The June 2023 Town Council meeting has been scheduled on 26th June at 7pm over at the Younghayes Centre. As always, you can attend as a member of the public – just turn up, no appointment or booking needed.
Here are my highlights of the agenda:
Citizen Recognition Award
A nomination has been made for Adam Prowse (who many of you know as our local postie) to be given a certificate & trophy in recognition of his service to our community.
Adam serves Cranbrook through Royal Mail as a Postman and has done so for a number of years. Local social media is full to the brim of praise and thanks to Adam for the work he does. Adam goes above and beyond to serve the residents of Cranbrook and regularly goes out of his way to track down missing items of post and deliver them to residents.
Adam regularly goes above the call of duty, when strikes and staff shortages have caused issues for Royal Mail Adam worked with residents that had urgent needs to receive or send letters and packages.
Adam has previously raised money for charity through delivering post dressed as a dinosaur amongst many other ideas for the benefit of others.
Adam, his wife Amy and two daughters have had a tough time recently with Amy suffering with bowel cancer and despite such terrible circumstances, Adam continues to serve the community with a smile and the odd bit of dance which is regularly captured on home CCTV systems which landed him the opportunity to dance with the dance troupe Diversity, former Britain’s Got Talent Winners.
Adam has promoted awareness of Bowel cancer in the local community by sharing Amy’s story which has prompted several residents to get themselves checked.Adam embodies what it means to be an outstanding member of the Cranbrook community and, as I’m sure many members of the community will agree, deserves to be recognised for his services to the community. Adam brings great joy to many residents, whether through a wave, smile or a dance and his generosity and kindness deserves recognition
Source: Cranbrook Town Council Meeting Agenda Supporting Documents
I don’t think I can sum it up any more clearly – and think this is a fantastic nomination which I am absolutely sure will command support within the community.
Exercise of Electors’ Rights
A proposal to approve dates from 3rd July to 11st August where the public can view and inspect various documents and accounts records. It is required by law that the first 10 working days of July are included. This allows you access to inspect a broad range of financial documents (not everything – some items are protected for commercial reasons for example). But it is a good opportunity if you want to reassure yourself on how public money is ultimately spent.
Vehicle Activated Sign Updates
At a previous meeting the ‘VAS’ (or as most people will think of it, the speed sign that has for some time been over at Younghayes Road near the shops was discussed – the reality is to use it there are some requirements in terms of charging/maintaining the battery, relocating it from time to time to the other possible location(s) etc. The costs proposed were not accepted by the Council and a revised proposal at a lower cost was made with a maximum of £700 to be spent – along with some other queries – and the item is back on the agenda to deal with those.
Road Safety – eg 20 is Plenty Campaign
As many of you know in broad terms I’m supportive of the 20 is plenty campaign to improve road safety, although I do understand some people have reservations about it of course. The group running the campaign met with our District Councillors & Cllr Henry Gent (Devon County Council) recently – and during the meeting it was proposed to bring it to the Town Council for gain support of the council.
The campaign is on the agenda for the meeting, including a request that the Town Council asks Devon County Council to impose the 20mph limit across Cranbrook, as well as help fund some ’20 is plenty’ stickers to help the campaign.
Ingrams Sports Facilities
There are a few items relating to the Ingrams development on the agenda, including:
Booking Arrangements, Charging & Terms
You can download/see the proposed booking forms, terms & conditions etc:
(NOTE: I believe at a previous meeting we agreed we should revisit the charging that is listed in these documents – as I recall it, Cllr Blakey requested this and we said in principle we should re-visit costs despite having only recently agreed them).
Connection of Temporary Services
On 24 October 2022, the Council considered a report which discussed the
Source: Item 11 Supporting Document (Cranbrook Town Council)
construction of the permanent access into the newly constructed car park at the
Ingrams sports pitches as well as the connection of permanent services to the
building itself. At that meeting, the Council agreed to investigate the provision of
temporary electricity and heating (ref. minute 22/183(a)). The permanent connection of both provisions are not imminent, with no reliable timescales for permanent connections available
There are some considerable potential costs here to be considered in order to make the facility usable even temporarily – please download/view the report document for full details – but in short, they’re not likely to make sense I suspect (for example, a temporary generator and foul effluent tank alone are £10,000).
Christmas Tree Lights
There is a proposal to replace some equipment etc relating to the annual Christmas Tree in Cranbrook – and a recommendation has been made to purchase new lights and hire an inflatable ‘grotto’ to use this year.
There are other items on the Agenda too I’ve not chosen to highlight – I try and pick out the items I think will have broadest interest to you all – but if you want to see the full agenda, you can download it here – and I always recommend you do as it has a more comprehensive list of items to be discussed:
As always, if you have any thoughts about any item on the Council agenda, I’d be happy to hear about them – the more I understand about how you feel as residents, the better I can be at representing your views at the Council Meetings (which is the reason I’m on the Council to begin with).