Stoke St Michael Village Web Site

Sandra, after reading your comments, I thought I would take a trip to Mendip Council Offices and look over the Cookswood development files.

After 5 hours of trawling through vast amounts of documentation, I must say what a well thought out development Cookswood is. And believe me, I was originally on the fence on this development.

What did leave a bitter taste in my mouth when looking at the files were the continued personal letters of objection from our Parish Councilors Micheal Williams and Stuart Batson dated November 2008.

These personal objection letters were then drafted into our Parish recommendation, dated February 2010, to reject the Cookswood scheme.

The whole Stoke st Michael recommendation to reject the Cookswood scheme is a copy of Micheal Williams and Stuart Batson's letters of personal rejection, word for word!

It appears our parish councilors are using our Parish council to forward their personal objections.

How many of the other Parish councilors are in on this?

PARISH COUNCILORS YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELVES.

As a neutral I would say the Parish Council or any organisation can only run well if the input they have is good and rounded.... as far as I can see 80% of the historic input has either been on the fence or against (easier to complain than support).

For me the pain will be the 18 months of construction and that has to be managed well... the quarry lorries already cause issues on the lanes and tend not to yield to anyone.. bad enough in a car but on a bike / walking it's pretty nasty sometimes.

The plus will be having the site up and running, the jobs and the facilities will be a great lift to the area and it should mean there will be no more deaths from folks using the natural pond that is within the quarry.

One thing for the Parish to ask / consider (maybe they already have)... will the project / company involved be putting money into the Parish Council to help maintain the village?

Paul

Thank you for your comments.

I will put your comments to the next Parish Council meeting on 9th September, actually perhaps you would like to come along and voice your concerns about the conduct of the PC and put face to your comments. Obviously you have not been to a Parish Council meeting and certainly not the special Cookswood meeting, at which the project was presented and reasons for approval and objection voiced. The meeting was well attended by the village residents who over whelmingly voted to object to the planning application. The PC acted properly and objected to the scheme on behalf of the majority of the residents. Other PCs did not do that and whilst the majortity of residents voted to oppose the scheme these PCs acted undemocratically and approved the development. What would you prefer a PC that does what it wants or a PC that acts democratically and does what the community want?

Pete

The PC is working hard to get money.

Currently there is no money coming to the PC.

This is unusual as large developments usually provide some funds to help ease the increased traffic and loss of amenties through Section 106 Agreements and Planning Conditions. Mendip District Council said at the Planning Committee Meeting that the developer does not need to provide such funds. But MDC did get funds from Tescos to spend on Christmas lights! MDC also stated that traffic problems was the fault of the residents as they cause the problem by parking on the streets. I suggest that you contact your District Councillors and push for monies for the traffic control scheme proposed by the PC and other funds. Your District Councillors will agree the Section 106 Agreements / funds / planning conditions with the developer next month, so if you want local money and or control you need to contact them and push for it. Remember they are soon up for re election. Your DCs are:

Philip Ham
Newbury Farm
Newbury
NR Mells
FROME
Somerset
BA11 3RG

01373 812152
Cllr.Ham@mendip.gov.uk

Claire Fleming
Kilmersdon Common Farmhouse
Common Lane
Holcombe
Somerset
BA3 5QB

01761 233864
Cllr.Fleming@mendip.gov.uk

Paul

Those people that have expressed an opinion at my end of the village nearest the development who have spoken to me have all objected to this development and those are the people I have fought for. So I make NO APOLOGY for my forthright views on this project.

At all PC meetings where the public were invted to discuss the development the votes were always against and as stated by planning this application received the highest number of objections since Tescos came to Shepton.

I give my spare time freely to the parish council, as I do for other organisations in the village including the Youth club, Allotments commitee and Hall committee because I believe passionately in supporting the village. It is a shame we struggle in Stoke to get people involved in the village and its activies and its always a struggle to keep things going.

Perhaps if others would show the sort of passion for this village as I do we would not have a struggling pub and shop as well as volunteers for the clubs.

Anyway its a democracy so if people wish to stand against me because they feel I do not represent the views of the village then there are always spare vacancies and elections on the PC

Stuart

I think at the moment people need to be careful demanding too much from the development because right now it's not making any money (it's not even built yet) you don't want to jepordise the whole thing. Tesco, however, is a huge company which can afford to give out almost infinite amounts of cash (£3.4bn profit last year). I can't remember what Les said at the planning committee but it was something about not being able to stipulate planning conditions in order to profit from a local development.

On a related note about money for the PC. Perhaps something to bring up at a future meeting is to apply for some funding from the BIG Lottery fund. You can get from £300 up to £10k for community projects such as protecting the wildlife in a local area or improving a community hall/space for example.