Annual Parish Meeting - 2012

This has been another busy year for the playing fields – it seems to be always getting busier.  With the still fairly recently renovated tennis courts and the well-maintained recreation areas, we seem to be attracting more visitors all the time.  That does mean a lot more wear and tear and we are now finding that we have to do an increasing amount of repair and renewal in addition to the normal maintenance.  Mark the groundsman has been coping with that very well, with the assistance of John Vinyard and Joel Arney in maintaining the children’s play equipment.  The work plan had to be adjusted somewhat because we had a lot of vandalism this year and they had to actually rebuild some of the items in the under-7s play area that had been severely damaged.

On the theme of repair and renovation, we have not been able to get very far with the clearance and renewal of the Lovar garden pond.  People who we thought could provide equipment or help turned out to be very expensive or not actually able to do the work.  We are continuing to seek an effective solution for this.  We also have to plan the renovation of the BMX track, which is getting very badly worn and has been “modified” by users.

Football, cricket, bowls and tennis are thriving, but we still have no serious interest in basketball or rugby.  The facilities are there for any enthusiasts who might come along.

On the allotments we have all the plots occupied and a small waiting list and the general level of cultivation has improved.  We are looking at ways of providing better access to water.

Lastly, we were getting concerned about the condition of some of the older trees on the rec and commissioned a comprehensive survey, which was eventually completed shortly after the big lime tree was blown down.  There will be a small amount of work to be done, but the big surprise to me was that we actually have 99 full-grown trees on the site.  That’s a lot of trees to keep under observation!