January 2018 newsletter

by adamboyden on 22 January, 2018

Dear all,

This is a reminder of current consultations and upcoming meetings that you may be interested in. As one of your councillors on Mendip District Council, I hope to keep local residents updated on local issues:

  • Mendip Local Plan Part 2 consultation proposes 100 houses at Packsaddle Way
  • Frome Town Council meeting on Local Plan – Monday 22 January
  • Frome Town Council meeting to discuss Saxonvale – Weds 24 January
  • Survey: Does Frome Medical Practice’s new appointments system work for you?
  • Frome Sports and Leisure Customer Forum – Weds 31 January
  • Mendip consults on continued closure of Berkley Lane – consultation ends 10th February
  • Cider with Lilleys
  • Frome’s Changing Places to open soon
  • Showfield improvement works
  • Proposed tree felling at Bath Road
  • Pedestrian island proposed at Bath Road
  • Grange Road mobile phone mast appeal
  • Packsaddle roads to be resurfaced in February
  • Packsaddle parks
  • Boxworks
  • Boyle Cross and Market Place
  • Frome Town Council news
  • Mendip District Council news
  • Somerset County Council news
  • Lib Dem news

Please do let me know anything I may have missed, and tell me what you think (email aomboyden@gmail.com or cllr.boyden@mendip.gov.uk).

Mendip Local Plan Part 2 consultation proposes 100 houses at Packsaddle Way:

Mendip District Council’s Draft ‘Pre-Submission’ Local Plan Part 2 is now out for public consultation until 12th February 2018see here (see Section 10 Town Policies, pages 18-19).

Policy FR6 proposes to allocate the large field between the end of Packsaddle Way, Innox Hill and Spring Gardens (site FRO061) for the development of up to 100 houses. This is a site deemed ‘not suitable for development’ in the council’s Sustainability Appraisal. I attended a residents meeting about this recently. Please see here for details of the proposals and how to respond.

Frome Town Council meeting on Local Plan: Frome Town Council are holding a special Planning Advisory Group meeting all about the Local Plan’s proposed housing and employment allocations, local green spaces and changes to the development limit, on Monday 22nd January at 7pm in the Town Hall. Please see the article and the agenda here. Do come along to find out more and have your say.

Frome Town Council meeting to discuss Saxonvale: The next full Frome Town Council meeting is this Wednesday 24th January, 7pm at Frome Town Hall. This includes: Q&A sessions with multi year agreement recipients Frome Festival and Fair Frome; the council’s Work Programme and Budget for 2018/19; a report on the current condition of the Saxonvale site (see the report on that here), and the recommendations of the Grants Advisory Panel.  Please see here for the agenda and details.

Survey: Does Frome Medical Practice’s new appointments system work for you? In November, Frome Medical Practice changed their GP appointment system to ‘Patient Connect’ and removed the walk-in clinic, as explained here and in a FAQ brochure here.  After hearing about problems from a number of people, I and Drew Gardner put together a survey to find out more about any problems, what works well and what needs improving. Please see here to find out more and take the survey. Thank you.

Frome Sports and Leisure Customer Forum: Fusion’s new General Manager for Frome Sports & Leisure Centre is having a Customer Forum at the Centre on Wednesday 31st January at 6.30-7.30pm in the Social Lounge upstairs. Please see the poster below.  This follows Frome Town Council’s Frome Sports Forum last week.

The last Mendip District Council Cabinet meeting on 8th January also included a presentation from Fusion Lifestyle of an annual report of achievements and future plans and investments across the five leisure centres they lease from Mendip District Council. I followed this with a discussion with two residents from Frome about a number of issues, and I will be catching up with FTC officers later this week about the issues raised at the Frome Sports Forum.

 

Mendip consults on continued closure of Berkley Lane: Mendip District Council is consulting the public on its plans to continue the road closure at Berkley Lane (just to the east of Gypsy Lane) for another 3 years in order to tackle flytipping, and needs your support for the closure to continue. The consultation deadline is 10th February, so please respond before then. Please see here for details and how to respond.

