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.
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
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.
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