Longparish Pages from Hill and Valley

LONGPARISH PARISH COUNCIL

Thank you to everyone who came to the open forum at the July meeting to talk about the skate facility. It takes a lot of courage for young people to speak at a public meeting. Many did so and the views they gave helped the Council decide what to do. Sian Newland, our community police officer, spoke in support and pledged £200 from the SNAP discos towards the cost. And parents and potential users offered help with fund raising and maintenance.

The council

decided to co-opt Sandra Jones and Mike Johnson to fill the vacancies left by the retirement of Rupert Dawnay and John Woodcock. It was very difficult to decide between five excellent candidates. Thank you to everyone who volunteered. Having so many candidates is very healthy.
backed the idea of a half pipe for skaters on the playground and decided to include a youth shelter, a fence and a separate entrance to take account of views expressed at the open forum
supported County Council plans to replace Lower Mill Bridge and offered no objection to plans to extend Carpenter's Cottage in Forton
received numerous thank yous for the Jubilee celebration and mugs for children. It was a great event and the Council would like publicly to thank Gloria Goodliffe and the team that made it such a success.
decided to manage Southside Common in a low key way as a Pocket Nature Reserve (see separate article)
supported a request from children at the school for 'ducks' signs and asked the Clerk to write to the Highways Department.
decided to register its intention to produce a Village Plan, to employ professional help with preparing it and seek grant aid from DEFRA towards the cost. All parishioners who wish to do so will have an opportunity to contribute to the development of the plan.

The next meeting is on Monday 12th August at 7.30 in the village hall. All parishioners are welcome. The agenda will be posted on the notice boards on the shop and in Forton a few days before the meeting.
Jeremy Barber (Chairman) tel 720459

AWARD FOR SUPERB VILLAGE WEBSITE

Our village website www.longparish.org.uk has been voted Website of the Year 2002 by the National Association of Local Councils. The citation says,

"Holistically this web site is superb. It is friendly, it looks at all aspects of the community, without losing sight that its reason-to-be is to explain about the parish council, keep people up to date about its work and keep the community informed. The biggest achievement of all - a notable achievement for any webmaster - is that it is easy to navigate. You want to find a certain piece of information - it will take you seconds to find it. It looks good, with a clear theme running through the web site, and some neat web site skills which adds to it. Sometimes it's amusing, sometimes and sometimes it's quirky - but it's always well written. The people of Longparish should be proud of their web site."

Congratulations to David and Fiona Gould, who mastermind the site, for the fantastic achievement of winning this award in a competition which included many entries from much larger communities. Please do take a look at it, bookmark it in your favourites and use the feedback form to make comments and suggest improvements.

Secateurs found

Did you lose a pair of secateurs at the clean up day? If so, please give Maggie Barber a ring on 720459.

Race Night

There will be a race night on Friday 20th September in support of the skate facility. More details in next month's issue but, in the mean time, please note your diary.

Longparish Cricket Club

The Cricket Club has had a series of successes through June and July. In the Tuesday evening league we have won 4 matches and had 4 rained off, with Paul White and Anand Doshi the most successful batsmen. In the weekend matches, we lost to St. Mary Bourne on 15th June, but since then have had a stream of wins. In an excellent sporting match against Laverstock & Ford, Longparish scared 200 runs for the first time for many years

There are home games in August on Sun. 4th v. Salisbury Wanderers 2.30pm, Sat.10th v. Cranbourne at 2pm, Sun. 11th v. Willow Tree 2.30pm, Sat. 24th v. Worthy Down,2pm, and Sun. 25th Sat. v Sparsholt 2pm.