newspageheader


Great Baddow City Councillor Trevor Miller
Mayor of Chelmsford for 2013-14

We are delighted that long serving Great Baddow Parish and Chelmsford City Councillor Trevor Miller has been elected to serve as Mayor of Chelmsford for 2013-14, with Parish Councillor Maureen Miller as the Mayoress. We wish them a very successful and happy year of office and look forward to welcoming them at events in Great Baddow.

Parish Council Chairman

Cllr Chris Shaw stepped down as Chairman of the council at the annual meeting in May, after serving as chairman for twenty years. Cllr Jannetta Sosin was elected as Chairman and Chris is now Vice Chairman of the council.

Village Conference 2013

The 2013 annual Village Conference was held on Thursday 11th April. There were reports from the Parish Council and from the police, fire service and other local organisations and question and answer sessions.

Click here to view the Parish Council report for 2012-13.
Click here to view the minutes of the 2012 Conference.

Parish Play in the Park and Teen Rec Scheme 2013

Chelmsford City Council's Sports Development Unit are running Play in the Park and Teen Rec Schemes at the Recreation Ground again in 2013, offering two hour multi-activity sessions during the Easter and Summer school holidays.

These are FREE to all young people aged from 6 to 16, as the Parish Council subsidises the cost. There are sessions for children aged from 6 to 11 (Play in the Park) and separate sessions for young people from 11 to 16 (Teen Rec).

Sessions are booked for the following dates and times:

Easter Holidays
Thursday 11 April 10 am to 12 noon (Play in the Park)
Thursday 11 April 1.30 to 3.30 pm (Teen Rec)

Summer Holidays
Monday 29 July 10 am to 12 noon (Play in the Park)
Monday 12 August 1.30 to 3.30 pm (Play in the Park)
Friday 16 August 10 am to 12 noon (Play in the Park)
Friday 16 August 1.30 to 3.30 pm (Teen Rec)
Friday 23 August 10 am to 12 noon (Play in the Park)
Friday 23 August 1.30 to 3.30 pm (Teen Rec)

We hope plenty of children and young people will come along and enjoy the activities on offer.

New Interactive Public Rights of Way Map

Essex County Council have developed an interactive map of Public Rights of Way for the Essex Highways website. It is easy to use and has been developed for use by residents and visitors who want to find a footpath, bridleway or byway in a specific area of the county. There is a search facility via postcode, place name or address, so why not look up some local information?

Click
here for a link to the map on the Essex Highways website.

Centenary Award 2012

The winner of the 2012 Parish Council Centenary Award was Dipak Pau, who was presented with his award by the Mayor of Chelmsford, Cllr Christopher Kingsley, at the Council's Community Celebration in January 2013. The award was made in recognition of his outstanding care, kindness and compassion to customers of his Meadgate pharmacy and also for his work as a trustee and past chairman of the J's Hospice charity.

The Community Celebration was also the first occasion in which Tony Appleton participated as Great Baddow's town crier, a position to which he was appointed in September 2012.

DSCF6043_edited-1
Above: Dipak Pau showing his Centenary Award certificate, together with Cllr Chris Shaw, Tony Appleton and his wife and daughter

Below: Cllr Christopher Kingsley, Mayor of Chelmsford, speaking at the Community Celebration and the Meadgate Music Group, who provided the entertainment
DSCF6040_edited-1A DSCF6028_edited-1A

Joan Beard

We are sad to report the death of Joan Beard, a former long serving parish and county councillor for Great Baddow. Joan was chairman of Essex County Council for 1999-2000, having first been elected as a county councillor in May 1981, and worked tirelessly on behalf of residents of Great Baddow. She was one of the first people to be awarded the title of Honorary Burgess of Great Baddow in 2004, not only for her long service as a parish and county councillor, but more particularly for her work on behalf of the Essex Dyslexia Association, of which she was a founder member, and her contribution to the opening of the Dyslexia Institute in Chelmsford. Joan also worked on behalf of the Mind Centre in Chelmsford.

The funeral was held in Sussex, where Joan moved a few years ago to be close to one of her daughters, and a very well attended memorial service was held at St Mary's Church, Great Baddow on May 11th.


Allotment Competition 2012

The prizes for this year's allotment competition were presented at a joint Christmas event with the Horticultural Society in December. We would like to offer our congratulations to all the prize winners, but particularly to the first prize winners – Mr Robb at Vicarage Lane and Mr Hills at Towerfield.

Essex Playing Fields Association Awards 2012

We are delighted to have been awarded two gold award certificates of merit from the EPFA in the 2012 competition. One was for the recreation ground, in the category of playing fields serving a population of 2,500 or more and the other was for our children's play equipment. Congratulations go to our grounds staff for their hard work in maintaining these facilities to such a high standard.

