August Newsletter

Congratulations
…To Branston Library

Author Sue Allan portrayed tudor lady, Rose Locke (above centre) of Gainsborough Hall when she came to speak at Branston Library this month. Transformed out of costume (below), she is pictured here with our excellent librarians Cathy and Judith and local residents Marianne and June. To get Sue’s series of facinating historical novels and others, pop in to Branston library. To get Sue’s series of fascinating historical novels and others, you
can order by phone 01522 782010 and pop in to Branston Library, Mon, Wed or Fri 10am-7pm and Saturday until 1pm. to join the library, you can just turn up, easy.



…To all at the Eastgate Centre, Sleaford

Navenby resident, Richard Wilson (centre) had a very good day selling the centre’s own produce and garden furniture, during their Open Day.



Navenby Archaeology Group
The group closed the final dig after successfully completing the 3 year project in Navenby. Finds have been hugely significant, as Navenby was clearly an important village in Roman times. The group is now assessing volunteer and financial resources, ready for the next phase. www.navenbyarchgp.org


Local Government Services
The plan is to cut public expenditure by 25% over four years. Reductions in year are expected to be around 2% and removal of sections of funding are announced weekly.

Education has had £8m withdrawn which sadly reduces monies available to Navenby Community Centre. The grants for new affordable housing have mainly been withdrawn. Private sector companies with council contracts will also need to shrink.

Anything we can do to improve local resilience is important. Supporting local businesses and voluntary groups is vital.

Councils are creating “Local economic partnerships” including a number of County Council areas and businesses. These will be led by business and will run some services.

Free swimming ceases on July 31st. If you have registered, there are concessions to encourage you to continue.
There is also a lot about “Localism”, meaning less ring-fencing of the reduced funds and local people taking more charge, hopefully without creating duplication. There are also a number of changes coming to planning.

Concessionary Bus Fares
Concessionary fares are under discussion. These are critical to maintaining our rural bus services. There is a new website which is written by and for grandparents. They have a mission of "having the time of our lives" and have a petition up on concessionary fares. I have added a comment. www.virtualgranny.com

Health
GP’s, who are to take over the commissioning, already make most decisions in prescribing and referring their patients to hospitals, but currently more “clout” and purchasing power is with the Primary Care Trust who negotiate for performance and price. Smaller groups of GP’s may find this aspect tougher.

Nocton Dairy

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

Thanks to those who have sent me comments which I have read and forwarded to the planning department and the NKDC Chief Executive as appropriate.

The Question and answer consultation on August 6th and 7th was done by the applicants of their own choice. This is not part of the District Council’s formal consultations, which will happen once the application is in. Some people were disappointed to miss the two applicant events as the notice was very late and three venues were separately published making it hard to find. Some also said they would have preferred a normal meeting where they could hear better, which is a useful lesson too.

The District Council have been consulting on what aspects the applicant should cover in their environmental report. This is now completed and a "scoping opinion" was issued on August 5th. The applicant can now submit a new application and it will be up to the councillors on the whole planning committee to see if it is acceptable or not.

To see the scoping opinion on the web, google “planning on line North Kesteven”, accept the conditions and type in 10/0831/EIASCO. To see the comments to the previous application, the reference is 09/1040/FUL. These will not be forwarded because the new application will be different. The Council will notify any previous objectors/supporters when the new application comes in.

Once the new application is submitted, then people can place comments in response on line, using the same process. As before, if I want to be involved in the planning decision, then I cannot state a view in advance of the meeting. I await to see the application. We do want agricultural development, but the environmental impacts will obviously be a key planning issue.

In the meantime, the normal e-mail for planning matters is planning@n-kesteven.gov.uk. If it is OK with you, I will add you to my monthly e-mail newsletter. It keeps you informed and makes it easy for you to respond using the "reply" button.

I hope that is helpful. Do keep in touch.

Eight Homes go out to tender

Care homes
The eight homes, mainly for short term stay provide a service that gets people better and home, thus saving money on long term care. The Conservative Executive agreed a business plan for the service to go out to tender. The Independents, together with others, called in the business plan and presented the case for keeping the homes and commissioning in a more cost-effective way. All the Conservatives voted together to put the service out to tender and everyone else voted against it. Closing the homes is false economy as the homes reduce and prevent long term care.