Welcome to our new Clerical Assistant

We have recently appointed Pauline Biggs to assist Lynne Stapleton in our office. Pauline will take over most of the work in hall bookings initially, deal with your enquiries and will ?stand in? for Lynne when she is absent.

We?ll be 100 Years old next year

The parish of Woburn Sands was officially formed in April 1907 when it became a parish in its own right instead of the Hogsty End of Wavendon Parish. We hope to celebrate our centenary with a number of events in April next year and would like your help. We really need to form a committee from members of the local community which will enable us to apply for some additional funding for our celebrations. We have several ideas for events but more will be welcome. Does anyone know who is our oldest ?local? resident? Several names of people in their nineties have been mentioned but we would hate to miss the real one! Please get in touch with the town clerk if you would like to be on our Centenary Committee or can help in any way. We?ll call a meeting of interested people soon and will put the date in ?around the villages? in the Citizen.

Parking on The Leys

We have received some comments regarding the parking of vehicles on the grass verge and the footway in The Leys. We would like to clarify that any vehicle obstructing the footway is causing an offence, all vehicles parked on the grass verge are illegally parked as the double yellow lines cover up to property boundaries, therefore, owners could have a parking ticket issued.

Nampak Site Development.

Most of you will have noticed that demolition of part of the Station Road frontage has now taken place and you can see how much of the old Plysu factory has already been removed. Work is also beginning on decontamination of the site.

However, Wimpey?s application to build 300 units on the site was deferred at the Development Control meeting in November 05 because the committee agreed with the presentations made by us, Woburn Sands and District Society, a local resident and Ward Councillor David Hopkins that several aspects of the application were still unacceptable. Your letters will also have helped, so thank you, but only 35 residents actually wrote to support us despite the large numbers who viewed the plans and expressed dissatisfaction!

The main issues Wimpey were asked to look at were:

¨ reducing the number of properties further.

¨ reducing the proportion of flats to achieve a better balance between flats, smaller houses and larger ones.

¨ removing the fourth storey from the lakeside apartments.

¨ doubling the number of affordable units available for local people.

¨ retaining elements of the old Victorian cottages on Station Road.

¨ reinstating green areas where the bund will be removed and removing car parking areas.

¨ introducing more conservation measures to the development.

¨ reassessing the major impact of the increased traffic.

¨ putting more detail on various aspects of the Section 106 agreement (what happens to the planning gain money from the development.)

We have had a number of discussions with Wimpey since then and their new plans have been on display and will almost certainly go to Development Control on 8 Feb 06. They have addressed many of the concerns listed above in the following ways:

¨ Property numbers now at 280 which is just 10 more than the outline permission and 70 fewer than Wimpey initially hoped to put there.

¨ Two blocks of flats have been removed from the plans leaving 40% of the units as one and two bedroom flats.

¨ Part of the lakeside apartments remain at 4 storeys but a lift will be installed in these. The rest of the lakeside apartments are now 3 storeys. There are no other 4 storey buildings on site.

¨ MKC has now agreed that 30% of the 30% affordable homes will be preferentially available to ?local people?. This is a doubling of the previous figure.

¨ Whilst it seems impossible to retain and restore the Victorian cottages, Wimpey have agreed to re-use some of the more individual features of these properties such as stone bay windows, porches and lintels and the name ?Mabel Cottage? in a couple of two storey dwellings on Station Road and to install a bronze plaque to record the previous history of this part of Station Road. Something similar will happen to the old blacksmith?s shop.

¨ Wimpey have doubled the width of the ?green? area where the bund is to be removed to 3 metres minimum and redesigned the parking areas adjacent to this.

¨ Water butts will now be provided to all houses on the development and where suitable south facing roof lines occur, solar panels will be installed.

¨ Reassessing the impact of the traffic remains a major concern at the time of writing this. Discussions still need to be held between Wimpey and MKC on this and to date we have not been invited to comment further.

¨ Similarly, no further discussions about the detail of other planning gain matters such as the refurbishment of the Social Club / car parking for a community hall, have taken place.

All in all, we are pleased with the modifications to the original application which Wimpey have now put forward although the proportion of flats is still rather high and the impact of the traffic not satisfactorily solved. Of course, as we have said for many years, the traffic in Woburn Sands is a problem NOW, largely because the relatively narrow streets of our old town were not built to accommodate the volume of traffic these days and because we have so much on street parking where terraced properties occur. The increased use of the railway for freight trains due to start in March 2006 will make matters very much worse. It would be unfair, however, to lay ALL the blame for our traffic problems on Wimpey. Nevertheless, we must see some solutions from this development and further pressure must be brought upon Network Rail and MKC to address our problem with traffic.

NAMPAK PLANNING APPLICATION

If YOU are concerned about the traffic problems in Woburn Sands caused by the volume of traffic and the hold-ups at the level crossing, PLEASE WRITE TO DAVID HACKFORTH Head of transport & planning Civic Offices, 1 Saxon Gate East Central Milton Keynes MK9 3HH

As before, members of the public are welcome at the Development Control meeting on 8^th February 7.30p.m. at MKC Civic Offices.

Carnival Success

Despite the loss of the Parade, our annual Christmas Carnival was another success, but we will do all we can to solve the insurance problem and have a parade again next year. If there are any members of the local community with insider knowledge of a suitable insurer, please get in touch with us! In the meantime, our sincere thanks to the Carnival Committee of Cllrs Dorothy Blackburn, Ron Hale and Jacky Jeffreys, along with Peter Boon, Tim Fryer, Peter Garratt, Glen Gurney, Alan Symon and Martin Tottman and the support of many others especially Lynne Stapleton. Thanks too to additional valuable helpers with putting up and taking down of trees and lights. The Carnival Committee is already meeting to arrange this year?s event and hopefully is including a couple of new faces?more very welcome. Some children from the knitting group have offered to do a sponsored ?knit in? to help raise money to cover the insurance costs this year so please be generous in your support of this great idea when you are asked to sponsor someone.

Woburn Sands Band Concert at The Stables, Wavendon

The Woburn Sands Band will be playing at The Stables on Saturday 18^th March, at 7.30p.m. Tickets £10, this is a very popular venue so please order your tickets as soon as possible, music will be varied with an Irish flavour being the 37^th concert of the Drakeloe Press Series.

To reserve your tickets tel (01908) 377325 or for card sales The Stables box office 280800

Holocaust Memorial Ceremony

A short ceremony will be held on Saturday 28^th January 2p.m. on Mowbray Green. Woburn Sands Band will be in attendance EVERYONE WELCOME