Hordle Parish Council update to ECA, May 2021

Meetings

HPC has continued to operate over the last year . Until this week ,no face to face meetings have taken place ,but have now resumed with suitable Covid precautions.

Planning and other issues were handled on line by emails ,but for the last few months we have had virtualmeetings by Zoom .

Personnel

We are now in a much better position regarding councillors who live in Everton . From a low point of having no councillors from our village on the council 3 years ago ,we now have 3 active councillors having recently co-opted Carol Rook . Carol has been involved in the Parish councilin her previous village and will bring experience and energy . In addition ,NigelFerguson has been elected Vice Chair , which also helps our village . He has also upgraded the HPC website and made it easier to use .

Sarah Pitt who is from Milford has just been appointed as our Parish clerk replacing Sue Whitmarsh who has retired , and many will know Bob West who is now our new handyman.

Projects

2 main projects affecting Everton have been progressed .

The Radar Speed indicator is now on order,and should be in use in a few months,initially in locations on the A337,Everton Road and Wainsford road , as well as other locations in Hordle and Tiptoe. This should help to reduce speeding on our roads, and will provide data to Hampshire CC and the Police to build a case for road improvements. The Community Speed Watch volunteers will soon be active again ,but in many cases can not operate on roads where we intend to use the Automatic VASLR.

Everton Play Park

Many people are aware and some have complained that our play park swings have been out of action due to safety concerns about the supporting wood columns. We are hoping to place a contract very soon to get the swings replaced ,and generally upgrade the park facilities. We will try to make this happen quickly ,but it is taking longer than anyone wants . Please bear with us . We are also looking to plant more trees and wildflowers in the area of the play park , as we have been given a small grant for this .

COVID-19

During the Covid period , the PC has continued to be available by phone and email, has operated the Covid Support Hub and supported volunteers doing deliveries , getting prescriptions ,making masks , and helping out generally . It is a great achievement that Covid has had only a minimal direct impact in Everton, though the indirect the impact has nevertheless been significant and around throughout.