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This is our sixth publication and it is hoped that this Report helps the Parish Council and the village keep in touch with all that has gone on throughout the year.
We now have in place a much better mechanism for keeping everyone informed. We have; three Notice Boards, a combined monthly newsletter in which we support the Church with its publication Detling News, our website, which is now online and we look forward to it being bought up to date and regularly maintained, together with this annual report and our excellent column in the Kent Messenger.
We also encourage attendance and participation at our regular Council meetings and we are pleased to hear positive things, such as “It’s good to be able to see and be part of local democracy in action”
In April 2006, we co-opted Mrs Jean Roberts onto the Parish Council, Jean lives at the very north end of the parish. It was good for the Parish to be represented in all parts of our area.
The past year has again been very busy and we have achieved a number of key aims.
We have continued with the award of “Villager of the Year” and were very pleased to have received a number of worthy nominations. The award for 2006 was made to Mrs Thelma Ford, many congratulations.
We were pleased to be one of the first Parishes to be involved with the formation of a “Community Interest Company” and the Parish holds 51% of these shares. This company was set up to support the village in offering the use of the school buildings, but will be able to provide resources for future services and village activities, which would come from the Parish taking on more services.
The major event of the year was the formal notice of closure of the village primary school. A devastating blow to any small community, but we must face reality and we supported the school governors in their acceptance of the closure. We have been working hard with everyone to ensure that the building is not just shut up in July 2007. We are very pleased to report that all our elected representatives fully support the Parish, governors and our new Community Interest Company in our work to keep the school buildings open and to regenerate them for the benefit of the village and local community.
We also worked with local residents and the Showground to push for good neighbour relations following the increase in noisy and late night events. Things have improved and we will review in October.
During the year we completed the Works up at the Scragged Oak Viewpoint with a new information board and finally gained permission to re-plant both sides of Church Lane with hedges and a few specimen trees. Unfortunately, some of this new planting was stolen and we will have to wait until autumn for this to be replaced. All this has been funded by grants.
We also succeeded in getting Hadlow College to take on Horish Wood as a project for their degree courses, together with Kent Wildlife Trust who are currently writing a Management Plan.
Projects for 2007 include; the seating to the Street and fencing to the A249 and landscaping around the RAF Memorial.
Our overriding aim for 2007 is for Detling to achieve the status of Quality Parish Council, which would bring us a greater degree of control over the problems that regularly frustrate all of us.
Geoff Cosgrove
Chairman 2007
Download Entire Annual Report (3.5Mb)
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