Street nameplates - design, for the use of. The Borough Council decided that no one knew what 'Dacorum' meant in its logo, so decided to revamp it and add the works 'Borough Council'. This minor change had a knock on effect right down to the redesign of the new street nameplates that we all know and love (or hate). I just hope that they don't start changing them without good reason.

Having got that off my chest, let's get down to more important matters. Remember we are still considering the Borough District Plan and the County Structure Plan (green belt and all that), well those plans only go up to 2011. Not to be caught out again, the London & South East Regional Planning Conference (SERplan) is now looking at what the South East needs up to the year 2016. The program at present is that the conference will look at the subject in early April 1998, public consultation during April to July 1998 and the draft document issued in September 1998. It is expected that an examination in 'public' will be held in November 1998 and the rubber stamping all done in time for the new Regional Development Agencies (R.D.A.) to take on board in April 1999. Needless to say, more dwellings (not housing, you note) will be needed and it appears that no national planning is done, so the south-east, that's us by the way unless you believe that we come under the Eastern R.D.A. based in Cambridge, has no idea what goes on just over the borders in, say Oxfordshire. Strange world, isn't it? This is currently all done at County level, with a small input from all the District Councils; so for more information, contact your County Councillor (Cllr. Ken Coleman - 866344) and I will endeavour bring the more interesting bits to your attention one way or the other over the coming months, but time is against us.

What a good turn out there was at the Berkhamsted Town Centre Advisory Forum on April 1st. Around 30 of you sat through the initial findings of the Consultants carrying out the Town Centre 'Health Check'. A number of you have expressed wonderment over just what is involved. Putting it simply, you pay an outside organisation a sum of money to confirm what you already know, but don't like to say in public, and they then ask you what you think is wrong and how to correct it. A report is then issued, together with suggestions and how much it might cost and we all feel as though we got value for money. I am almost convinced that local government works on the principle that you make a decision and then do everything you can to justify that decision. We have seen it with Waitrose, we have seen it with the High Street enhancements, and the Sports Centre to name just a few. The problem is that it does have the merit of generally getting things done and works on the principle that you cannot please everyone. Having said that, we will have around £60,000 to play with to improve the facilities of the Town Centre, so it can't all be bad.

We are coming up to the end of the third of four years of the life of this Council and next month I will attempt to summarise the activities of the past year, and look forward to what might happen in the final year in the run up to the election on 6th May 1999 (make a note in your diary - remember to vote!). Just remember that in 1995, you elected 11 (out of 13) Councillors who had no experience of local government. The learning curve was steep and over the period, five have fallen by the wayside. Those who are left have gained an enormous amount of experience and/or had the support of a political party, but we are approaching the final year and I hope that most of the projects either inherited or started by this Council will be completed by this time next year.

The new Town Warden is now in place and I have a feeling the job description will be torn up and rewritten over the coming months. I had the pleasure (?) of being helped by Andy Rolls (that's his name) of shuffling all the past years Christmas lights and cables around in the store so that the new (shiny yellow - for the use off) can be stored out of the weather. As you know, the Borough have banned 'bull bars', which was the other suggestion I did think about (come on - wake up - bull bars - bulldozers), but Andy actually volunteered to help me and we spent an enjoyable (?) morning moving and stacking all sorts of things ready for the owners to come and decide just what is to be done. After all, I realise it's only April/May, but Christmas is only a few months away.
 
As I write, the local press is full of letters complaining about the increase in Council Tax, and asking just what do we get for our money. The Borough has millions in 'reserve' just in case but many forget that national government directs how and what the districts can spend. The new labour controlled Borough Council hoped things would change under New Labour, but I suspect that as long as national government can avoid being blamed for local taxes going up, the situation will continue. On the other hand, we at Town/Parish level have no such constraints. Providing the monies are raised for local projects, then we have pretty much a free hand. This year, the new intake of Councillors amended my proposal to leave the precept as the previous year in order to provide for increases in the pipeline and completion of projects in hand. As you now know, it was reduced and in many cases, monies will now need to be taken from the carefully built up reserves to provide the help to the community policy that we had started to implement. The view taken by Council was that as the 'i's and 't's had not been dotted, we should not raise the money. I will tell you now, that I believe that without resources, both financial and personnel, we will end up back at the bottom of the pile awaiting the handouts from the Borough and County Councils together with national government. I mean, am I the only one to have noticed that the Borough organised Tring and Berkhamsted Town Centre Forums do not have Borough Councillors either living in or representing Tring or Berkhamsted as part of 'official' membership. We attend as members of the audience or representing Berkhamsted organisations. You may be interested to know, that I will be 'promoted' from audience to Berkhamsted Access representative as from the next forum (1st July 1998), so it's a step in the right direction!