The Council Before Christmas - Housing and Land

The Affordable Housing group have written to Persimmon Homes, seeking clarification on what they intend to build, and the answer is that 30% of the 80 homes they want to build on the edge of Hay will be "affordable" - a mix of rented property and property for sale.
Persimmon Homes have taken notice of the protest group's assertions that the drainage on the site is bad, and that there has been flooding there, so they are "designing a drainage solution to the flooding problem on site prior to progressing."
To this end, they called a meeting at the field. Jose Ferrera, from Persimmon Homes, sent an email on the 7th November, and a group met on site on the 11th. Fiona Howard, as Mayor, was invited, but she deputised Rob Golesworthy to go in her place. Rob has lived in Hay all his life, of course, and remembers when the field was a rubbish tip. He also had access to the plans from the railway, when it ran that way, which has the original drainage plan for the area on it. Gareth Ratcliffe was also invited, as County Councillor, and one of the neighbouring farmers also turned up. Alan Powell was there too. Persimmon Homes wanted to know who owned the land neighbouring the field, which includes the Town Council, in the area around the old railway bridge. They were also discussing the Llanigon Brook, surface water and sewage/grey water, and were keen to find out any local knowledge.
Dawn Lewis, who started the protest group, was very annoyed indeed that she hadn't been told of the meeting. Due to her conflict of interests, she wouldn't have been able to go, but she said that she should at least have known it was happening. She said that all the councillors get loads of emails every day, some trivial and some important, and there should have been an email about this. She hadn't known about it until one of her neighbours spotted the group of men standing in the field.
Belinda, the newest councillor, asked "Is this a male thing?" and pointed out that all the men on the council had been aware of the meeting, but none of the women had.
There was one other member of the public at the meeting, apart from me, and he'd been waiting quietly for this subject to come up. He was appalled that the building of the houses seemed to have been accepted by the council as a fait accompli - and walked out.

The councillors went on to talk about brown signs pointing to Hay - there's a distinct lack of them and Hay ought to be pressuring both Herefordshire and Powys County Councils to provide more (though I have a feeling that people who want brown signs have to pay a fee for them).

At the Cemetery, the deeds have been looked at, and it seems that there isn't any extra land belonging to the Council in the field above the newest graves. However, minutes of meetings discussing the cemetery seem to be missing from the archives from 1974 - 1982.

It was decided to invite a member of the National Parks to speak to the Council next time, as a sort of meet and greet exercise.

Someone mentioned the planning application for broiler chicken houses in Dorstone, which has caused an outcry locally, but as it's outside the Hay area, they moved on to the next item.

Which was a request from the Ladies' British Legion for the Council to buy flowerpots to put next to the Cenotaph, which they would maintain with plants. The Hay branch, though, has closed down, and the South Wales Branch now covers the area. The councillors were not keen on paying for plant pots.

The Warren Club still needs £20,000 to buy the land by the river, and the fishing rights, that they talked about when they came to do a presentation to the Council a couple of months ago. Though this would be an asset to the town, the Town Council don't have that sort of money - and with the problem of the transfer of the toilets to the town soon, they'll need all the reserves they have. However, there is the Recycling Fund, which could contribute a small amount. They decided to invite Tim Pugh, who is trying to raise the money, to the next meeting of the Finance Committee to discuss it with him.

There was a vote of thanks to everyone who had made the Hay Winter Festival work so well, and praise for Hay School, which is one of the best in Wales (for teaching, rather than the school buildings). As they are advertising for a new head, Fiona Howard has said she will be applying, so it's possible she will get her old job back.

And the next Council Meeting will be on Monday 5th January.