After four and a half years of hard work, on Wednesday morning we will find out whether the plans for the Great Witchingham Village Hall Project will be given approval. If, as we hope, the project is given the thumbs up then building work on the first houses should begin in the spring with the construction of the new Village Hall approximately 6 months later in the summer of 2013. These are incredibly exciting times in the history of Great Witchingham.
We still have an enormous amount of work to do over the next 18 months to ensure our village hall is fully operational and kitted out but with the help of our ever growing group of enthusiastic supporters (that’s you) we’re confident that we will be able to meet our objectives.
Should you be planning to attend the planning meeting on Wednesday please note that our application is 6th on the agenda and therefore is unlikely to be heard until about 11.00am. I would suggest arriving at Broadland District Council offices on Yarmouth Road for 10.30am to be on the safe side. I know that the majority of you will be unable to attend because of other commitments which is why it was so important that so many of you took the time to write to the District Council Members prior to the meeting. County Councillor James Joyce, District Councillor Simon Woodbridge, Parish Councillor Kevin Francis and myself will be addressing the Council in support of the project. I thought you might like to read the transcript of my address in the hope that you might reflect on the words and share the same sentiments about community life in Great Witchingham as I do. Yes, I am an idealist.
Over the summer months many of you also contributed to our children’s playground consultation by completing questionnaires and encouraging your children to indicate what playground equipment they would like to see in their local playground. You will shortly be able to read the full consultation report detailing the results of the consultation process on the village hall website www.gwvh.org.uk so look out for the link from the home page. Having completed the report the playground sub-committee have had a second meeting with Playdale in order to go through the specific site design brief which will be delivered to us on 28th November. We are meeting with Wicksteed’s Playscapes on 19th November to go through the same process.
I hope that you’ve seen the article in the Wensum Diary or the posters around the village promoting the Jubilee Wood Project. The saplings arrive on Tuesday ready for our first day of planting on Monday 12th November. The Primary School children will be attending the site of the new wood on that day to assist with the planting process however you are all welcome to join us during the morning. Hopefully the press will come along to record the event for posterity. If you are unable to help out during the week but would like to plant a tree then come along on Saturday 17th November. Planting begins at 10am on all of our advertised dates. I will let you know when the last of the trees have been planted.
There will be people on the proposed site of the village hall and its associated housing from 4th January 2012. They will be digging trenches to carry out the archaeological survey required by the planning office as part of the planning application.
Comments Off on Summaries of recent Trustees meetings
The following Trustee meetings were held in the autumn, in addition to project meetings with developers and housing people, and with architects and developers, and with planners, developers and housing people. Reports on progress have also been made to the Parish Council meetings.
If you made a comment or responded to the Consultation on the Village Hall that was held at the end of September, you should have received a letter in reply. If you didn’t leave your address details, it couldn’t be sent to you, but the content of it is here: Great-Witchingham-consultation-response
You’ll need the Adobe Acrobat Reader to view it.
Thank you once again for taking the time and trouble to visit the stand and leave your comments or write in with them.
This was the progress report prepared for the Parish Council meeting at the end of October.
The Public Consultation held in September was very successful. Although precise numbers are not known I believe that approximately 50 people attended on day 1 and 60 people on day 2. Representatives from Broadland District Council, Victory Housing, CAM architects and Lovell’s all stated that it was one of the most positive consultations that they had participated in both in respect of numbers and attitude towards the project. As expected there were a few people who had legitimate concerns which we will address where we can. Overall 34 people took the time to write their comments down. Today the project group met to go through every comment and each person will shortly be receiving a reply explaining whether their suggestions can be incorporated into the plans and if not justifying why this is the case. The majority of comments were positive but concerns were raised about the access to the site and drivers abusing Hall Walk by parking there rather than in the car park.
This page summarises the story so far (updated October 2011).
The latest updates will be posted from time to time and linked to this page.
Our old village hall was closed at the end of 2006. The parish council appointed a sub-committee to handle the sale of the old hall and the development of a new one. This later achieved charitable status as an organisation in its own right. The hall was sold to the Diocese and demolished over the summer of 2011 (see pictures here).
We carried out market research in 2007-8 and again in 2011 to determine what people needed from a village hall and to determine what uses to include in a specification for an architect. The response to the questionnaire was excellent. As a result of the brief, we have plans and an architect’s impression of the new building, which were first consulted on in November 2008. The land for the new hall is associated with the housing development at Hubbards Loke, more or less opposite the Bakery.
We held a Consultation event on 21st & 22nd September 2011 at the Bridge Inn. This showed the latest versions of the hall, housing and grounds proposals, and a good many of you turned out to view them and ask questions.
We need to continue to consult with you because (a) we need to ensure that the final design meets our needs and (b) to continue to get evidence for our funding applications that the facility is required by the community – this may be discounted if the evidence is over 18 months old!
We aim to submit planning applications in conjunction with a housing provider (who will control the new housing to be built) within the the next two months. If successful we could have our new hall as early as next September.
BUT
This means fundraising has to enter a new level of intensity. We started with the first village fete in 25 years (according to people that know these things) which took place in August 2009 but didnt find enough people who could commit to organising it to hold one in 2011.
Mugs are available at a very reasonable price – they have our logo and this website address on them.
The main fund-raising will be through applications for grants which are being made from a variety of Trusts and grant funders, although to our dismay we find we are not eligible for Big Lottery funding by the width of a hedge.
We are also designing a scheme to raise money through donations and sponsorship which will be launched shortly.
The summaries of the Trustees’ regular meetings will keep you up to date with the detailed progress.
Comments Off on Summary of a Trustee meeting on 23rd August 2011
This is a summary of the regular meeting of the Trustees. The full minutes are confidential. This summary is posted for your interest and information only.
