Local residents will be aware of the public concern over two adjacent showman’s sites at Picket Piece. Work has already started on the first site which has planning permission. An application for the second site was turned down by the Northern Area Planning Committee last month. The applicants for the second site were John Wall and Son who run the regular fairs at Smannell Road Open Space.

 Today I received an email from Mrs Bernice Wall, one of the applicants, details are as follows

“We have decided not to pursue the planning applcation for the Showmen’s Quarters we applied for , I believe that,in looking at the overall response, it would not be welcomed by the local community and therefore it would be unfair to carry on with an appeal on the decision.  We have declined the advice given to us on moral grounds , and hope by letting you know this side of Christmas it will lay the local residents concerns to rest. We truly had no idea that the feeling against  the application from the local residents was so strong. Our apologies if we caused anyone undue concern.  May we take this opportunity to wish you all a very happy Christmas and a Healthy 2009.”

While it is important that we find sites for show people it is equally important that these sites are acceptable to local residents. I applaud Mrs Wall’s public spirited decision not to pursue her application and thank her for the consideration she has shown to the local community.

The long awaited Enham Alamein village design statement was approved at yesterday’s Test Valley Borough Council cabinet meeting.

It doesn’t seem like four years since we first asked for approval for residents to carry out work to establish a village design statement. At the time there were no parish council or residents association but local residents spoke to me and my fellow councillor Josie Msonthi saying they were keen to carry out the work and to have the same influence over their environment as residents of other parishes. We got approval to start and organised meetings in the village and set the ball rolling.

The amount of public interest was incredible. I attended the early meetings to establish the groups working on the VDS (as I did with a similar one in Smannell). The excitement was infectious. For the first time residents of the village were being given the opportunity to have a say in what was happening around them and they responded positively and emphatically that they wanted to have that say. The residents took up the ball and ran with it. From that grew the residents association and eventually the parish council.

The results of that four years work on the VDS have now been approved. They show what can be achieved when local residents are given control over their affairs and the success of what they have achieved should be an object lesson for other communities. It should also be a lesson for us as borough councillors for our role should not be to administer the borough for, or despite of, the residents but to enable them to do it for themselves as we have done in Enham.

This is a well researched and universally approved document. I would like to take the opportunity to congratulate all those who worked on it, in the village, from the parish council, from the planning department and from planning aid south who gave so much help in the beginning. They have done a brilliant job and I am pleased the cabinet endorsed the work and accepted the finished document in full.

The recommendations for adoption of the document as planning guidance go to full council in January.

Andover’s Lib Dem councillors are continuing to question the running costs of the Guildhall and Rendezvous.

The borough’s Overview and Scrutiny Committee were told on 6 November that the net cost of running the Guildhall was £74,000 and that income had dropped from over £44,000 in 2006/2007 to just £25,000 in 2007/2008. Future revenues from letting the Upper Guildhall are expected to be only £16,000 but officers admitted this was difficult to predict. Income from the Rendezvous so far is a mere £4,500.

St. Mary’s councillor Mike McGarry raised this at the full council meeting quizzing cabinet members about the figures. He was told running costs were over £100,000 for the past year and that income to-date was just £12,600. No figures are available for the costs of splitting services in the building to isolate the soon to be let lower Guildhall. A small profit of about £5,000 could be expected once the lower Guildhall is let. It was denied that a further loss of income to the council is expected when market traders are moved from the cobbles in front of the Guildhall

I find it hard to believe the council cannot give us more accurate figures. When the letting of the lower Guildhall was first proposed we were told running costs were around £75,000 per year and that most of that was administration charges connected with letting the building. We were also told there would be a profit to subsidise the Rendezvous. Now we appear to be spending even more money on a building that has effectively been closed for a year and financing an under-used and unsuitable alternative facility in the Rendezvous. I will be seeking a full review of the costs of both buildings at the end of the financial year.

I received today the following letter from the office of Sharon Bowles MEP. Sharon has joined local Lib Dems and other campaigners in calling for Test Valley Borough Council to reconsider their short sighted decision to let the lower Guildhall to a pizza restaurant.

“It is often a problem to balance commercial interests, and associated jobs, with cultural and other community concerns. As a member of the European Parliament’s Economic Committee I often have to adopt a ‘hard headed’ approach. However, as a member of that committee wrestling with the current financial crisis, it does seem that local communities and community resources will be a high priority to see us through the threatened recession.”

“Andover’s Guildhall is an important community resource. For years charities, community groups and local traders have utilised the facilities of this impressive building.”

“It may be true that some jobs will be created if the Guildhall becomes a Pizza restaurant, but at what cost to local trade and support? At a time like this community resources are needed more than ever. The council should put effort into preserving existing jobs and small businesses and make use of the many empty shop units. This outweighs the creation of a few new jobs which may themselves become questionable as budgets tighten.”

“It also seems that by accepting the plan, the Council are breaking their own policy. Policy ESN 19 of the Test Valley Local Plan provides for the retention of local community facilities and the rejection of development proposals which result in their loss. Is this not the case here, even without the current economic argument?”

“I hope that Test Valley Council listen to their local community, think again and retain Andover Guildhall as a community resource.”

Sharon Bowles MEP