January 2020 Chairman's Report
The Speed Indicator Device which was purchased through the Road Safety Partnership Community Speedwatch Initiative has been installed since February and has provided some useful evidence of ‘hotspots’ where speed limits are not being observed. This information has been passed to the Road Safety Partnership, Police and Highways for enforcement action at hotspot locations. Whilst there are no plans at this point in time to extend this initiative the Parish Council has a small reserve of £1,500 should it become apparent that further locations for the SID are necessary and additional costs for signage, posts, brackets etc need to be met.
The Parish Council continues to use litter picking services hired from North Hykeham Town Council and has increased the number of hours in order to meet the demand in order to keep the area as litter free as possible. New litterbin locations have been identified and new bins have been installed at these locations with a further three purchased ready for installation at other new locations where currently there are no bins. The Parish Council has entered into a service level agreement with North Hykeham Town Council for litterpicking and another for grasscutting services at Beechcroft to ensure that the standard of work is consistent.
The Parish Council has been busy consulting with agencies, businesses, partner councils and its community looking into various options to fund the improvements to the surface of the bridleway between Ascot Way and Mill Lane. At present the two are mainly connected by roads, many of which do not have pavements making a car the only real safe means to travel between the two. The improvements aim to provide a safe and pleasant connection between North and South Hykeham which can easily be traversed by foot, cycle or on horseback in order to access the school at South Hykeham and a wider range of local services.
The Parish Council has secured matched funding through Access Lincoln in addition to the Parish Councils funds of £15,000 set aside for the project, along with the Planning Gains of £26,000 from the Thorpe Lane development. Lincolnshire Co-op has also awarded the Parish Council project the sum of £1,267 and named the Parish Council as one of their Community Champions(Environment) for the period June to September 2019. It is hoped that the resurfacing will commence shortly 2020 and the upgraded bridleway will become an all year round, all weather sustainable access between North and South Hykeham and vice versa.
At the Parish Council meeting of 8th January 2020 after much discussion the Parish Council unanimously agreed to increase the precept for 2020/21 by 4.97% to £16,300.00.
This is an increase from 2019/20 of £1,450.00 and equates to £41.28 per annum on a band D property as opposed to last year when the Band D equivalent was £39.32.