There are a very small number of membership subscriptions outstanding in
Ethelburt Avenue. If this applies to you, please would you drop it into Michelle
Hickling, 100 Ethelburt Avenue.

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The annual general meeting of the Residents’ Association will be on Monday, 24 September at 7.30pm in the Hardmoor Early Years Centre, Leaside Way. After the formal business, there will be a talk on “Fire Safety in the Home” by someone from the Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service.

At their meeting on 20th June the Planning and Rights of Way Panel granted planning permission for the Travellers’ Transit Site at Monks Brook, Stoneham Way.

The Government Office for South East (GOSE) has informed the council that the bid for £997,000 has been successful in passing the assessment stages and has been approved by the Regional Housing Board. It is now with the Minister for final announcement, which is imminent.

The Cabinet Member for Economic Development and Regeneration, Councillor Royston Smith, will seek the approval of the Cabinet not to implement the planning permission and to reject the funding of £997,000 for the development of the transit site at Monks Brook.

However a meeting of the Council on 18th July at 2pm will consider a motion reaffirming its commitment to the travellers’ transit site at Monks Brook and requiring it to be implemented as soon as practicable.

Be careful when strimming; the long grass may hide a hedgehog having a snooze. A strimmer can cause a severe injury.

To contact Linden Hedgehog Rescue Centre, ring Graham Bowring on 023 8089 1264. Graham will advise and collect sick hedgehogs, but a small fee will be charged towards petrol.

A local vet will give basic emergency treatment to an injured hedgehog, free of charge.
Do not give a hedgehog bread and milk. A cat food with gravy is best.

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Perhaps the best thing about this year’s party was enjoying a hot bath afterwards. The rumour that the weather would improve later in the afternoon proved quite unfounded. We thank Ken Hickling and Ian Jarvis for cooking the BBQ under a large umbrella.

Playing on a bouncy castle in the pouring rain was surprisingly popular. As always, children were not deterred from having a great time.

Do you have a complaint or a problem you would like to discuss with local officers? There will be surgeries on Thursdays 9th August and 20th September from 6pm to 8pm in the Community Room, Block 61-122, Ventnor Court, Leaside Way.

For more information call 0845 045 45 45 and ask to speak to the beat officer PC Norris or Police Community Support Officers Jo Averis, Sonja Payne and Aaron Sutton.
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Myself and Sheila Harmon, an HCERA member, attended the inaugural Residents’ Associations Question Time on Development Control on 29 May at the Civic Centre. Mrs Harmon raised the concerns about the deteriorating metal windows in Leaside Way and elsewhere. These are now very far from meeting current standards on heat loss. Would the planners tell us of an approved replacement that was not prohibitively expensive? We were told that this is not how the planning system works; we have to say what we want to do and they say yes or no. A group of people could get together and make a joint proposal.

One of the things I wanted to know was how many uPVC plastic conservatories had been approved within the Conservation Area. I was told that this information was not easily available and would cost too much to extract. So I got a standard reply:

“Applications will be considered in terms of their intrinsic design, the use of materials and the impact on the character and appearance of the host and surrounding properties and environment.”

So I came away none the wiser about plastic conservatories. We would like to know what is getting planning consent, so please email HCERA@talk21.com and tell us.

Have you, like me, waited many weeks for a reply to your letter? I was told:

“Replies to general correspondence should be made within 15 working days of receipt. In instances when the issue requires additional consideration, we will write and advise how long we expect this to take and offer a later reply date”.

So don’t hesitate to start pestering after 3 weeks! Mr Rothery, Development Control Manager, went on to say

“Correspondence made in respect of a planning application is generally not replied to, given the level of such correspondence and the time and resources that would be necessary to offer an equitable service to all such letters.”

Open Gardens Day was cancelled. This was not just because of the bad weather on the chosen day but because too few gardens were participating. We were sorry to disappoint those who were looking forward to showing off their gardens. We would like to try again next year and street reps will be discussing this with potential participants when they collect the annual subscriptions.

Attention is drawn to the

The Southampton Federation of Residents’ Associations had a public meeting on 1st June with John Denham, MP for Southampton Itchen. The theme of the meeting was “What is destroying the character of your neighbourhood?” John Denham said that we need a stronger planning policy to maintain a proper balance of flats, houses and houses in multiple occupation(HMOs).The Council needs to have a clear statement of what it wants to achieve to reduce the risk of its planning decisions being overturned on appeal.

The S.F.R.A. is supporting the campaign for a change in the law to bring the use of a house as an HMO under planning control. Alan Whitehead, MP for Southampton Test, has introduced a 10 Minute Rule Bill into Parliament to enable local authorities to have planning powers to regulate HMOs. I had thought that HMOs and the demolition of housing for replacement by blocks of flats was not a problem for our area until I saw what is happening to 2 Phillimore Road.

Fears that we might lose the train service to Romsey have proved unfounded. From 9th December 2007, trains will run to Romsey in the Eastleigh direction and to Salisbury in the Southampton direction. So you will be able to enjoy an outing to Mottisfont by direct train.

The train will no longer go to Totton, but we have the number 6 bus for this.

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