Centenary Award 2011
The winner of
the 2011 Centenary Award was Clive Arben, who was presented with
his award by the Mayor of Chelmsford, Cllr Bob Shepherd, at the
Council's Community Celebration in January 2012. The award was made
in recognition of his lengthy service as secretary to the
Horticultural Society. Clive has been on the committee of the
Society for about 34 years and has been secretary for the majority
of that time. For many years he also arranged the programme of
events, which included the task of finding speakers.
Clive has now stepped down from the position of secretary, but will
be continuing to serve the Society in a less arduous role. We offer
him our warmest congratulations.
Essex Book Festival 2012
We are delighted to be hosting an event again in 2012, featuring
Virginia Nicholson, who will be talking about her
work and answering questions. Her books include 'Among the
Bohemians – Experiments in Living 1900 to 1939', 'Singled Out
– How Two Million Women Survived Without Men after the First
World War' and 'Millions Like Us – Women's Lives in the
Second World War'.
The talk will be held in the Parish Hall at 2 pm on
Thursday 8th March 2012.
Tickets £7 (£5 concessions) from the Book Festival Box Office at
the Mercury Theatre on 01206 573948 (open Monday to Saturday 9.30
am to 5.30 pm).
Bookings open on Wednesday January 4th 2012.
Pick up a copy of the full Festival programme from the library or
visit the Book Festival website.
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.
Notice of Cooption to fill Casual
Vacancies
Two vacancies have arisen for the office of Parish Councillor by
reason of the resignations of Angela Martin and Stephen Martin.
Official notice was given of these vacancies on 21 November 2011
and no requests were received for an election by the Chief
Executive of Chelmsford Borough Council.
The Parish Council will therefore proceed to fill the vacancies by
cooption. Interested parties should notify their intention to the
Clerk of the Council within FOURTEEN DAYS of the date of the notice
dated 14 December 2011 that has been placed on Parish Council
noticeboards (excluding weekends and Bank Holidays) at the
following address:
Clerk of the Council
Great Baddow Parish Council
19 Maldon Road
Great Baddow
CM2 7DW.
Tel 01245 472937
All candidates will be expected to put their request for
consideration for cooption in writing and for further details about
this, please contact the Clerk.
Christmas
Card Design Winner
Solicitors Gepp & Sons ran a competition for schools in
Chelmsford to design a picture for their 2011 Christmas card. We
are delighted to report that the copmpetition was won by Olivia
Nightingale from Baddow Hall Junior School. The school was
presented with a cheque for £250 for art equipment. We would like
to offer our congratulations to Olivia, whose artwork will feature
on the card sent to clients and business contacts throughout the
borough.
Marrable House Planning Application
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. The Parish Council, local
borough councillors and many residents spoke against the
application, but the committee followed the officers' advice and
approved the application.
Awards
for the Recreation Ground
At the AGM of
the Essex Playing Fields Association recently, Great Baddow Parish
Council was awarded two certificates of merit, one for the playing
fields and one for play equipment. We are particularly pleased with
the gold certificate for the playing fields and are very grateful
to our grounds staff, who do such a good job in maintaining the
Recreation Ground to high standards.
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. 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.
Parish
Council Election Results May 2011
There were no elections in any of the three Parish Council wards,
as the number of candidates did not exceed the number of seats.
Therefore the following candidates were elected unopposed, without
a ballot:
Gordon Jarvis, Bryan Heelis, Angela Martin, Stephen Martin, Maureen
Miller, Trevor Miller, Diana Ronaldson, Keith Ronaldson, Veronica
Sadowsky, Chris Shaw, Andrew Sosin, Jannetta Sosin (all Lib
Dem).
There was one less candidate than the number of seats and the
Parish Council co-opted Sue Young to fill the vacancy at its first
meeting. This was done under S21 of the Representation of the
People Act 1985, which covers the event of insufficiency of
candidates at an election.
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.
Village Conference 2011
The 2011 Village
Conference was held in the Bell Centre on Thursday
April 14th. In addition to the reports from the Parish Council and
other local bodies on which the Council has representatives, there
were presentations from our local neighbourhood police and the fire
service. And of course, plenty of questions from residents, one of
the main reasons for holding the meeting!
Click here to see the
minutes of last year's conference.
Click here to see the
annual report presented at the conference.
Parish Play in the Park (Sports and Play) Scheme
Chelmsford Borough Council's Sports Development Unit ran a Play in
the Park (Sports and Play) Scheme at the Recreation Ground in 2011.
This scheme combined the previous Play in the Park and Parish
Sports Programme and offered two hour multi-activity sessions
during the Easter and Summer school holidays.
These were FREE to all young people aged up to 13,
as the Parish Council subsidised the cost. Children of all ages
were catered for. Children aged 5 and under were able to attend
with parents or carers and supervised activities were available for
children aged 6 to 9 and 10 to 13. Activities included arts and
crafts, sports, garden games and use of mobile play equipment, with
the possibility of additional activities such as bug hunts and
nature trails, food tasting and educational recycling activities
depending on the availability of relevant staff during the holiday
period.
The sessions were extremely successful, with over 100 children at
one of the sessions and very high numbers at nearly all the rest -
there were still 30 children on a day with heavy rain in August! We
hope to be hosting more of these days in
2012.
Centenary
Award 2010
The winners of
the 2010 Centenary Award were Joan and Roy Parker, who were
presented with their awards by the Mayor of Chelmsford, Cllr Alan
Arnott, at the Council's Community Celebration in January 2011. The
awards were made in recognition of their 20 years service as
organisers of the St Mary's Coffee Pot, from its inception until
spring last year. They organised a team of volunteers to run this
service twice a week throughout the year, and without their
commitment and dedication a lot of people in Great Baddow would
have missed the fellowship, support and advice that has made the
Coffee Pot such a valuable service to the community.
The Coffee Pot currently operates on Wednesdays only in St Mary's
Church from 10.30am to 12.30pm and all are welcome.
Police
Beat Surgeries
These give you a chance to speak to your local neighbourhood
policing team about any queries or problems you may be facing in
your area.
Our local Neighbourhood Police will be holding beat surgeries in
Great Baddow Library on the following dates:
Saturday January 7th, 10am to 11am
Mobile contact number: 07817 454525
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