Uplyme Parish Council

A Personal View

Very and possibly just a bit biased

Of the Meeting Held on 11th September 2002

Seven councillors were present, only John Duffin did not show. There are still two vacant seats.

For the third consecutive month John Steven failed to turn up. Mrs Denham read out a letter from him mapping out his current intentions. Go to Barnes Meadow page for details. Betterment Homes The EDDC will be considering the latest full planning application during the week beginning 16th September. The reason that the wall associated with plot 16 has been altered has been given that it is to protect children from the dangers of the river. Have developers now taken over the running of the nanny state, what's the point of growing up in the countryside is you can't play in a river? The PC are still concerned that once the estate is finished the Glen will be neglected or much worse the neighbouring property owners will tidy things up. Perhaps even adopting areas as their own. An example of the suburban tideness culture will shortly be seen or rather not seen at the Glen. The large dead beech tree artistically positioned at an angle of 45%, now accepted as a "feature" by most people and recently given it's "raison d'etre" by Mr Jones, EDDC's tree man as a haven for wildlife, will alas be no more than a pile of fire wood. An "entrepreneur" has kindly offered to finance the removal of this beauty. Can a tree preservation order be put on a dead tree? Parish Council Must Change In an effort to speed up the through put of planning applications, new rules are to be imposed on parish and district councils by central government, regarding the time that they will be allowed to dwell on deciding their response to applications before them. Peter Burton informed us of this very complicated and draconian measure. Basically a decision by a parish council will have to be made within 14 days. If a certain target, in the region of 80 to 90% of decisions, is not processed by the district councils within the specified time then future planning decisions will be taken away from th district council and made by central government. God forbid. This measure will force the PC to review it's entire way of dealing with applications. Obviously many more applications will have to be made by the planning committee with just reports given at parish council meetings. Why is this there this continual need for speed? We are talking about buildings that may be a feature of the landscape for hundreds of years. It seems ridiculous that a decision, perhaps an ill-conceived and hurried one, will result in an eyesore for years just for the sake of saving a few weeks at the planning stage. Also included in this package will be that certain planning applications will no longer be put to the PC. They will include applications for sheds, garage extensions and advertising signs. Site Visits New Procedure In future the comments made at site visits by the PC will again have to be reiterated at the council offices at the end of the day. Colin Pratt would like to know what happened to the concern for the wasting of time. Enforcement Orders After much ringing and writing to the enforcement officer, after about 8 weeks he has managed to visit the Springhead Road site. On 28th August a notice was issued giving the owner 28 days to remove the caravan from the site or make an application for Change of Use . Traffic Calming First reactions to the almost completed traffic calming scheme were not too enthusiastic. Complaints ranged from the priority signs being hidden by vegetation and worse other signs. It was not what was ordered from the catalogue, they were expecting the pinch point set-up as installed at Axmouth. They also expected a pinch point somewhere in front of the Devon Hotel. But the thing the whole village seems to be in agreement on is the actual positioning of the "gateway" at Lidwell House. Traffic coming from Lyme is forced across the road into the path of oncoming traffic. Nothing wrong with this as the oncoming traffic has seen the warning sign! But traffic coming up Tappers Knapp and heading for Lyme is a different matter, paying attention to traffic coming from the right they may be inclined to pull into the main road not paying too much attention to traffic coming from Lyme, which may still be on the wrong side of the road. An accident waiting to happen if ever there was. I wonder who designs these schemes.The highway Code on this says: "DO NOT overtake where you might come into conflict with other road users. For example approaching or at a road junction on either side of the road" Here we have traffic being force on the overtaking side immediately before a road junction. Briefly..... It now looks like the meeting to introduce the Village Design Statement (July Meeting) to the village will be on 16th October 2002, but don't quote me. A planning application to replace a double garage complete with workshop in Venlake with a house was not recommended. An "artist's" impression of the road included with the application was said to be a gross distortion of the actual scene. The Gypsy Caravan in Happy Valley has been given the go ahead on appeal. The parish council were bitterly disappointed. Ten parishioners not having called for an election for the two vacant seats on the PC, the PC will now co-opt two people from those who apply. Applications for the two seats must be in by 4th October 2002. Peter Burton gave a grim warning of the chaos about to descend on those driving to and from Bridport over the next three months. Or something like that for he noticed on the notices that in one direction the work will take 14 weeks but only 12 weeks in the other direction! The October meeting will be held on the 8th.

Topics on this Page: Barnes Meadow. Betterment Homes Parish Council must Change Site Visits New Proceedure Enforcement Orders Traffic Calming Briefly..... Other UPC Meetings: Meetings in 2003 Pre-2003 Meetings: 13th June 2001 11th July 2001 12th September 2001 10th October 2001 14th November 2001 12th December 2001 9th January 2002 13th February 2002 13th March 2002 10th April 2002 8th May 2002 12th June 2002 10th July 2002 14th August 2002 9th October 2002 13th November 2002 11th December 2002 Other Relevant Pages Barnes Meadow Development Rhode Hill Gardens Home Page Introduction Page

Disclaimer: This page cannot be guaranteed to be void of mistakes. It is sometimes, in the hall, difficult to hear some of the councillors, for a number are determined not to use the amplification system available. An example of what can happen was at the September meeting when I heard the word "included" as "include" when a letter from John Steven was being read out. This threw an entirely different meaning to the sentence. The interpretation that I came to was so important that I put the news on the website as soon as I could. It was not until I read the Lyme Regis News that I realised how wrong I was. I even more speedily removed the offending story. If you were one of those that read the original then I apologise. If you have any doubts concerning the validity of anything you read please check with the parish clerk. Can I also suggest that you contact the Parish Council and request that the minutes of the meetings are posted on an official Uplyme Parish Council website and that the subject is accordingly added to the agenda of the next meeting.