Council Meeting - the other bits

There's a questionnaire coming out this coming week (rushed out to take advantage of National Park funding) to find out what residents want for the future of Hay. They'll be delivered by hand any day now, and there will be drop off boxes around town to collect them. Someone mentioned that a 20% return rate would be good going. The results will be used to create a document which the Town Council can use to demonstrate to the County Council and National Park where there is strong feeling about local issues.

There was a meeting in Talgarth last Wednesday about extending the Hay Ho Sunday bus service through Talgarth to Brecon, the original route of the Sunday bus. None of the councillors could get to the meeting, but they were interested in hearing the plans and wanted to invite someone to make a presentation to the Council soon.

The Warren Trustees, meanwhile, are celebrating the successful purchase of the land and fishing rights along the river with an evening at the Black Lion tomorrow.

On Friday there was a tour round the Castle to which councillors were invited, with the architect, to show the plans for the work that is being proposed now that they have their grant money.

The running of the Town Clock, which Steve Like considers should be a National Monument, was discussed - it seems that the fee for winding the clock (paid for by Powys) hasn't gone up since the 1970s! A company from Derby services the clock.

The new Tourist Information Office has now opened, and they have applied to the recycling fund for help with sorting the shop out.

The Residents' Parking Scheme starts on 1st March. Also, the councillors want to get their hands on the traffic warden's rota - after complaining about the frequency of traffic warden visits to Hay, they disappeared for a while, but now they're back, and Fiona Howard complained that parents who had dropped their children off at school, and had stayed a few moments longer to speak to teachers, had been ticketted.

Rubbish collection might be cut to once every three weeks, due to cuts (but nothing's settled yet).
Which led to one councillor suggesting that PAVO could be done away with, and that would save the County Council some money.
The Town Council also want to invite Roger Williams, MP and Kirsty Williams, AM, to a special meeting to discuss what the Welsh Assembly require by law and the cuts to services that the County Council want to impose, which may conflict with that - though another councillor said that it had been done before, and nothing useful had come of it.
The new councillor suggested that the regular piece that is written for WyeLocal should be about the difficulties of making decisions about next year's budget.

There was another suggestion that a new school could have been built by now just across the bridge - but nobody in the County Council was thinking outside the box. Hay School is doing well academically - they are in the green band of attainment, which means "highly effective". Now, if only they could get a new building....
Meanwhile, the funding of secondary schools is being looked at seriously - and although Gwernyfed is one of the best in Powys, and therefore fairly safe, a school somewhere in Powys will probably have to close.
The Gwernyfed Sports Facilities are due to be transferred - to the school from the County Council - at the end of March, and it's a difficult time for the staff, because none of them knows whether they'll have a job in April. The school is ready for the transfer of assets, but (as ever) is waiting for the County Council.