A Councillor's Comments - February 2007

The February 2007 meeting began at 7.15pm with representatives from the Scout and Guides presenting to the Council their plans to rebuild their old buildings. A letter sent to the Council said that a meeting of parents and leaders of the Scouting and Guiding movements in Soham had recently met and formed a committee to raise funds for a new building. In the letter it was pointed out that the current pre-war buildings were well past their sell by date and were suffering from leaking roofs and the attention of local vandals. With over 200 children passing through the doors each week it is important there is somewhere warm and dry for them to meet. They also asked two questions of the Council:-

1. Will the town council agree to rebuilding on the site of the present premises?
2. Is there a sum of money ring fenced from a community grant for the Scouts and Guides?

Both these questions were answered positively as the council had already considered the needs, and had put in place the means by which help could be available to them. This was being considered by the council on the agenda at this meeting.

St. Andrew's Church Hall, Soham was again on the Agenda. This time it was to inform the council that the Church at their PCC meeting had decided to press ahead with the sale of the Church Hall site. They also gave their reasons for doing so. The funds made available from the sale of the hall site would be used to make the Church building more user friendly by providing toilet and kitchen facilities, space for community activities and critical repairs to the roof. All this would cost in the region of £600,000. Another letter pointed out the many other halls that exist in Soham, although it must be said they do not belong to the community. Dismay was expressed by some members of the Council that the Church did not defer sale for 3 months as the Council requested, and that this would mean this central and important site would be lost to more housing instead of something for the community which would include car parking spaces. The question of planning permission was raised as to whether housing would be allowed? But the site was in the planning area so this should not be a problem.

The time has come to consider tenders for grazing rights on our commons. This is very important to us because there is a scheme to protect, preserve and enhance the commons in the interests of wild life. The scheme gives advice on the best ways to manage them which include grazing. It has been pointed out to us that we need cattle on the commons as well as horses, and this presents a problem as there are not the cattle owners available seeking grazing as there once were.

Item number 12 was the Scout and Guide Huts. Two schemes had been proposed, one was to build one building that would include both organisations and the other to provide two separate buildings because there are more meetings held in a week that one building could not cater for. The Council were able to say they had requested S106 money from the "Griggs Development Site" at Townsend, Soham. A Section 106 Agreement is money that is paid by the developers back to the community for the impact they are making upon the community by their development. This S106 agreement is secured at the early stage of planning and this money is available from all developments on 9 or more dwellings. What was pointed out, was, that money would not be available until 50% of the houses are occupied. The site will have 76 houses and could provide £150,000, which would go a long way towards the estimated cost of the project of £300,000. The question was raised as to where the buildings would be positioned as their present position under the trees was not ideal.

The Council formerly announced the appointment of Mr PS Lane as the Council's representative on the Youth Council, which they requested at our last meeting.

Kindest Regards

George Ginn
Soham Town Councilor