Fish and Chip Shop in the Village?

A question that begs to be asked is "What if the chippy came first, would Barne's Meadow then be refused because of the added danger of the access road? More on Chippy. November Meeting

Amendments to Planning Permissions

The big stumbling block was revealed when it was realised that only parishes where the councillors were elected could be considered to be one of quality. Of course the most recent recruit was not elected, and I believe that there is or are others. Face was saved when everybody was convinced that the determining point was that it all hung on the time the council was reformed. And so it was that the last time this happened there were eleven candidates, there only being positions for ten, an election was held.

I myself believe that a very important criteria for quality is the communication of the council with it's parishioners. Unfortunately with Uplyme Parish Council this is not what it could be. When I see the minutes and agenda on a parish website I would then be prepared to award it the quality status.

Local Plan

Peter Burton explained how important it was for the parish councillors to read this document, for any objections or representations that the council feels like making must be in no later than 15th February 2002. It was proposed that the village hall be booked before the next scheduled meeting to give over an entire evening to discussing the Local Plan. This proposal was dropped when councillors realised that they just did not have the time. It was decided without a vote to pass around the only copy the council had of the document and to discuss any points that they felt needed airing at the February meeting, that's on the 13th.

This doesn't strike me as being very democratic, but what option is there?
This lack of time may point us in the direction of having a more professional paid local body of representatives, with the power of making more of the local decisions. But that's another often raised subject.

No Through Road

The eleven acre field is on the Charmouth road going out of Lyme. After the steep climb past the caravan site on the left the road eventually levels out goes through a couple of bends and Strawberry Fields is the first field on the left after the wood. The name derived from the time about ten years ago when Major Berry had a Pick Your Own fruit farm. In recent years it has been used as a park and ride terminal. below

Peter Burton described the site and it's situation, explaining that the town council wanted to develop this site as a sports complex offering football and rugby pitches, tennis courts, hockey and five a side football pitches and the like. To make matters worse it was their intention to floodlight the area. He showed a panoramic view taken from the centre of Strawberry Fields, which clearly illustrated the distance from which these floodlights would be visible.

The entire council were completely behind Peter Burton on this one. Typical comments were that "this would be the greatest environmental disaster to befall Uplyme in the last hundred years", "floodlights at Colyton Grammar School were an environmental blight and this one on such a prominent site would be considerably more so", "you just can't do something like this in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty"

It so happened that Councillor Stan Williams of Lyme Regis Town Council was amongst the members of the public at the meeting. After the official meeting at the start of the open forum he kindly volunteered some comments regarding Strawberry Fields. He confirmed that the land had now been bought outright for about £60,000 and that various sporting organisations were currently being approached with the view of obtaining commitment from them to make future use of the sports complex. He added that the centre was by no means solely for use of the residents of Lyme and that people of Uplyme would be most welcome to use the facilities. To which John Duffin asked in that case could the parish be represented on their committee by one of the councillors, Mr Williams agreed. Indeed he expected it to be used by people from a large area and hoped that tournaments and the like would be held there, which in the case of tennis would require at least four courts.

We were beginning to grasp the scale of this enterprise. Councillor Williams was reported in the Lyme Regis News of 20th July 2001 that Strawberry Fields "is a whole town asset" and he knew "that the former Allhallows School has an excellent sports hall which could be purchased". Which conflicted with the answer that I got from asking him that they must be pretty cocksure of obtaining planning permission having spent such a lot on just eleven acres. His reply to this was that it did not really matter if the sports complex did not go ahead for they could always use it, as they have in previous years, as a "park and ride" terminal. I then asked why they had not done so this past summer but instead used a field on the other side of the road. He did not answer this question but offered that the owner of that field also will be seeking planning permission to develop.

An article in the Pullman of 6th June 2001 stated "And at the council's May meeting, Councillor Meech revealed that the site had been discussed at an internal meeting of the district council with a view to the site being included in the West Dorset Local Plan, the development blueprint for the future." I think that the residents of Uplyme in particular those of Harcombe and Rhode Hill have due cause to be concerned.

Is it just a coincidence that this whole area is nicely tucked out of the way from being viewed directly from Lyme Regis?
The latest on this subject

Barnes Meadow Update

John Steven said that there was not much to report. Details on Barnes Meadow Development

Rhode Hill Gardens Home Page