Parish Council News – September 2025
| The Parish Council meets for the first time after its summer break at 7.30pm on Thursday, 11 September in the school at Potten End – that’s a week earlier than originally scheduled and in the school and not the Church Room. The agenda can be downloaded and contains links to all the supporting papers, some of which are replicated below. Highways The Highways Working Party and DriveSafe team have a meeting with Jonathan Ash-Edwards, the Hertfordshire Police and Crimes Commissioner, on 2 October to discuss policing issues in the parish. We seem to be in for a spate of gas main replacement road works in October in various locations around the parish which are summarised here or for more up to date information please refer to Causeway one network. Confirmation has been received from Herts Highways that The Common can be closed for the annual Remembrance Service on 9 November, Planning There were a number of planning applications over the summer, details of which can be found here. The most significant was the proposal to build 750 houses at Polehanger Lane. The developer managed to completely ignore the presence of Potten End despite it being just 800m from the edge of the new development, apparently assuming that any new residents would only ever travel toward Hemel. The Parish Council submitted a detailed objection. The Parish Council also objected to the way that the Polehanger Lane development had been slipped in to the Dacorum Local Plan in the last iteration. The Examination of the Local Plan by the Planning Inspectorate starts on 16 September; more details can be found here. At its meeting on Thursday the Council will consider the following application: – Frithsden Vineyard, variation of plans (25/01407/ROC) – 15 The Back, fell tree (25/02159/TCA) – Land in the Nettleden/Frithsden Area, cancellation of Article 4 Direction (25/02057/ART) Open Spaces The Council will be considering three possible suppliers for a new Village Sign. Work should be starting shortly on replacing the stop netting behind the goal on Spencer Holland and cutting back the hedge which is pushing against it. The Council will be appointing contractors to undertake work around The Green which will include the repair and replacement where necessary of the sleepers along The Green, the installation of a ramp to the bus stop, and the reinstatement of the pudding stones at the junction of The Common with Hempstead Lane. The contract will also be awarded for improvements to the entrance to the sports field. Removing some of the water lily rhizomes from the pond has been delayed slightly but should be undertaken in the next few weeks. As a reminder this will involve the use of a mechanical digger because it’s no longer possible to undertake the work by hand – it may look a little brutal, but don’t panic! Like many people we were frustrated at having to remove the swings on the recreation ground over the summer after a survey identified possible issues with the cross beams. We’ve eventually managed to get agreement for the beams to be replaced under the warranty and hope that this will be sorted very soon. The Council will be considering a proposal to replace the safety surface under the swings where we managed to negotiate a good deal because of the problems with the beams – so there’s sometimes a silver lining. Dacorum Grants At the moment c. 29% of the Parish Council’s income comes from grants provided by Dacorum. Dacorum say that this is very generous of them and because of pressure on their costs they need to phase them out over the next three years. The Parish Council says that residents in the parishes and towns around Dacorum contribute toward the costs of Hemel (which doesn’t have a town council like say Berkhamsted or Tring) in their council tax and that the grants are actually a repayment of that excess council tax to avoid what is called ‘double taxation’. Dacorum is proposing to replace the grants with a grounds maintenance contract operating at about 50% of the level currently provided by the Parish Council (i.e. the grass will be left to grow). No evidence has been provided that this represents better value for money than our current arrangements, and there are key areas missing from the proposal such as who will be responsible for the safety of trees and play equipment. The Councill will be considering its response to the proposal. Local Government Re-organisation I wrote last month about the Government’s plans for a re-organisation of Local Government. The Government wants county and borough/district authorities replaced by what are called Unitary Authorities and has asked for proposals by the end of November 2025 with a view to new Unitary Authorities being in place by April 2028. Hertfordshire CC has now launched a website with more details about what is proposed and is consulting on what the public think about the options for Unitary Authorities. As I said previously, it sounds a little academic, but it will become very real when we’re talking about rubbish collection, planning applications and highways so it’s worth making your views known. |