4.2. Projects

4.2.1 Woodley Village Hall

Work here is largely one of routine maintenance. This has included replacement planting where this has been found to be necessary. We did arrange for the sections of the front hedge in front of the hall to be laid and it is great to see these old agricultural practices in use.

As we said last year, a project that we would still very much like to see proceeding is the construction of a footpath along the verge of Highwood Lane from the kissing gate on the end of FP 15 to the bend near Stroud School. We can now only report that we have had no further reaction from the County Council on this but we will certainly continue to raise it whenever we get an appropriate opportunity.

We have considered whether it might be possible to put some planting into this area. It is an area that has at times been occupied by travellers and planting would deter this as well as break up quite a large area. The problem here, however, is the presence of underground services. Following receipt of details of where these services are located we did look at the places where planting might be possible. Unfortunately, we had to conclude that we could not plant in meaningful positions that would achieve our objective of deterring travellers. The reverse would have happened and we would have created screening for them.

An issue that appears quite difficult for is the provision of new bench seats in open areas around the parish. Locations which attract support from residents are hard to find. The seats along the canal towpath seem to be well liked but other suitable sites have evaded us. We did investigate a site within the Mountbatten School grounds near to the Lantern Theatre but received no positive responses to this suggestion. Further seating in the grounds of and close to Woodley Village Hall was another thought but this will have to await the outcome of the current initiative to significantly refurbish the hall which will change its external appearance if the current plans are taken forward.

4.3. Grants

The Parish Council gives grants to organisations, groups or individuals in the Parish for a fairly wide range of purposes which are generally in the interests of the parish and the parishioners. We do ask anybody who feels that they or their group could benefit from a grant for the coming year to let us know. All we need is a written request with a statement of accounts so that we can look at the cause and the financial background of the request. Details of the grants we gave this year are in Section 5.2 of this report.

4.5. Footpaths and Roads

4.5.1 School Road/ Braishfield Road Junction

In February the Borough Council raised the question of the use being made of School Road and more particularly the closure of the School Road/ Braishfield Road junction. Borough officers were considering the effects that the development of Abbotswood in the Borough Local Plan will have and the junction improvements that will be necessary.

We decided to carry out a consultation exercise. A questionnaire was delivered individually to addresses in School Rd and also made available to the users of Woodley Village Hall. Additionally responses were invited from other users of School Rd through an article in the Romsey Advertiser. We received 43 responses, 21 of these were in favour of the closure and 22 against.

It is evident that there is an overriding view that something needs to done to control the use made by traffic of School Road given its nature and configuration. From the survey the suggestion of closing the junction with Braishfield Rd meets with a mixed reception. The main concern is the effect it would have on delays at the Braishfield Rd/ Winchester Rd junction. A number of alternatives to closure were suggested including traffic calming and either making School Road "No Entry" from Braishfield Road or Braishfield Road "No Entry" from School Road. Of these closure options making School Road "No Entry" from Braishfield Road seemed worthy of further investigation.

We prepared a detailed report on the consultation, a copy of which can be made available to anyone who asks to see it.

We have continued to urge that certain changes are made to speed restrictions on roads in the parish. Among these are a 40 mph limit in Gardeners Lane and 30 mph limits on School Road and the lower part of Braishfield Road. We are also concerned about the speed of traffic along Belbins. No action have been taken on any of these although a mobile flashing speed sign did make a short appearance in Braishfield Road. It has been promised that this unit will be stationed for a period in Belbins.

The County Council recently decided to follow new government guidance on 30 mph limits in villages and offered the opportunity to councils to nominate their suggestions under the ‘Village 30 Programme'. Two locations in the parish that concern us matched the required numbers of houses per 100 metres and, whilst they are perhaps not the normal concept of a ‘village', we decided to put School Road and Belbins forward. We will certainly not lose any possible opportunity there is to make our case about speed limits on a number of roads in the parish.

The concerns we have on footpaths and roads are always a strong feature of our meetings. These concerns are all brought to the attention of Hampshire Highways and at intervals we do meet with the Assistant Chief Engineer covering Test Valley, Andrew Milne. These meetings are always productive in the acceptance we receive for our concerns. It is getting promised changes actually underway that does normally take us some time and effort.

There have been a number of items that have been dealt with over the year. The two biggest of these are:

Overgrown hedgerow which obscures visibility when making a right turn at the junction of Halterworth Lane with Highwood Lane -

Following a meeting with Andrew Milne on site this problem was accepted and Hampshire Highways did cut the hedge back to the highway boundary.

Highway drainage feeding into property driveways in Sandy Lane. -

A number of properties along Sandy Lane suffered from highway drainage run off feeding into their driveways. In did take two attempts to successfully solve the problem but eventually the driveway entrances were properly resurfaced so that road surface water drains along the road and not into the driveways.

North Close road drainage. -

Heavy rains last winter were causing a significant area of flooding at the end of North Close. Following a complaint from us the gully drain was cleared and the flooding has not re-occurred.

We still do have a number of outstanding concerns and some have been so for a long time. We are totally realistic about the financial restraints on the highway authority and have presented our list of concerns in a priority order with the hope that over time at least we could achieve some progress on our major concerns. The current position on the four items which head our list is:

Safety barriers on the approaches to the A27 railway bridge at Ashfield -

Seen, by the structures section of Hampshire Highways, as being low on their priority list for such situations.

Repair and maintenance work on the parapets of the A3057 bridges over the River Test. -

Currently no prospect of painting work on these parapets.

Short Hill Salt Bin -

Before last winter it was agreed that we would fund the provision of a salt bin on Short Hill. This has still not been provided and it appears that difficulties in land ownership for the bin location are delaying the siting of the bin.

Woodley Village Hall Car Park Entrance -

An agreement was reached with Hampshire Highways in January that work would be done to lengthen the section of dropped kerb in front of the car park entrance to the Village Hall but this work has still not been carried out.

We will to continue to discuss with Hampshire Highways other items of outstanding concern.

4.6. Parish Amenities

4.6.1 Play Areas

We mentioned in our last report that the Woodley Close play area was due to be refurbished in this financial year. The latest information we have from our Borough Councillors is that the target date for start of construction work on this play area is September 2007. The consultation on the plans should be starting next month.

5.1 Provisional Accounts for 2006/7

5.2 Grants given in 2006/7