HOT TOPICS

CORONATION CELEBRATIONS
in BOSTON SPA

 

The Copies of the programme were very kindly provided by John Townend

 

THORP ARCH DEVELOPMENTS

The Parish Council has been represented on a Consultative Forum along with Walton and Thorp Arch PCs as well as representatives from the City Council, the British Library, HMP Wealstun, Rockspring and the estate management and has attended six meetings over the past few months. The Forum was set up as an outcome of the pre-application presentation to the City Plans Panel in September 2012.  The  Forum meetings, which are chaired by Cllr Gerald Wilkinson, have developed from being particularly confrontational at the outset, to a spirit of aiming to achieve a mutually agreed compromise at the end.

Rockspring has outlined its strategy for the Estate and the Forum has elicited more details on the future of the Industrial and Retail aspects as well as the Residential proposals.  The plans are now expected to include a primary school, a convenience store, a playing field with a community centre/changing facilities and subsidy of an enhanced bus service.

The Forum has considered the road infrastructure in great detail, with the parishes indicating that this was by far the most significant factor. .

The Parishes have also met and agreed that the only real solution would be to include a relief road to take all traffic away from the Estate without passing through any of the villages.  The agreed view was that if this required a larger number of houses to fund the road, this would be preferable. It would also help to make the development self sufficient as a new stand-a-lone  community with its won sense of place.   In the end, Rockspring put forward two proposals – one for 1700 houses and a relief road and one for 933 with no relief road, which they still contest is compliant with Leeds’ and with natonal planning policy.  The parishes said that they would oppose the latter and a delegation of Cllr Procter, Cllr Brown and the LCC Chief Planning Officer had visited the Rockspring board in London to discuss the matter.  The Rockspring board subsequently agreed to the larger proposal with a relief road.

The parish view is that the 1700 house plan is also better in that to achieve this, Rockspring will need to have less industrial capacity thus minimising the probability of a second application for housing development some time in the future.

 

ARCHIVES

The Parish Council has recently gained access to an old safe in the Village Hall and discovered a whole host of old records, Minute books, correspondence etc relating to the Council over the past 100+ years. It would like to research and then ensure that these records can be maintained for future generations and possibly publish some of the more interesting items on this website.

To help in this process it would be very pleased indeed if any resident had experience in archives or knew of any Archivist who may be prepared to help with that research or at least offer advice on how best to approach the subject. If you can help in any way please contact the Clerk in the first instance using this LINK

The new ENGAGE page is now up and running giving you the opportunity to engage with the Parish Council and the community in a "forum" where your views and ideas can be discussed with other residents. Two subjects have already been listed so why not have a look and join in the debate.