A Councillor's Comments - June 2007

At our June 2007 Council Meeting no one took up the offer of "Public Comment Time", so the meeting proceeded with Chairman's Announcements, which alerted the members to the agenda items and gave us the chance to declare an interest in any of them.

We then proceeded through the usual opening formalities of minutes, matters arising and payment of accounts, which took us on to item seven. This was the setting up of a working party to find out about Community Facilities in Soham. It was considered it should consist of six people, which would include the Chairman and Vice Chairman and four volunteers. This working party is the result of East Cambridgeshire District Council's offer of £5,000 to carry out this consultation.

The next item was the appointment of representatives to outside bodies, this comes up annually and although some appointments extend to four years one is appointed each year. The outside bodies are; Soham United Charities, Soham Moors and The Barway Community Committee. Soham United Charities raise money for many groups in the town, Soham Moors was an ancient fund to pay for a schoolmaster but today provides books for students, and the Barway Community Committee is support for a project that centred on their Village Hall which has been pulled down and they are now seeking to do something with the plot of land on which it was built.

There was some concern at a planning meeting about the painting of some buildings in the town and as a result, we had an agenda item "Soham Conservation Area", followed by the Council's request to East Cambridgeshire District Council: " That they monitor the colours used to paint buildings in the conservation area of the town and that only appropriate colours be allowed".

On the agenda too was an item regarding "Twinning". The Council has been approached by the Mayor of the Polish Town of Miechów asking if we would consider twinning with them. They have a population of some 15,000 and the town is located in the middle of a quiet and unpolluted farming area, and about 40 miles from the well known city of Krakow. We already have a Twinning Association which came into being when we twinned with Andrézieux-Bouthéon in France and was celebrated on our side at the 53rd Soham Carnival & Heavy Horse Show in 2006. Some towns have more than one twinning partner and it is possible we could twin with Miechów, but a lot of things have to be worked through first, finding out more about each other, possible exploratory visits and only when each side is happy that this could be mutually beneficial, do we make the initial steps to do so. Although our Twinning association exists it needs the Council to make the arrangements and give the project a civic footing and set the whole thing up. The initial response from the Council was favourable, but should we go ahead it could take up to two years to make it a reality.

The newly elected Councillors set the date for our next Town Council meeting for Monday 16th July 2007, and were reminded of the next Neighbourhood Panel Meeting at Victoria Hall Fordham on 20th June 2007, where people with concerns about their neighbourhood can come and have their say.

Kindest Regards

George Ginn
Soham Town Councilor