Didn’t a lot of you attend the Town Centre Forum on the 7th January? It just goes to show that a little publicity can do wonders, so don’t forget the next one will be held on 1st April in the Sessions Hall of the Town Hall. At that meeting updates on some of the queries brought up at the January one will be answered and you can actually join in, so it really is worth making the effort. The sort of items on which you may have a view and can make a point about include assorted Town Maps and information being provided by Borough & Town Councils, blocked gullies, High Street ‘humps’ with particular reference to the one near the ‘Swan’. Am I the only one to realise that the ‘beep’ was turned down so that the local residents could sleep with their windows open in winter? – Come on, think about it! Other subjects up for grabs include the Urban Design Study and just how do you actually turn the back of a shop into an attractive environment without spending money, the Town Centre Health Study being carried out by the Borough Councils consultants which will include all aspects of revitalising the Town Centre (dare I say, shame that Waitrose was built round the wrong way) and all sorts of other things that are on all our wish lists.

Meanwhile over at the Borough Council, the majority group, after a lot of thought and consideration, decided to follow the County Council lead and form an Environment committee. Owing to a lack of days in the week, space had to be found and it was obvious that Works and Health should go and merge into the new committee. All the thought in the world doesn’t mean you can read as the Borough standing orders include one that says that every member is entitled to two committee seats. Guess who got overlooked. Correct! It turns out that under the Local Government & Housing Act of 1989 as amended in 1990, Independents do not exist. If you aren’t a member of a group, you aren’t entitled to have a vote on a committee, which makes a mockery of democracy. This minor difficulty will be sorted out in April, as it will be all change once again with the new municipal year. In the mean time, Richard Halling (the other Independent) and myself are taking steps to form ourselves into a group so we shouldn’t get overlooked again. All this time you thought you were voting for a person to represent you on local councils and parliament, you were actually voting for someone to represent you at a political party, so just where does that leave the majority who think that party politics should not play a part in local government such as Parish, Town & District? Having said that, it was a shame that the eleven Independents that were elected in May 1995 to the Town Council, were unable to work together in the interests of the town, indeed some still have difficulty reading and understanding our own Standing Orders, so we are all still learning.

The Environment Committee met on 12th January and allotment items took up much of the meeting. Last month, I did go on a bit about Borough planning decisions and just how they are arrived at. Someone queried whether the new parking spaces that had been created on the Sunnyside allotments needed planning permission. The Town Clerk queried the matter with Borough (Planning Authority) who dutifully sent an officer to look and the view was given that as it was not works of an engineering nature, planning permission did not need to be applied for. So now we all know. Ted Dyer tried to bring up the subject of the allotment holders managing their own allotments by forming a management organisation, but was ruled out of order by the Chairman as it was within the six month rule which means that a subject cannot be revisited within that time-scale unless a resolution is passed by council. This was also the first meeting following the Town Warden Working Party held on the 8th January. For some reason, the committee requested that the proposal to provide the Warden with an electronic organiser should be reconsidered. At the time of writing the view is being taken that as Borough are paying, then why not? I can think of a number of reasons, but that’s democracy for you.
At the Budget & Assets Committee meeting at the Borough on February 3rd, reports were presented from the Town/Warden scheme detailing the first nine months of operation. You may remember that ours will be appointed shortly and will spend most of his time reporting to the world and his wife on matters that should have been done, but haven’t. He will also be occupied full time cleaning & polishing his new van, playing with his new computer and spending our money reporting all sorts of things at premium rates. For some reason, most other Towns & Parishes do not appear to have anyone full-time and they also seem to manage without computers but do get their hands dirty by doing the odd clearing up and painting tasks. Almost as we envisaged it before realising what a dangerous job it actually is.

On 14th January the Canal & Riverside Partnership group met, only it seems to be Canal & Riverside Management group now. Most of the meeting was concerned with just how do we pay for it. You will remember that in December, the Council approved another sum of money up to a total of £5000 in next year’s budget, subject to conditions relating to knowing what it will be spent on. It turns out that both Borough and British Waterways have lots of money (well, totaling more than the £11000+ we have put in so far) to spend if we provide matching funds before the year-end. Yet no mention of this was made just six weeks earlier, so the Chairman announced he had decided to call an extraordinary Council Meeting 12 days later to resolve the matter. Unfortunately no one reminded the Chairman about the six-month rule and to actually consult with other members of the council so the first anyone knew about it was by reading the local newspaper.

The ongoing process of investigating our committee structure is still in progress having considered possibilities from full council every week to leaving as it is. I understand current thinking is a reduced number of committees and a larger number of committee cycles. Add to this, the idea of having a ‘guillotine’ at 10pm should mean subjects would be discussed within a shorter time span and often by fewer members. Less time to discuss matters should mean some interesting decisions are in the offing.

We are just coming up to a period when a lot is happening. We should know the outcome of the boundary review, the Town Warden will be appointed and the County Structure plan is being finalised. The Borough Local plan will be going out for final comments and, believe it or not, Dacorum Borough Council has a new logo that will go on the new design of street nameplates. The Chairman of the new Borough Environment committee commented that she thought this had been done to death a couple of years ago, although she had no problem with imposing new signs on Berkhamsted because ‘there was such a variety of designs’ some degree of standardisation should be imposed. Mind you, that was two years ago and we have shown our signs do last a long time. That’s what comes of living in an old town that evolves over the years. Hemel Hempstead was smaller than Berkhamsted until after the First World War and then one body was appointed to develop the town, not elected, you note. This makes conformity much easier but, as everyone knows, I have no taste.