Page 16 - Phonebox Magazine October 2006

Mercury Report
Olney Town Council Meeting of Monday 4th September 2006
Public participation
Four members of the public spoke at this month’s meeting.
Les Callow spoke first about the streetlight on the path adjacent to the Baptist Church, asking why it had never been lit and stating that wheelchair users will no longer use the path in the darkening evenings as a result. Paul Watson said that the Council will chase the Co-op again as it is responsible for the light. Les also covered the withdrawal of the X2 Northampton to Bedford bus service, with both Steve Clark and Debbie Brock noting that they’d objected to this. Finally, Les asked the Council to consider installing a cycle track on the East side of Olney High Street.
Kate Nicholas spoke on behalf of the Olney Newton Link. The Link had an initial target to build 100 homes in Newton, Sierra Leone, and has so far built around 70. There is also a need for a skills centre to teach local people and which would cost around £3,000. In order to assist with this, the Link will be holding an Open Skills Day on 24th March 2007 so that skilled people in Olney can introduce others to what they do – the idea being that homes and businesses would be opened up and visitors would have a map showing them which places could be visited. Kate went on to say that the Link would like to use the Olney Centre as a focal point and asked if Olney Town Council could donate some of its rooms rent free. The Council agreed to do this later in the meeting.
A number of East Street residents attended the meeting and one of them spoke to voice their concerns about antisocial behaviour in the car park adjacent to the Rugby Club. This topic was discussed later in the meeting in some detail and so is covered only briefly here. The resident noted that the problems amount to car noise in addition to loud music and football being played late at night. Requests made to the people concerned to behave more quietly were unsuccessful. Police visits made some time ago significantly reduced the problem but only for a short time – it has now become serious again. Possible solutions were suggested including CCTV and a spine (i.e. a hump) along the middle of the car park.
Mike Richardson, a member of the Bowls Club, spoke last to inform the Council about the antisocial behaviour of some young people near the Club. There’s little value in repeating the details, but the number of people involved and the nature of what happened made people at the club feel
threatened. He expressed his frustration that the Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs) called to deal with the situation did not fully resolve it or report back to explain things.
Police report
Unusually, the Police could not attend the meeting, so the police report was read by John Sharp. There were 41 incidents including one of drug possession, three minor assaults (ABH), three of criminal damage to vehicles, six of general criminal damage, ten burglaries from non-dwellings, three shoplifting offences and five of theft from vehicles. He noted that the Police had received 11 calls concerning the car park adjacent to the Rugby Club of which seven were attended by officers, and that Johnson’s Field has been patrolled regularly by PCSOs with young people being moved on and names taken.
There was then some discussion about it being easy to buy alcohol underage in one particular shop in the town. Apparently Milton Keynes Council license officers will be visiting this shop shortly.
Joint Users Group
Tony Evans reported on the latest meeting of the Joint Users Group, which was held to discuss the problems in the East Street car park adjacent to the Rugby Club. Tony noted that this car park was the responsibility of the Town Council and not the Sports Clubs. The conclusion of the meeting had been to investigate using CCTV to combat the problems.
New School Campus
Paul Watson started the discussion by noting that the timescale for completion of the Ousedale Annexe site had now slipped to December 2006. Steve Clark explained that a high level meeting between Milton Keynes Council and Jackson (the contractors) was due to be held shortly and, choosing his words carefully, that it might result in legal actions being taken. He noted that it was very evident that there were insufficient people working on the site for this stage of the build.
David Coles pointed out that, as a parent, he was disillusioned that parents of affected children at Ousedale had not been told of the delays and were, instead, hearing of them via the press. He also noted that people do not appear to believe the new December deadline. Steve Clark noted that this was the only one of a number of school projects to have been managed
independently of Milton Keynes Council and that it had slipped significantly.
Tony Evans requested that a Milton Keynes Councillor attend a public meeting in Olney to explain and answer questions about the situation. Debbie Brock noted that Milton Keynes Council recognised it was lamentable that parents were not informed about the delays.
East Street car park and Johnson’s Field
This part of the meeting discussed antisocial behaviour in the car park adjacent to the Rugby Club and also in Johnson’s Field.
John Smail had contacted two CCTV camera companies and received a demonstration from one of a possible CCTV installation in the car park using a camera that could sweep round a full 360 degree angle. This looked very positive.
A second meeting in the car park had been held with Mr Brooke-Langham, Head of CCTV at Thames Valley Police (TVP) and PC Mick Shaw. They felt that the a CCTV system to properly cover the car park would cost around £55,000. This was quite negative, although Mick Shaw noted that TVP would be able to make their mobile CCTV camera available more often – it will be used for one weekend in the car park and one Johnson’s Field.
The problems on Johnson’s Field have included trees being damaged, fires being lit and cars being driven on the field.
There was a wide ranging discussion and just the main points are noted here. The Youth Club was now opening on Wednesday and Friday nights although it was unclear whether this would affect the problems directly. It would cost £30,000 per year for the Council to purchase two PCSOs but, as noted by Malcolm Messenger, their powers and working hours are limited so spending around £35,000 to purchase one Police Officer may be more sensible. The incidents thus far may not be serious enough to justify the use of dispersal orders.
Paul Watson summed up, saying that the Council needed to look at all of the possible options before narrowing them down to ones that would be effective: he did not want the Council to take a knee jerk reaction.
Parish boundary review
Milton Keynes Council is undertaking a Parish boundary review within its area looking at whether Parish boundaries or the
16 Phonebox Magazine