Essex Book Festival

We were delighted to host an event again in 2012, featuring Virginia Nicholson, who spoke about her latest book, 'Millions Like Us – Women's Lives in the Second World War', and answered questions.

Unfortunately we were not able to host an event in 2013. The author who was booked to appear cancelled all her promotional commitments in March, as the launch of her new book was postponed until April. This happened when the festival brochure was just going to print and sadly there was no time for the organisers to arrange a new speaker. We are hoping for better luck in 2014!

Cooption of a Parish Councillor

We are pleased to announce that the Parish Council has coopted Peter Charman as a Parish Councillor at its meeeting on 12th November.

New Code of Conduct

The Parish Council adopted a new Code of Conduct on 6th August 2012 in response to new laws governing the conduct of elected members in local government that came into effect on 1st July.

Click here to view a copy of the Code of Conduct.

Jubilee Celebrations

The Parish Council had a stall at the Meadgate Festival on the Sunday of the Jubilee weekend in 2012. The Festival was very successful, despite the apalling weather that drove everything inside, and thanks to Mones Farah and Meadgate Church for doing a magnificent job in organising the event.

As the event had a 1950s theme, part of the Parish Council's display was some extracts from minutes of the annual village assemblies in the 1950s – some concerns appear not to have changed over the years (bus shelters, state of the roads etc), but others seem to definitely belong in the past!

Click
here to read the extracts.

Village Design Statement

The Great Baddow Village Design Statement (VDS) was formally adopted by Chelmsford Borough Council on 8th March 2011. It now forms part of the Borough Council's Local Development Framework and is a material consideration when determining planning applications.

Please see the Village Design Statement page on this website.

The VDS Association has now fulfilled its function and held an Extraordinary General Meeting on 14th June 2012 in order to agree the disposal of remaining funds to charity and wind up the Association.

Chelmsford Recycling Centre Changes

We have been notified that the following changes to opening times will take place from 9 January 2012:
Winter opening times (9.1.12 - 29.2.12) 9 am to 4 pm
Summer opening times (1.3.12 - 15.10.12) 9 am to 5 pm

The centre will continue to operate 7 days a week, but late night opening on Tuesdays for part of the summer will no longer take place.


Police

Local neighbourhood police can be contacted on the following phone number:

Mobile contact number: 07817 454525

Chelmsford Police Station can be contacted on 101, for less urgent calls than 999 calls.

No beat surgeries are being held at present.

Marrable House

The latest application to redevelop the Marrable House site with 58 units of extra care housing, comprising two buildings linked by a bridge, was approved at Chelmsford Borough Council's Planning Committee meeting on November 15th 2011. The Parish Council, local borough councillors and many residents spoke against the application, but the committee followed the officers' advice and approved the application. As yet, nothing has been heard about when redevelopment might begin.


New BMX track in Baddow Hall Park open!

The Mayor of Chelmsford, Cllr Robert Sheperd MBE, formally opened the new BMX track in Baddow Hall Park on Saturday October 15th 2011. It was a gloriously sunny afternoon and there was a long queue of young people waiting to try out the track. Congratulations to the mayor for having a go too! The Parish Council is delighted to have been one of the funding partners for this facility and hope it will provide much enjoyment for local people.

Mayor-at-BMX-web

Honorary Burgesses

Mr Sidney Bass was made the fifth Honorary Burgess of Great Baddow at the Parish Council community celebration in January 2010. This was particularly in recognition of his long service to the Scouting movement, including a period as Assistant District Commissioner for the Venture Scouts. All the names of
Honorary Burgesses are shown on a specially designed board in the Parish Hall.

Nominations can be made at any time for this award, which is intended to be in recognition of valuable contributions to a wider area than Great Baddow. Nominees must be residents of Great Baddow. Please contact the Parish Council office for more details.


Trees in Great Baddow

As part of the National Tree Warden Scheme, Chelmsford Borough Council introduced a Parish Tree Warden scheme in 2004. Tree wardens are volunteers who are interested in working with the Borough Council to encourage more tree planting, improve the management of trees, raise public awareness of the importance of trees, and celebrate trees.

We were fortunate to have a tree warden in Great Baddow, who started to describe some of the trees which are easily visible in the village.

To read his first article about one of our trees, click
here!

For the second article, click
here.

Unfortunately he is no longer able to undertake this role. If anyone is interested and would like to find out more about what it involves, please contact the Parish Council office.

Don't forget our Tree Trail leaflet, which is available to help you enjoy a walk through the Recreation Ground. Copies are available free of charge from the Parish Council Office, the Community Association or Great Baddow Library.
Click here to download a copy