Council Meeting - Bits and Pieces, New Councillor and Hay School

Progress was reported on the proposed fingersigns - Rob had a picture on his phone of a similar one seen in Crickhowell, and once Niall in the Welsh Assembly agrees (apparently he is the Signs Supremo for Wales) they can be put up.
There is still doubt about the ownership of the railings at the end of Castle Street, which still need to be repaired, one year after the accident there. The Town Council don't want to go ahead and mend them, as this would be accepting liability for them. The pavement they are on belongs to the County Council, so they are probably responsible for them, and since the Town Council are getting on well with the fingerpost person in the County Council, they are probably the best person to contact to get it sorted out.

Persimmon Homes would like a meeting with members of the Council to talk about the drainage on the field they want to build on. Rob, Alan and David will go, and Dawn said she'd be lurking with her camera. A lady in the audience (there were only three of us this month) said she had some photos of the field that could be useful too.

It seems that the Warren and the Town are charging different rates for fishing permits - for instance, the Town charges for children while children on the Warren go free. So the Town charges are going to be simplified, and made more attractive to people who want to fish.
On the Warren, Tim Pugh is having the gates replaced with kissing gates to make it more accessible, and wheelchair users can get in using a radar key from the little car park.

And then it was time to welcome the new councillor, who had sat quietly through the meeting and not run away screaming! He is Richard Shackleford, who used to run the Bridge pub at Michaelchurch Escley, and has also been a fund raiser for a national charity for many years. He wants to be involved with the local community, and he has skills with computers and fund raising that could be useful. His hobbies are hill walking and reading.

The Town Crier is feeling better after his illness, and should be around for the Festival.

There was a question about the road resurfacing, pointing out that the stretch at the bottom of Newport Street to Nantyglasdwr hadn't been done. This is in a sort of no man's land between Powys and Herefordshire.

The auditors for the Two Towns One World project still haven't done their job, and the people who provided the grant money are starting to get twitchy and asking for the money back if it isn't done soon.

The Council liason with the Hay Tourism Group, David, turned up for a meeting at the Swan - and waited, and waited, and eventually went round to Drover Holidays, where they told him it had been cancelled....

Fiona Howard was full of praise for the youngsters who go to the Youth Club. They've built a patio and a shed by the bungalow, and are never any trouble. The Youth Club meets on Mondays and Thursdays and about twenty kids turn up.

And so we came to the new plans for schools that the County Council have brought out.
Now, it seems, they want to build five new schools. By now, the plans will have gone before the Cabinet, and be on their way to the Welsh Assembly for approval. According to these plans, all the five schools in the area will be replaced y the end of 2017 or 2018.
But how does this make any sense? Clyro has just been expensively refurbished - are they going to rebuild that? And what about the plans that have been out for consultation for Hay School - are they still relevant or are new plans being put together? The person from the County Council who told Fiona Howard about this wouldn't be drawn, apparently, on the materials that would be used to build the new school, but did say that it would have a "shelf life" of 60 years.
"Well, that's nothing for a school, is it?" Fiona said.