At the beginning of the Council meetings, there is always a guest speaker, and this time it was Tim Organ, the architect who was very much involved with drawing up plans for a new school for the Plan B campaign, who had asked to come and speak.
Of course, events have somewhat overtaken his work on the school, as Powys now have their own architects working on it, but Tim Organ is involved in the new Affordable Housing plans too, and as a member of Towns in Transition, he is interested in making Hay more sustainable as a place to live. One of the projects they are involved in is tree planting. He also commended Hay Together to the Council, as a way of harnessing all the skills and enthusiasm shown during the Plan B campaign for the good of the town. Individual councillors are getting involved, but it was felt that the Council as a body should show support, but not be directly involved. Hay Together might be as successful as the Tourist Office, which started in the 1970s when the Powys office closed down, but it is early days yet.
Fiona Howard asked to talk to Tim after the meeting, as she was interested in tree planting for a proposed Forest School area for the new school building.
On Thursday evening, Tim Organ will be at a meeting about the ideas for affordable housing in Warren Close. The patch of land which is being looked at seems to have various problems to be solved before it can be developed for housing.
And meanwhile, the National Park has just announced a change to their plans for housing in the area, designating a field opposite the Meadows as suitable for 78 new houses, rather than the 20 houses originally planned for. If these were built, something like 30% of them would have to be affordable, and there was some discussion as to whether it would be better for the council to take on that 30% as their affordable housing scheme rather than develop their own plans from scratch. It was also pointed out that the field was the site of an old ash tip for the town - and would that cause problems with contamination of the soil or subsidence?
The meeting to decide all this was on Tuesday evening - giving the councillors no time to comment on the changed plans, so several of them were going to go down to the meeting in person. They wouldn't be allowed to speak at the meeting, either - but they looked as if they were going to challenge that ruling - loudly!
There was concern about the employment prospects for 78 new families locally, and also about the strain that would be placed on the surgery and school of all those extra people - not to mention the sewage system. The fresh water system has apparently been upgraded recently and would be able to cope.
When the Council gets a planning application for a single dwelling, they are given 21 days to comment on it - so they felt it was wrong that they should be given so little time to consider 78. Also, the National Parks in previous years have given a presentation to the Council about their ten year plans - but not this time.
The details of the plans are on the Brecon Beacons website, but I didn't get the web address down correctly (it was a bit complicated).
Ellie Spencer talked about the new Community Cupboard for Hay - a local food bank. There will be a meeting at the Swan at 7pm on the 28th June to discuss it, and it will launch on Friday 19th July, just in time for the school holidays when families with school age children will need extra help as the children are not being fed at school. The Community Cupboard is asking for donations of food, but they must be non-perishable items that can be stored - they can't cope with fresh produce easily. People will be referred to the food bank by the social services - it's not something that anyone can just turn up for.
They also discussed the recent Royal visit, which was the first ever Official Royal visit to Hay, though Prince Charles and the Princess Royal have been here before unofficially. Prince Charles sent a letter and a book to the school to thank them for turning out to wave their little flags.
Tomorrow - car parking!
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2 comments:
The referral process for the food bank has not yet been agreed, Lesley. What I said at the meeting was that people could be referred by social services or another agency, not that they would have to be.
Sorry - just me leaping ahead, from what I know of other food banks.
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