The Parish Council meets at 7.30pm on Thursday, 20 November in the Church Room. The agenda can be downloaded and contains links to all the supporting papers, some of which are replicated below. 

The Council will welcome Doug Doolan to his first council meeting after his co-option at the last meeting.

Consultations

The Parish Council is consulting on a proposal to create a raised platform at the junction of Church Rd, The Green and Water End Road. The objective is to cut speeding along The Common/Water End Road and make the junction safer. We need as many people (people, not households please) as possible to complete the very short survey to demonstrate to Highways that this would be important to residents. A paper survey will be included with the next edition of the Church Newsletter.

Hertfordshire County Council is consulting on changes to recycling centres. The three options under consideration are restricting those who should not have access, businesses and traders; applying a charge for excess DIY waste; and no longer accepting any unsorted residual waste. The survey is open to 28 November.

Hertfordshire County Council is assessing the level of interest in young people aged 11-18 in standing for election to the UK Youth Parliament.

Dates for your diary

8 December @ 12pm – CDA Herts community walk to raise awareness of domestic abuse. Meet outside the Village Hall.

20 December @ 6pm – Carols on The Green accompanied as usual by the Amersham Brass Band.

Highways

The Highways Working Party and DriveSafe team had a successful meeting with Jonathan Ash-Edwards, the Hertfordshire Police and Crimes Commissioner, raising in particular the availability of better technology for the DriveSafe team to monitor speeding through the village.

The gas main replacement road works reported last month have now started in earnest with the traffic lights at the Potten End junction. There were some teething problems as Cadent had failed to seek the Parish Council’s agreement to the use of its land for temporary offices and storage of spoil. This was resolved as quickly as possible but does mean that parking in the layby opposite the Village Hall will be restricted for the duration of the work. Please note that this work is likely to last for four months in various locations around the parish largely along the line of Hempstead Lane. 

All roadworks over the next three months are summarised here or for more up to date information please refer to Causeway one network.

Planning

At its meeting on Thursday the Council will consider the following application:

• The Barn, Little Heath Lane – fenestration modifications and other minor changes (25/02753/FHA)

The appeal against the Suitable Alternative Green Space (SANG) between Potten End Hill and Nettleden Road has been successful. The most visible aspect will be a new car park at the bottom of Potten End Hill near the Leighton Buzzard Road.

Open Spaces

Work has been completed on improvements to the entrance to the sports field which has created significantly more parking space and generally tidied up the entrance. Hopefully this should reduce pressure on parking in Homefield.

Frustratingly by the time the specialist equipment necessary to removing some of the water lily rhizomes from the pond became available the ground around the edge was too soft. This work has now been deferred until Spring 2026.

The safety surface underneath the swings will be replaced on Friday 28 November and Monday 1 December; the swings will be out of action over that weekend.

A proposal for the design of the new village sign will be discussed. There’s likely to be a long lead time which given the Cadent works is probably no bad thing but in due course we will have to decide where best to locate it on The Green as the original location was prone to damage from vehicles overshooting the turning into Hempstead Lane.

Finance

Dacorum continues to change its mind about the grants it pays parish and town councils and which constitute 30% of our income. The Parish Council is very grateful to our Borough Councillor Terry Douris who tabled a motion to have the proposal removed from the Borough’s budget which was narrowly defeated 22 to 21 – the voting largely following party lines with LibDem and Labour councillors voting for the grants to be cut. There seemed to be a lack of awareness on the part of some councillors that rural and urban areas have different requirements, hence the need for wardens in rural areas, and a belief that despite everywhere outside of Hemel paying a precept as well as council tax, that somehow Hemel was subsidising the rural areas, where we would argue the opposite. A final decision on what will happen next year will be taken on 2 December.

The Council will be considering the possible impact of the withdrawal of the grants on its budget for the next three years, a proposal that it should maintain services at their current level within the parish, and therefore an acceptance that precept will have to increase.