Yesterday's surgery

A good morning well spent at St John’s Church yesterday with a steady stream of residents touching base with us over their issues. Car parking is becoming a bit of a nightmare especially around the Scott’s Hill, Livingston and Cameron area. These streets are being used by employees of the businesses in Stony Lane, Bridge Street and Purewell as their daily parking places causing considerable safety issues as well as the convenience situation for residents. With Two Riversmeet car park so close I find it concerning that drivers are willing to risk the wrath of residents by blocking up driveways and causing obstruction to the highways. Cllr Davis has this high on his priority list for ward issues and I am sure we will hear more about this at our PACT meeting on Thursday. A number of residents spoke about how disappointed they were that the Morrison application had been refused by Planning supporting the Officers recommendation. I venture to suggest that this matter has still some way to go via the appeal process, meanwhile the pressure seems to be on for the developers at Bailey Bridge to deliver supermarket that will meet the expectations of Christchurch residents especially those on the west side of the community. A complaint was received that County contractors working on lamp posts were removing the Homewatch notices and dumping them into tips. We will investigate this further but if any resident has this sort of problem please get in touch with Homewatch and they will get some new signs to you. Finally whilst some residents are not supporters of the Stanpit charity bonfire night I must say that firework display was the best I have seen for years. The rain kept off there appeared to be loads of families braving the dank weather forecast and as a bonus I noticed that the Stanpit Village Hall was full of residents taking advantage of their splendid view. Well done to the organisers, I noticed a whole bunch of them out early this morning in the pouring rain tidying up and well done to the Stanpit Hall committee. What a great ward and what a great community!