Page 35 - Phonebox July 2013

CC
COUNCILLOR CORNER
A contribution from Cllr Debbie Brock & Cllr Peter Geary
SURGERY: Apologies that we could not run our surgery in June but we will be running one in July as normal on Friday the 5th 7.30 to 8.30pm. If we can help with any issues please come along, no appointment necessary or contact us in the mean time.
RAVENSTONE FETE: Last month we talked about the forthcoming Ravenstone Fete, a summer fete alternates between the villages of Ravenstone and Weston Underwood, this year being Ravenstone’s turn. The organising committee ably chaired by Ravenstone resident Richard MacGowan, once again put on a fantastic fete in the beautiful gardens of Ravenstone House. Happily the sun did come out and the village thronged with over 700 people visiting. Many Ravenstone residents manned the stalls from the traditional and much loved bottle stall, mouth watering cakes and home produce stalls, the Lamb Lotto and more unusually the human fruit machine.
A truly great afternoon was had by all and in the end around £12,500 was raised for the Village Hall and Ravenstone Church.
NUNN WOOD WIND FARM: The appeal for the Nunn Wood wind farm happened over two weeks between the 10th and the 21st of June. During this time, a planning inspector appointed by the Planning Inspectorate in Bristol listened to the arguments from NPower about why the application at Nunn Wood should be granted planning permission. The barrister appointed jointly by the three councils put the case why the application should be refused. The process also allows for members of the public to put forward their case and BLOT took the opportunity to put its case throughout the inquiry. In most public enquiries, after considering the information that was submitted for a few weeks the inspector delivers the judgement. This is what happened almost two years ago on the Nun Wood application, it was then overturned by the Secretary of State. As the public enquiry was happening news came forward from the Secretary of State that he shall be reserving judgement on both the Nunn Wood site and also the site at Haversham that NPower will be appealing at a separate public enquiry in July. This is unusual but not unheard of in planning. In effect this means that the Secretary of State will make the decision. While all planning powers rest with the Secretary of State some are delegated to local councils, if these are appealed then the decision is made by the planning inspectorate and the Secretary of State will sign the decisions off. In the case of both these local applications the inspector who presides over the hearing, instead of making the decision, will submit a report which will then be considered by the Secretary of State.
It is not now known when the decision will be made, this will no doubt be some months away but we will keep you updated via this column.
NUMBER 1 BUS SERVICE: We have been contacted by many people about the withdrawal of the No.1 bus service in the evenings and its effects on the rural communities along its route from Newport Pagnell to Lavendon.
Milton Keynes Council like many councils across the country subsidises some bus services in the city. These services are ones where the services are not economically viable for an operator to run the service without a subsidy. As budgets in councils have been reduced over the past few years, the amount of money for bus subsidies has had to be reviewed and some services have been cut. A few years ago the service linking Newton Blossomville and Clifton Reynes was cut but we managed to get a taxi bus service instigated in its place to allow the local residents who needed it to still have access to public transport. In the same way the bus that used to link Olney to Northampton via Weston Underwood, Ravenstone and Stoke Goldington was cut by Northampton Borough Council. In the end a new service from Newport Pagnell via Stoke Goldington was implemented, subsidised by Milton Keynes Council.The Number 1 evening service after Newport Pagnell to Lavendon was one of the services that was subsidised with a large subsidy every year. As this was not used as much as other routes the subsidy was over £2.50 per passenger ride, this was in addition to the fares that these people made. This route along with a number of others across Milton Keynes was cut as part of balancing the budget this year. This has left a number of people facing difficulties.
On the bright side a company has now started operating a Sunday service on a commercial basis across part of the route which has proved very helpful. For those people who are still struggling, we are investigating if it would be possible to put in place another service that links into the No.1 service in Newport, in a smaller vehicle on a less frequent service. This will hopefully allow for a cheaper option to be explored that still allows a link through to Lavendon to be maintained in the evenings. We will let you know how we progress in the coming weeks.
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Phonebox Magazine 35