2 hours each weekday to make regular contact with people living in their own homes to give reassurance and help with emergencies. The Deputy Warden, Jean Roberts, is employed for one hour each Saturday to make phone contact with members.

The Warden’s duties include making a daily phone call or personal visit to each of the members of the Scheme. She will carry out simple tasks required by members when they are ill such as shopping or collecting pensions, making drinks, collecting prescriptions or arranging medical visits. This help does not replace Social Services support and can only be provided short-term.

The Scheme has now been running successfully for 9 years. There are currently 8 full members. Last summer all were invited to a coffee morning at Sheila Basin's home which was very popular and it is planned to repeat the event this year. Both the Warden and Deputy Warden have recently attended a Health and Safety study day.

This past year has been extremely challenging for the Meridian. The Head announced she would be retiring in July 2001 and this meant that a panel of Governors and Local Education officials had to select a new Head from an extremely good selection of candidates. Mr. James Hickish was appointed and was allowed to begin in September, having obtained his release from his previous school. Our choice has proved to have been exactly right for the School, in spite of the difficulties caused by a falling role (we have fewer children in the village these days, something to do with little affordable housing) and the budget funding always falling short of need. Our Head and all his Staff are absolutely positive that the Meridian will thrive. They are putting a lot of effort in to devising systems to minimize the loss of Teaching Staff and putting on hold plans for much needed renewal of furniture and whole School decoration unless the funding can be obtained for each project. The roof has now been repaired but the damage caused by previous leaks is still there and the furniture, which was new when the School was, is rather tired. We are continuing with improving the Library (as in our Action Plan following the last Ofsted) and we will continue where possible to negotiate funds for certain projects. We are in an area where all the Schools are suffering the Cambridge effect, high house prices and fewer children so we are ensuring our School remains as attractive as possible and will aim to reduce class sizes as soon as possible, but we are all resolved that whatever happens the Schools reputation for giving an excellent education will be maintained.

I am extremely proud of being the Minor Authorities Appointed Governor for the Meridian School and would welcome replying to any concerns that are addressed to me.

Comberton Village Hall is a facility well used by the residents of the village, with over 300 bookings a year. The main Village Hall is run by a Village Hall Trustees Management Committee, on behalf of the Parish Council, and has been run very successfully by this Management Committee for many years.

Changes in legislation mean that faculties in the village hall must meet access requirements for disabled people. In order to meet these new requirements a new village hall is needed within the next few years. A steering group has been set up to take forward the development of a new village hall. The steering group, chaired by Alistair Gadney, is composed of two members of the Parish Council, two members Village Hall Trustees and 10 other residents of the village, all of whom have volunteered because of their business and professional experience and desire to see this new facility developed.

The aim is to have the new village hall opened at the end of 2004. As part of this process the steering committee will be looking for participation from the residents of the village. This participation will take many forms including involvement in the assessment of the future use of a village hall, design of the building and its facilities and of course, fund raising.

The Village Enhancement Focus Group meets once a month looking at ways to improve the village from anything from drains to traffic calming with the aim of making Comberton a better place to live in.

We are most grateful to the anonymous donor for their financial assistance with the provision of more litter and dog bins. We have already had several positive comments about the new style ‘rustic’ bins and more will be sited in the near future.

Village Map

Two maps have been installed, one at the duck pond and one on the corner of Harbour Avenue at its’ junction with Barton Road. Already passing motorists have been seen to stop and find their way. Once again we are grateful to Paul Hardy for his expertise in producing these maps.

Comberton continues to be a member of The Parish Paths Partnership (P3). This involves the parish working with the County Council to ensure that the footpaths are well maintained and accessible to all. With this in mind work continues on The Causeway and improving the muddy, well used areas of The Drift. We are still looking at the possibility of creating some new footpaths in the village to form circular walks incorporating the existing ones. This is a fairly slow process but we are hopeful of a positive outcome.

The artist has begun the carving work on the ‘face’ design. This will be slightly elevated on the site and give the appearance of resting. Some children of the village will be kept in touch with the project with the possibility of participating in the carving.

The majority of the calming outside the college has been completed. There is just one more island which will be installed once the building work is finished. There have been some teething problems with the interactive signs which have been vandalised on several occasions. Hopefully they will continue to serve as a reminder to people that there is a 30mph limit here for a good reason.

The broken plastic bollards have been replaced with wooden ones and these are defiantly more sturdy than the previous ones

The Jazz concert took place on the Meridian School playing field last June. It was an excellent event, with a great community feel. Because of the success of this event, the Parish Council is proposing to sponsor a community Christmas lights event in December. Details of this event are being discussed, but will probably take the form of community carols, mulled wine and roasted chestnuts.

Jubilee Sensory Garden

Members have been working with villagers and schools to commemorate the Jubilee with a sensory planting area in Harbour Avenue. A successful application to Awards for All has resulted in funding for this exciting project.

We are looking a ways of providing signage for village amenities, i.e. Watts Wood, the recreation Ground, the Church, the Village Hall, etc. Again we will be looking at sources of external funding for this project.