Council Meeting - the Police Commissioner and the Warren

Lots of observers turned up last night, as well as several people involved in giving presentations to the Council. First to speak was the new Police Commissioner, Christopher Salmon, who had been in Hay all day meeting with various groups including the Chamber of Commerce. I have to say, I only went along to vote for the Police Commissioner in order to spoil my ballot paper, because I didn't agree with the creation of the post, but now that he's here, he seems to be making a good job of it. He's also a good speaker - as I crept in late he was saying "We don't have a crime problem, but we do have a geography problem," and then pointed out that the Dyfed-Powys police area is the same size as the Lebanon, but with a lot less crime! He was quite pleased that they had been able to trim £3.7million from the police budget, mostly by trimming senior management, while adding over thirty officers on the front line.
In Hay, a new PCSO, Emma Jackson, will be joining Helen Scott shortly, and there will be a new PC in charge. Fiona Howard said that she appreciated PC Eckley coming into Hay School once a term to talk about bullying and other matters with the children.
To emphasise how safe this area is to live in, the policemen pointed out that there had only been one house burglary in the Hay Section in this entire fiscal year - and the Hay Section reaches as far as Erwood (which is where the burglary took place).

The second speaker of the evening was Tim Pugh, on behalf of the Warren Club. He had slides, including Victorian views of the Warren, and a pamphlet to give out. He gave a brief run down on the history of the Warren Club, which was set up in 1972 after a rumour that the Warren was about to be turned into a caravan park, and he talked about some of the projects the Warren Club had been involved in over the years, like the renovation of the Buttermarket and the putting up of blue historical plaques around town. The plaques were made of cast iron, when they were put up in 1994, and are now starting to rust badly, so one of the projects that the Warren Club hopes to do in the future is to replace them with resin plaques, which will last longer. I hope they also take the opportunity to change the wording on the one by the Castle, to acknowledge Matilda de Breos!
Back when the local magazine was called The Wye? I had a bit of an argument through their pages with Geoffrey Fairs, the author of The History of Hay, about how she had been left out. He responded by suggesting that I got my history from the pages of Lady of Hay by Barbara Erskine, and saying that I had spelt de Breos wrong (in fact I spelt it right, and whoever typed my letter into the magazine spelt it wrong).
The main reason Tim Pugh was there, though, was to talk about the future. An opportunity has come up that he believes will only happen once in a generation - the chance for the Warren Club to buy the fishing rights and the parcels of land associated with them along the stretch around the bend of the Wye that encloses the Warren. The land and fishing rights were sold in the 1950s to a Mr Brody-Smith, and it is his family who now want to sell. The Warren Club need to raise £50,000 for the purchase, and already have around £30,000 in the kitty. They raise money through the 300 Club subscriptions - the Club was started to raise money to maintain the Warren - by renting out the grass to a local farmer, and through letting out the Buttermarket.
They lease the Buttermarket from the County Council, but do all the maintenance (so the County Council get a really good deal). One of the smaller projects they want to do, along with the blue plaques, is to provide disabled access into the Buttermarket, which has a step at the entrance. They'd like to get the County Council to pay for this. They have already installed a gate for wheelchair users at the car park to the Warren, and hope to improve the access so that wheelchair users can get down onto the beach. They also want to replace the fencing around the car park there.
They also want to provide storage for the market tables that used to be stored under the Cheesemarket before it was renovated. When renting out the Buttermarket space, they always give preference to charities over businesses, also charging charities a lower rate. They also pay for their public liability insurance for the Buttermarket and the Warren from the money they receive.
In all they think that they need £70,000 to do everything, and they expect to earn money back by selling fishing rights. They've already had several people contacting them who are interested in life memberships. They also want to encourage youngsters to use the Warren and the fishing, by allowing Junior Rod licence holders and a child accompanying an adult licence holder free of charge. Tim Pugh said that a Forest School has been running on the Warren from Hay School for several years now, doing outdoor lessons in the woods, and the result has been a noticable reduction in vandalism, because the children feel that the Warren belongs to them - which tied in nicely with the earlier comments by the Police Commissioner and his uniformed associates.
Tim was asked about the conflict between canoes using the Warren and paddling or swimming children - there have been a couple of incidents where children have been knocked over in the water - but there seems no easy way to resolve this. He was also asked about the possibility of cutting back the Himalayan Balsam which infests the river bank - though it can never be removed completely unless the entire River Wye is treated at the same time for a couple of seasons.
Tim Pugh was quite passionate about preserving the Warren for future generations, and made a good case for the purchase of the land and fishing rights being the right way to go about it. He's hoping for donations, and to get some money in grant aid. When the Warren Club was originally set up, it had charitable aims, but was not officially a charity. Now they are working towards becoming a Registered Charity, which will make things easier for them financially.