The Annual update:
Over the course of the last year the Parish Council has dealt with several planning issues. Where possible we always aim to support appropriate development in the village year, we have raised objections to requests we have not felt were beneficial to the village. Our comments are always taken onboard by the planners but we cannot always guarantee the outcome we wish. Since the changes to the Local Government structure the whole process seems to have slowed down but hopefully this will improve going forward.
The Community Speed Watch team continues to undertake regular deployments on Hilton Road. We are very grateful to the dedicated team of volunteers who regularly turn out to support this initiative. It would be good to see more members of the local community participating in this activity for the benefit of the whole village. The VAS sharing with Potto and Crathorne has now been in place for a couple of years and it has been a revelation to see the figures produced from both Seamer Village and Tame Bridge deployments. These figures are passed onto the local police with the expectation that more deployments of the speed van at Tame Bridge will happen. Since the development of the former Blacksmiths the motorbike seems to have stopped coming. Enquiries will be made with the police as to why this seems to have happened. Updates will be given at the Parish Meetings where possible.
The contractor, Philip Wood continues to do a good job in keeping our greens and verges looking neat and tidy and his efforts have been much appreciated by the villagers. We will continue to try and ensure the village remains a pleasing and attractive place to live.
The tubs are now serviced by members of the Parish Council but we are always looking for more volunteers to help with this work. A gardener has also been employed (with support from the Community Fund) to look after the rose bank and village hall gardens, he will tend them once a month between April and October.
The litter picking group continues to keep the village as litter free as possible and their efforts are greatly appreciated.
Over the course of the year, time has also been devoted to dealing with various issues and suggestions made by residents. Regular reports about the work of the Parish Council are placed in the Grapevine magazine, the noticeboards and on the village website.
Changes have now taken place with the Grapevine production. Following the retirement of Dave Campy the editor role has now been taken on by Allison Routledge. The PC want to thank Dave for all his work over the years and his continued support to Allison. The decision has also been made to outsource the printing of the Grapevine. Whilst this now means there is a cost to the PC it is such a well-received document the PC thinks it is worth it. To help reduce these costs as much as we can publication has now changed to 4 times a year from 6.
The Community Fund continues to support the village with events in the village hall. Over the last year we have seen Christmas and Easter events. Many thanks to Ann Thomas who continues to organise and run these events. This past year has also seen an extremely successful village event on Bainbridge’s field which they kindly allowed to be used. This was attended by a large number of villagers and encouraged villagers to get together and socialise. The community fund also supported events in the village hall during the summer holidays. Many thanks to Ally Johnson who led and organised these events which again proved very successful and appreciated by the children and parents in the village. We also had a visit to one of these events by our local MP Rishi Sunak. The vision of him acting as the Pied Piper leading the children down the village to the pond wont be forgotten for a while!
An ongoing project over the couple of years has been the planning of a bus shelter for the school children on Low Green. This has been funded by the Community Fund and a grant has been received from Councillor Bridget Fortune. At last, this project has been completed and everything is now fully installed. Many thanks go to Glenn McGill who managed this project initially and we are all happy to see it now installed.
The PC has also been working closely with Labman to develop a solar powered pump for the village pond to help reduce the number of algae which grows in the pond. This has now been installed and hopefully we will see the benefit this year. This was also a project that Labman spoke to Rishi about and he seemed very interested. The PC is hoping to get the pond partially dredged at the end of this year to improve its appearance.
The council is keen to hear from residents re projects and ideas to be supported by the Community Fund. All ideas are welcome and an application form can be found on the village website.
This year’s Christmas tree was funded by the Parish Council and will be every year going forward. The PC would like to thank members of the Chapel for lighting the tree so beautifully and making it a lovely feature for the village over Christmas.
We would like to thank all the Parish Councillors for their time, work and interest they give to issues in Seamer and Tame Bridge and for the support, advice and interest shown by our District Councillor and County Council representatives
Expenditure for the year:
Current Business Account
Income including Precept: £ 7101.48
Expenditure: £ 6726.15
EOY Balance: £ 2748.50
Reserve Account
Income: £ 3771.51
Expenditure: £ 7900.22
EOY Balance: £ 2923.80
Community Account
Income: £ 18881.48
Expenditure: £18722.36
EOY Balance: £ 34533.75