A Councillor's Comments - July 2005

The Mayor of Andrézieux-Bouthéon and three others visited Soham on Friday 10th & Saturday 11th June 2005 to see if they thought that twinning with us was appropriate. Your Council entertained them on the Friday evening to a reception in the Pavilion. An excellent event, which was attended by the great and good of Soham as well as a lot of ordinary folk, at which we were able to gain a good impression of the Andrézieux-Bouthéon representatives. Our Army Cadets acted as waiters and generally looked after the assembly in a most excellent manner, for which they should be thanked. This was followed by a dinner at the Soham Lodge Motel, at which we entertained the Mayor and his associates to the best of English cuisine? On Saturday the French delegation were shown around the St. Andrew's Church Fete in the Church and Churchyard and were most impressed by Soham Comrades Brass Band, who received an immediate invitation to perform in Andrézieux-Bouthéon, and the Church bell ringers. The English way of ringing the bells is unique and a tower of ten impressed the French enormously. They also climbed the Church tower for a panoramic view of the Fens. They were very impressed by our welcome and are convinced Soham is right for twinning with Andrézieux-Bouthéon.

The request for suggestions for names for the streets in the new developments has produced birds, which were found in the Fens for example: bittern, snipe, heron, pintail, kingfisher etc. or well-known Soham people - dead ones only! These ideas and any others forthcoming will be passed on for consideration.

Your Council has been told that there is a proposal to re-develop the Clark & Butcher Lions Mills site. The site owners consultant intends to involve the community in the process by having an exhibition, with details of the housing proposed, in the Pavilion on Wednesday 29th June 2005. This is before they put in a planning application or appoint a developer. This is an excellent idea, getting the public's view and using this as an input to the planning process. They also hope to agree a planning brief with the East Cambridgeshire District Council planner, also before the developers are involved. It is to be hoped that they will actually take note of what the people say. If only more site owners would do this, a lot less heartache and confusion would arise.

I am sure a lot of you will be walking the Fordham bypass on Saturday 2nd July 2005 - the Fordham Flyer- to celebrate its opening. When all the work is finished I hope we all will be able to get out of Soham again, but I expect some other road works will cut us off from the world.

Kindest Regards

Tony Hinsley
Soham Town Councilor