Parish Council Meeting April 2002

Annual Parish Meeting: This took place in the Tithe Barn on Saturday 13th April at 2.30pm. What a disappointing turn out - out of the 820 electors on the electoral register only 10 joined the 9 members of the Parish Council at this meeting.

The Chairman, Mr John Neville, opened the meeting by welcoming those present. He thanked all Councillors, in particular the Vice-Chairman and the Clerk. He then expressed the Council's sadness at the death of Mrs Christine North. He introduced Mr Michael Blackburn as the new member of the Council. He continued by thanking Mrs Benton, who had resigned during the year, for her work during her term of office. He also thanked Mr Mallett, and Mr Shaun Murphy as District and County Councillors, and finally Mr David Burrows for cleaning the bus shelter and litter picking in the regions of The Mill, Mill Road and Playing Field.

Mr Neville continued by giving a report of the Council's activities during the year, ending 31st March 2002 - At present the work was dominated by the Mineral Extraction Schemes within the parish boundaries. The Council had objected to the Longwater application and a petition of objection, containing 240 signatures, had been forwarded to Norfolk County Council.

There were a number of points to be dealt with before this application could go before the planning committee - 1) Highway

access; 2) Further noise survey; 3) MOD are concerned regarding the proposed pond, included in restoration plans, causing extra flights of birds.

To date there had still not been an application from Tarmac.* Petitions for signature against this scheme have been placed at the Pharmacy and Post Office.

A New Code of Conduct has been laid down by Central Government. This officially comes into force on May 2nd and will be fully discussed by the Council at their next meeting.

Norwich Road/Rectory Road Corner: Verbal confirmation has been received that a scheme to alleviate the problems has been included in the budget for 2002/2003.

Parish Precept: This has been set at £5,500 and Mr Neville gave details of how this had been arrived at.

Mill Project Report: Mr Brighton reported that the scheme is virtually finished. The project has been awarded a grant from the Landfill Tax but this has to be done through the Broads Authority. Unfortunately they are in the process of re-organisation so the proposed projects cannot be undertaken until this re-organisation is completed.

Horstead Playing Field Fund: The slide show organised by Mr Neville was very well attended and a total of £260.50 was raised and donated to the fund. Many thanks to all who attended, donated raffle prizes, Mrs Lawrance who ran the raffle, and Mrs Bunn and Mrs Gould for their help with the refreshments.

* Editor's Note: Since the publication of these Minutes an application by Tarmac has been received.