NONINGTON PARISH COUNCIL

Report of a meeting held in the Dolphins Hall on Wednesday 5th November 2008 at 7.30 p.m.

• Village Day. A very successful event was held and most of the local groups made a small profit – a letter of thanks will be sent by the Parish Council to all of those people whose hard work made it all possible. A cheque was handed over by the NVE to the PC to cover the initial PC outlay for the various activities required to stage the event.
• Highways and signage. Several further issues of concern were raised, together with various issues outstanding from the last meeting. The Parish Clerk will contact the Dover Highways Department again to get try to get all of these issues rectified.
• Village Hall refurbishment. Almost complete – outside redecoration is almost finished. The problem with the heating boiler has been rectified.
• Frogham public telephone box. A petition has been received by the PC from the residents of Frogham expressing their desire to keep the public phone box. The options available were discussed by the councillors and it was agreed that an annual charge of £500 to "sponsor" the phone which was only used 19 times last year could not be justified on cost terms. It was agreed that if/when the PC is approached it would agree to "adopt" the phone box for a single payment of £1 – this will keep the heritage of the box intact, though without the phone facility. For further details and information please go to www.payphones.bt.com/adopt_a_kiosk/HTML/payphone/index.htm
• Snowdown Footpath. Permission regarding the proposed community led permissive path between Butter Street and Snowdown Station is currently being sought with interested parties. The next step is then to investigate funding opportunities for the project.
• Vicarage Lane Footpath. Highways Dept were contacted to see if a similar path to the Snowdown footpath could be laid on the land they own between the Royal Oak pub and St Mary’s Close – however their response indicated it would not be as straightforward. The opportunity for transfer of the land from Highways to the Parish Council was discussed as a potential route to speed up the process – the Parish Clerk will contact them to see if this is a viable option.

• School heating oil theft. Following the news that Nonington Primary School had suffered a second theft of heating oil within a short space of time the Parish Council approached them offering whatever help they may require. A response to the offer is still awaited.
• Dover North wind farm. A letter was received from Langdon Parish Council asking for a donation towards the costs of fighting a proposed windfarm development in their area. This was discussed at length in the meeting and the majority of both councillors and parishioners present agreed that whilst there was clear sympathy for their situation, the environmental necessity for developments towards sustainable energy production carried out responsibly and within the relevant planning guidelines was an overriding factor. It was decided that regretfully the Parish Council has declined to make a donation. A letter to this effect will be sent to Langdon PC.
• Allotments. Several parishioners have approached the PC asking if allotments could be made available in the village. Two potential sites were discussed – one in St Mary’s Close which has been used for this purpose in the past, the other being a plot of land owned by the PC next to the cemetery in Church Street. The Clerk will contact DDC Planning department asking for advice as to how best to progress these options.

Mr Terry Miller - Clerk to Nonington Parish Council

Tel: 01304 840602