It’s a funny world, this writing lark. As you are reading this, you know the result of the by-election held on February 6th, but I can only speculate, as it is still some time in the future as I write, but I can be assured that a candidate from one of the major political parties has won. Having got the  politics out of the way I can get on with all the happenings over the past month or two.

The most important event that will affect the town, is the County Councils decision to request all the Borough Councils to detail where they are going build all the dwellings to accommodate all the expected families the county will be generating over the next 15 to 20 years. I mean, it must be true, as only recently West Herts hospital was wondering how it was going to cope with the expected increase in births during May. As I said, time scales get in the way, but you made comments to the Borough proposals by the end of January, didn’t you? and the County will hold their statuary ‘examination in public’ during March.
This ‘examination’ will comprise, I suspect, of lots of people commenting on what County are going to do, and they will go ahead and do it anyway. It’s all to do with consulting the people and to be seen doing just that. It does not have anything to do with taking any notice of what the public want.

The next subject I want to bend your ear about is the effect the new ‘landfill’ tax is starting to have locally. As you know, in order to encourage people to reuse materials as much as possible, the national government imposed a new tax last October on waste materials. We all pay it indirectly in our council tax, as when the dustcart calls to take away the rubbish, the tax has to be paid when it is disposed of on some landfill site or the other. The reason I mention this is that over recent months, I have noticed more builders rubbish dumped over the fence between the bottom of Hilltop Estate and the top of the Three Close Lane cemetery, as well as tree ‘prunings’ scattered along Sandpit Green and outside the gate leading to Long Green. This must be done by businesses, as the Northbridge Road skips will accept domestic rubbish ‘free’ of charge, but businesses have to pay. Can I request that if you are having work done, you ensure your contractor disposes of the rubbish in a responsible way, even if it means paying a little more. You could also check that it actually happens because it is not unknown for contractors to be economical with the truth.

Meanwhile, back on the Town Council front, the allotment holders in Sunnyside, have taken the first steps in forming an association in order to run their own affairs, the town market fund, which the Town Council administers for the benefit of the Town Hall, should, by the time you read this, be under the control of the Town Hall Trust and the Berkhamsted Youth Council has already held its’ first meeting as detailed in the Gazette at the end of January. Also coming up in the next few months are Closed Circuit TeleVision (CCTV) cameras, a proposal for a Town Warden, alterations to the town centre car parking charges and, of course, we have a National election followed by the County Council election. Who said democracy was dead!

The Borough has consulted the Town Council over the location of the CCTV cameras, and at the time of writing, the finance has all but been agreed for the Borough plan, unfortunately, the Town Council is looking for more cameras and ‘call points’ than the Borough thought about. As usual, someone has looked at a map and placed the cameras in the ‘ideal’ spots. The cameras must be able to see through all the leaves on the trees and the assorted ‘street furniture’ that has sprung up all over our Town Centre, still, I have every confidence these minor difficulties can be got over by using additional cameras or perhaps chopping down the trees and removing a lot of the nice new obstacles that have appeared over the past year or so.

The Borough Council set aside £70,000 for Town and Parish Councils to employ Town Wardens to provide a locally based service and augment the Borough facilities. When this was last discussed at Borough towards the end of 1996, only £58,600 or so had been identified to be spent. Not wishing to have money left over, the various Towns and Parish Councils in Dacorum were asked to provide a feasibility study to support any claim. If the monies available are spread about on a population basis, then Berkhamsted would be entitled to £23,000. This would pay for a full-time warden, van, tools and most of the other facilities the warden could well need. If more than the £70,000 is requested, then our expected £23,000 will not all be available from the Borough and any shortfall made up from the Councils reserves. I’m sure that we can find a few businesses in Berkhamsted who would be prepared to sponsor the proposed warden in some way or the other to help get the project off the ground and get all those jobs done that Borough or County never seem to find either the time or money to do and yes, my company has offered the use of our local two-way radio service for free, to supplement the proposed mobile phone facility. Once again, I’ve over run my allotted space, so I will endeavour to return to one or two of the subjects touched on in this article unless, of course, events overtake me again.