Another Vacancy for a Councillor, and Police Matters.

I got to the Council Chambers a bit late, in time to hear a discussion of the footpath to Clyro. It was suggested that a letter be sent to Clyro Council to ask if they've approached the County Council to get the path re-surfaced at the Clyro end. The councillors were a bit concerned about the blind man who walks the route regularly with his guide dog, and also mentioned that the hedges could be difficult to get past in places, and they were worried about the dog's paws when the clippings weren't cleared away.

And then, I have no idea what the problem is, but Rob Golesworthy started talking about being in a difficult position, and that he'd spent the weekend talking with more than one other councillor about a difficult topic. As he was saying this, carefully not going into specifics, at the other end of the table Trudy was packing up her stuff.
"You'll have my resignation in the morning," she said, and walked out.
Rob seemed quite rattled by that, and handed over the chair of the meeting to Gareth for the rest of the evening.

So there's another vacancy for a councillor.

The rest of the meeting was one of the fastest on record - we were out of the building by half past eight.

By now the Senior Citizen's party will have happened - it was at 1pm, and there had been so many donations of prizes for a raffle/tombola that they thought they might have enough to give a present to everyone there. They were very pleased with the way the community has rallied round.

Meanwhile, the police have sent round an email asking for any hate crimes against Muslims to be reported - not really a problem in this area, I don't think (though there are quite a few Muslims in Hereford). They are also going to be conducting speed checks in places where speeding has been complained about. There's one driver in particular who seems to be a problem - several councillors had either seen him driving dangerously or had reports from members of the public about him. The police have appealed for people to come forward as witnesses so they can take the matter further.
The police have also been made aware of criminal damage down by the riverbank. Two of the pear trees that were planted by the developers on the slope below the new Millbank houses have had the tops cut out of them. The Environment Agency has been down to have a look, and they say not quite enough tree has been taken for it to be classed as illegal felling, but it's certainly criminal damage.

Another tree has been chopped down at the entrance to the old community centre site, where Wales and West Housing Association are still in discussions with the County Council about building affordable housing. There have also been letters sent to the Council raising concerns about flooding on the site, and asking if Powys County Council followed all the guidelines about getting best value for money when disposing of the site. The County Council have said that they did, indeed, follow the guidelines, and they are allowed to accept a lower amount for the land if it is to be used for affordable housing.