A Councillor's Comments - March 2004

Hello Readers! At our last Town Council meeting before Christmas the usual lively discussions took place. The main items were as follows -

Pavilion - The `Makeover'
We had a busy agenda at the Town Council meeting so I will only provide you with the highlights!! You may have noticed the daffodils are beginning flower which means Spring is just round the corner. However, spring has come early to The Pavilion - the cleaning has begun!! You will notice that the tiles in the entrance hall have received a heavy duty clean. The new flooring has been chosen and is very nice, rest assured, it is not lime green, shocking pink or anything that would meet the approval of the changing rooms team!! Just a reminder that the pavilion is available for hire at very reasonable cost, so if your planning a family gathering, meeting, social event and your front room won't accommodate everyone you can always book a room at The Pavilion.

Progressive Soham
Alison Callaby, Town Centres Manager, came to update the Council on the progress so far by the Town Forum. Do any of you remember about 5 years ago a public consultation was held entitled 'Lets make the most of Soham' and out of that sprung the Town Forum - which has really developed some exciting projects for our town; i.e. Broadband, Community Transport, Railway Station Campaign and the Soham Festival Group. It looks like we are going to do something similar again. This is a real opportunity to find out what kind of amenities we would like within our community. The healthcheck is going ahead at the moment and will take approximately nine months to complete, when we last looked the chap who is gathering information for the healthcheck had just taken delivery of the census information on CD-ROM, nobody expects to see him again until the end of April 2004!!! I believe at the end of this process some really good things will happen in this town - but it is up to us to make if happen. This is not just a paper exercise, if you care about Soham and I know the majority of people do, please get involved. This is important to all of us.

Town Council Publicity and Information
Do you know which services in Soham are the responsibility of the Town Council? or the District Council? or even the County Council? Confused? you won't be. After much discussion (and there was much discussion I can assure you!) it was felt that the electorate (that's you) is not always properly informed about any of the above! Plans are afoot to change this, we are aware that people in Soham need to be better informed about local services and the Chairman has asked us all to have a long think and to bring our ideas to Council meeting next month - so watch this space!! Lodestar, the Church magazine, has been a wonderful information source about Town Council issues - long before we were on-line!!

Donation
I am happy to inform you that the Council has supported the Citizens Advice Bureaux by donating £500 to them. They offer FREE independent advice and information on a wide range of issues. They are in Soham on Mondays from 10.00am-12.00pm at Ennions Solicitors in Churchgate Street.

Kindest Regards

Fiona Ross
Soham Town Councilor