Harston Residents Group Meeting 19/1/21
Present: Joy Richardson, Peter Hayde, Gaynor Hayde, Hilary Roadley, Brian Williamson, Dom Bellamy, Margaret Greeves, Jan Nanor, Myfanwy Lloyd, Claire Cock-Starkey
Apologies: Beki Korb, Linda Churchman.
Park House Wall: Dom reports that there is still no response from the owners regarding fixing the wall. PC will continue to chase.
Remembrance Bench: Bench money paid to PC but not sure when it’ll be installed as it has still not been decided where to place it on the rec.
Newsletter: new one should go out before end of January.
Action: Claire to compile and send out newsletter.
County Broadband: Harry Stevenson dropped into the meeting to answer questions on the installation of fast broadband in Harston by County Broadband. Private investors will pay for the cable to be laid but they need sufficient pre-orders (21% of the village) to make it worthwhile. Presently they have 65% of their target signed up for Harston and 95% for Haslingfield.
Gaynor is worried it will mean the village will get dug up but HS says this is unlikely as they plan to use BT’s existing cabling network and run theirs alongside it. Most connections should be overground.
Dom asks whether 5G might make it obsolete technology soon. HS says that while he is not sure of exact specifications of 5G he says that the speeds offered by their cables should easily match or surpass anything 5G can do.
Action: Claire to provide link to County Broadband webinar on 27 January 7.30 to 8.30 in newsletter so interested villagers can find out more.
Support networks during lockdown: Concerns raised that the surgery has stopped delivering prescriptions to some local places such as Meadow Way due to issues with security. PC are looking into it and hoping to find ways it can be resumed.
Residents have been discouraged from using the private prescription delivery service as this would take money away from the surgery.
Community Gardening: Beki and Vince cleared the area where hedges are to be planted. Hilary then cleared away all the brambles. The bulbs are now starting to come through. The hedgerow needs to be planted next. Huge thanks to Beki, Vince and Hilary for all their hard work!
Beki was worried that the project was a bit ambitious and though we should perhaps scale back as she hasn’t enough time to lead it. Joy proposes that next steps be to walk around the village and identify other areas which could be improved with planting. Hilary suggests also clearing some of the ugly scrub bits. Dom said PC would probably be happy to fund some of the clearance of garden rubbish produced.
Action: For now just publicise what has been done in the newsletter but once lockdown lifts put out a call to encourage more people to volunteer and perhaps try and organise a village clear up of brambles and scrub in the same ilk as the litter pick.
Litter pick: Still scheduled for March, lockdown depending.
Phone buddies: Jan reports it is still going strong with 9 or 10 volunteers making regular calls.
Warden Scheme: 15 members of warden scheme some in Harston, Barrington and Hauxton.
Food Hub: Still providing food for families in need. They are now doing a peferences sheet so that people can request certain items.
Planning applications: Vujon plans have been resubmitted. They have mostly made changes to address the comments on the last application. Comments need to be back by 29.1.21.
Action: Claire to include a link in newsletter and urge people to respond.
East-West rail: Blog up on our website to show all the major issues and groups working on the East-West rail. Once an actual route is chosen then that will be the time to mobilise and publicise but until then there’s not much can be done.
Action: Claire to share the link to the petition by Cambridge Approaches suggesting they look at a northern route.
Bypass: Brief from mayor sent to Joy in which they said they’d done a feasibility study for a bypass in Harston and it had come back negative. However no one has seen the study and so far they have neglected to share it with us.
Action: Dom to chase up trying to get a copy of the feasibility study so we can understand why it was rejected.
Harston Station: Proposal ready to be submitted.
Next Meeting: Tuesday 16 February 2021