The Parish Council meets at 7.30pm on Thursday, 19 June in the Church Room at Potten End. The agenda can be downloaded and contains links to all the supporting papers.

Keep the date free – Dan Blesovsky from the Golf Club will be attending the council meeting on 17 July to update us on the club’s plans.

And if you get to the end of this email and think that there’s some interesting stuff going on and you’d like to get involved – Dina Westenholz-Smith has decided that she can’t continue as a councillor and so there is a vacancy for a new councillor. Dina was instrumental in undertaking surveys into parish life, was responsible for the recent survey into what infrastructure we should invest in, and has been the council’s go to person on planning issues; she will be missed.

Highways

The Highways Working Party had a very constructive meeting with Cllr Terry Douris who as the outgoing County Councillor has been our main contact with Hertfordshire Highways and Cllr Caroline Smith-Wright who has replaced him. The main issue Caroline will be looking into for us is how to take forward the recent report from Highways on the junction of Church Road, The Green and Water End Road, but we also touched on Frithsden Lane, DriveSafe, Trident Junction and general issues around traffic volumes, speeding and parking enforcement.

Roadworks in and around the parish over the next three months have slowed up a little after a few months when at times it’s seemed that the powers that be were determined to cut us off! Rather than list them here you can see them summarised here or for more up to date information please refer to Causeway one network.

Planning

The Council supported planning applications for 28 Rambling Way, Forge Farm, and Church Side. At its meeting on Thursday it will consider the following applications (reference numbers relate to the Dacorum Planning Portal)

• Highwood, Browns Spring – conversion of garage into habitable space and single storey front extension (25/01315/FHA )
• 3 Chestnut Close – work to trees (25/01377/TPO)
• Frithsden Vineyard – Variation of Condition 2 (Approved Plans) attached to planning permission 22/02538/FUL (Replacement Dwelling) (25/01407/ROC)
• Frithsden Vineyard – Variation of Condition 1 (Approved Plans) attached to planning permission 4/00737/88 added by 25/00177/NMA (25/01354/ROC)
• Old Kiln Meadow – Variation of condition 11 (Approved Plans) attached 22/02468/FUL (25/01428/ROC)
• Browns Spring Wood – two forestry storage buildings (25/01467/AGD)
• Malperdy, 8 Hempstead Lane – front entrance gates and railings (25/01487/FHA)

We have also been advised of two planning appeals:

• The Suitable Alternative Natural Green Space between Nettleden Road and Potten End Hill (see 25/00019/REFU). There is an option to add additional comments on this appeal.
• Cleft Oak Cottage where Dacorum refused permission for an extension. Because of the nature of this appeal it isn’t possible to add any further comments to what was submitted originally.

And we will be discussing an event scheduled to take place over last weekend at Highridge Farm, Frithsden for which Dacorum refused a license. 

Open Spaces

The Council will be discussing possible solutions to a problem that has arisen with footballs being kicked into the garden of Four Oaks which backs onto the Spencer Holland recreation ground. If your children use the goal on the recreation ground please remind them that it’s not very neighbourly to kick balls over the stop netting, and then climb up hedges and fences to get them back.

On a similar note, someone has removed the plaque thanking David Groom for his donation of land to the parish for a burial ground. This is the second time the plaque has been removed in the last two years and we will of course replace it, but it is a disappointing reaction to a very generous gift which is much appreciated by those of us who use it, and which will benefit residents for many years to come.

Infrastructure investment in our Parish: Have your say!

We had nearly 180 responses to the survey about how you think the council should spend the money it received, largely as a result of the Valerie Way development. This is a fantastic return and the council is very grateful to everyone who took the time and trouble not just to rank the short-listed proposals but also to put forward other suggestions. The results of the survey and comments on all of the suggestions can be found here.