Chris Flynn, Chair Parish Council.

Another 3 months has passed since my last report. Lots of events and activities have taken place since then. The Parish Ball and Carol singing raised funds of around £1200 for local good causes. This year it was split between our 3 local schools and the over 60’s club. We held a pantomime, Aladdin, at the Caledon Centre in January. Many families came along and enjoyed a good afternoon’s entertainment. The Ultimate Beatles performed to a capacity crowd at the Caledon Centre’s New Years Eve party with everyone having a great time. A Burn’s night supper was held at the centre also in January with everyone saying “the best one yet”.
Budget Set
The Parish council set its budget in February. Councillors recognise the fact that we are living in economically tough times and whilst indications show that we may be coming out of recession, we are conscious of the constraints put upon our residents in terms of rising fuel bills and living expenses and also the fact that for many, wage increases have been frozen in line with 0% inflation figures. Also savers have taken a hit with lower interest rates. This is why I am pleased to tell you that the Labour run Parish Council’s Precept has gone down slightly from last year. We have managed to achieve this without cutting the excellent services we provide for our community or the grants we are able to give to local groups. In fact we have agreed in our budget to make a one off payment of £4000 to the local Scouting Organisation to help them with much needed repairs to the roof on their meeting place in Chicken Lane. Significant grants are also included for the Citizens Advice Bureau and the London Colney Youth Project (The Base).
Accessibility
To help make the Pavilion in White Horse Lane more accessible to our disabled residents, a new toilet facility has now been built at the pavilion at Morris Way. New bus shelters are to be provided this year along Barnet road once the planned improvements along the High Street and Barnet road have been completed. These works are due to start in the summer holidays. Along with the road improvements, shrub beds are also to be planted along this stretch of road and the Parish Council hope to take over the maintenance of these in order to keep them up to a good standard, as we have the troughs further up the High Street,
Napsbury Park
The Napsbury Facilities are being well used. Not only do we have several football teams playing there, we will have cricket for men, women and children, basketball, tennis, rugby, five a side on the MUGA and archery has also been mentioned. The pavilion is also being used for parties and for local groups to use for meetings.
Thanks
It is good to see the hours of daylight getting longer as spring approaches, but this all means more work for our groundsmen. Everything starts to grow like topsy, the grass, the shrubbery, the trees and the weeds! Grass cutting and pitch maintenance inevitably take up a lot of their time but I know how much it is appreciated that residents and users are always complimenting us on our well kept green areas. During the winter months the lads have been busy carrying out maintenance works on the play equipment, benches and the Caledon Centre as well as planning works for the coming spring. A big thanks to Leigh, Steve and Mike for all their hard work. I would also like to thank our Office staff, Gill, Linda and Simon, based at the Caledon Centre for all their help and support with the very full programme of activities we had leading up to and over the Christmas period.
Our Thursday Lunch Club has proved to be so successful we have now extended it to Tuesdays. I’d like to thank Parish councillors Gordon, Bowes, Crouch and Jones who work as volunteers at the lunch club, not forgetting the other volunteers who kindly give up their free time to come and help – we couldn’t do it without you. If you would like to volunteer for a couple of hours at the lunch club on either a Tuesday or Thursday please ring the office on 821314.
Congratulations
Finally, congratulations to Labour’s Maria Aguado who was elected to the Parish Council after a by-election in the northwest ward on 11th Feb. This was called following the sad loss of Parish Councillor Robin Cooper. I’m looking forward to Maria’s input into the Parish Council.