North Nibley Parish Council Meeting

4th December 2024

As always it was pleasure attending the Parish Council meeting last night along with Cllr Braun & Cllr Cohen. Here are my personal notes.

Cllr Brown was stand in Chair tonight as few apologies but still quorate so the meeting proceeded with the normal formalities.

The Council is still looking to co-opt members but no applications have been received.

Three members of the public were present to discuss issues of importance. The item where District and County Cllrs cover their report was opened up to discuss these. The December SDC Councillors' Report is here.

Cllr Cohen, is always kept busy re Highways. Last night was no exception.

Wide ranging discussion on the impact of closing Rushmire Hill in the New Year for six months. One parishioner present lives on a narrow treacherous road at the edge of the parish and if people start using it as a short cut the consequences will be serious. Cllr Cohen wants evidence of vehicles getting stuck to present at the GCC public meeting in Wotton on 10th December (all welcome). 'Unofficial' measures to mitigate were discussed.

Regarding the speed of traffic through the village and the safety of children; Cllr Cohen recapped that GCC had done lots of measuring and survey work yet the thresholds for action haven't been tripped, so any possible actions are limited. I've documented a number of these issues in my previous notes. It does seem like excuse after excuse from GCC (not from Cllr Cohen btw, who always extracts the maximum given the constraints) . Things (like policy, for example) needs to change. There's an election coming up! Use your vote wisely!

However, a voluntary scheme for a Crossing Patrol could be an option. It was thought that this had been done before, but the Chair commented that it was when he was a pupil! :) Cllr Cohen said that existing GCC survey data could be got hold of. GCC can help with training up School Patrols. A member of the public was quite passionate about how crossing the B4060 could be improved. The Chair said that all these ideas could all link in with work being done by the parish council.

Some Planning items were discussed. Cllr Cohen reminded that the funding she had access to for the playground would disappear if the project wasn't proceedable by early January! Ekk! Cllrs have been working flat out on this project and it seems that 'legals' are slowing things up. Some more discussion on the various other projects going on in the parish; biodiversity, defibrillators locations, maintenance of Parish Council owned land and an information board.

Even though some tricky items were discussed the meeting was brisk, positive and upbeat. Cllr Braun, Cohen and myself left at agenda item #14.