Cider with Lilleys: Lilleys Cider has bought 40 acres of land between Packsaddle Way and Cuckoo Lane to create a new orchard and intend to move their cidery business there and build a shop and cafe, and also eventually two houses as well. Please see here for the Frome Times article. The plans will secure the area in productive agricultural use, and I hope to find out more of their plans in the coming weeks.

Frome’s Changing Places to open soon: After funding was secured in October to provide a fully accessible Changing Places facility for severely disabled people in Frome town centre (see here), work to install the facility has started and should be complete by the end of February. An opening event is now being planned. Please contact me for more details or to get involved.

Showfield improvement works: Frome Town Council’s improvements and repairs to the play area at the Old Showfield do not appear to have restarted, after wet weather and damage to the field by contractors vehicles led to complaints from a local resident and work stopping before Christmas (see here). I hope to get an update from the Town Council later this week. Please see here for previous news.

Proposed tree felling at Bath Road: The developer of the new houses under construction at the former Mendip Lodge Hotel site at the top of Bath Road proposes to fell two trees, including the large poplar, which are protected by a Tree Preservation Order (TPO). I have objected to TPO application 2017/3309/TPO as the poplar is a significant landscape feature, and located in a locally valued open space.  I have also asked for further information on the trees’ health. Please see the application details here. Frome Town Council has also objected. Please email consultation.responses@mendip.gov.uk quoting the above application number if you wish to object or respond.

Pedestrian island proposed at Bath Road:  I am seeking an urgent update from the new case officer at Mendip on the status of the proposal to install a pedestrian island across Bath Road by the developer of 7 new houses at the old Mendip Lodge Hotel site, to satisfy the planning condition requirement for a ‘pedestrian crossing’  (planning reference 2017/0992/APP) before the houses are occupied. Last June I met the developer’s agent and their transport consultant, and Mendip’s case office at the time, and we agreed a way forward – please see here for details. Delays have been caused by staffing problems at Mendip. The development continues on site. In parallel, the county councillor for the area has started to propose a small improvement scheme for the junction of Bath Road/Gypsy Lane to try and slow traffic down coming into Frome – please see December news on that.

Grange Road mobile phone mast appeal update:  Mendip District Council’s response to the Vodafone appeal, is online now here as the ‘LPA Statement’. The deadline for public responses has now passed. The appeal should be decided by the Inspector during the week commencing 30th January. Please see here for details.

Packsaddle roads to be resurfaced in February: The promised resurfacing of Packsaddle Way, Pedlars Grove, Farmhouse Drive and Chapmans Close, will take place over 5 days from 26th February, and will involve temporary road closure. For further information please contact Somerset County Council on 0300 123 2224.

Packsaddle parks: Frome Town Council will soon take over long term leases from Mendip for Packsaddle park and Chapmans Close games court. I instigated the process in 2015 (against officer recommendation to sell for housing) so that these open spaces can be improved for the local community. When the Town Council has a lease, they will organise a public vote so you will decide how to improve your open spaces. I am seeking an update on this later this week.

Boxworks: There is no real news yet – MDC are still considering amending the proposals for ‘Boxworks’ – 20 shipping containers in the town centre car park which would provide start-up office premises for small businesses – to locate it close to the Black Swan (instead of next to the Cheese & Grain and river) but have not submitted any new plans yet. The current plans can be seen here. A range of issues and concerns on the current application have been raised. I have also asked for MDC to present the proposals in public in Frome, and to fully consider Saxonvale as a potential location.

Boyle Cross and Market Place: Please see here for Frome Town Council’s update on the current work underway until the end of February.

Frome Town Council news:

Mendip District Council news:

Somerset County Council news:

Lib Dem news:

 

Please let me know if there is anything that needs doing.

Thanks for reading,

Adam

Adam Boyden,

Liberal Democrat, Mendip District Councillor for Frome College ward

07809 284817, email aomboyden@gmail.com

http://www.adamboyden.mycouncillor.org.uk/

Twitter: @cllradamboyden

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