Hampshire County Council is asking people who live, work and study in Hampshire to have their say on proposed changes to libraries.

Odiham Library is listed as one of the ten libraries identified for possible closure.

The full consultation can be read at:

https://www.hants.gov.uk/aboutthecouncil/haveyoursay/consultations/library-consultation

If you’re a Hampshire resident you will need to register your vehicle to access Household Waste Recycling Centre.  You can register here:
https://www.hants.gov.uk/wasteandrecycling/recyclingcentres/vehicle-registration

The Planning Committee is meeting on Tuesday 7 January 2020 at 8.30 pm.

Planning list

Hart District Council has arranged for Christmas trees to be recycled from a number of locations from Saturday 4 January until Sunday 2 February 2020.  See more details here.

Due to some technical issues, the committee agendas are not available on the usual pages of the website – apologies.

Traffic & Transport Committee agenda.

Planning Committee agenda.

In the Autumn newsletter OPC shared a link to a short Survey Monkey questionnaire offering residents an opportunity to rank possible priorities for the village and offer alternatives.  The link was also promoted via the OPC website and Facebook page.  It was open for about three weeks. A preliminary analysis of the 157 responses gives us a clear starting point:

Re-energising the High Street is a clear winner with a weighted score of 4.2 out of 5. Sustainable transport came second at 3.2. Local heritage and biodiversity were tied at 2.7  with sporting and leisure facilities at 2.3.

In the free response section, respondents went into more detail on one of these themes, such as maintenance and repair of heritage assets, keeping green field sites, promoting the footpath network.  There were other ideas too – traffic calming in one form or another was a frequent issue.

One suggestion which came up often, usually linked to the High St, was to do something about parking.  Hart are currently consulting on the paid parking in Deer Park View and the Bury car parks.  We are looking at costings for free 30 minute or 1 hour parking options, as well as looking at the impact on all day parking for those working on the High St. OPC subsidy for this is one option.

As we develop our plans for the next 3 ½ years we will be guided by the Neighbourhood Plan (NHP). The monitoring group has been re-energised with the addition of two co-opted members, regular monitoring of the results of planning applications and responses to new applications that are informed by the policies set out in the NHP. It is encouraging that Hart are taking notice of the importance of the policies in their decisions and frequently cite non-compliance as reason for refusing permission.

Thank you to all those who responded to this first foray into consultation – do not worry if you missed out.  As plans develop and opportunities arise we will continue to listen and seek views from the community we are here to serve.

Just to remind you that the main cemetery gates at the entrance to the drive will be closed on Saturday 4 January 2020, as advised on the notice of opening hours.  Closure is for one day only. We hope that this does not cause any inconvenience.

To mark Parliament Week the 1^stOdiham Guides visited the Parish Room to learn about local representation at work.  They took the opportunity to lobby for action on a subject close to their hearts – the problem of pollution by discarded, single-use plastic.  They had some good ideas on how we can all do more to help solve this threat to the environment.  Here are their suggestions –

• Buy less plastic and try to influence big brands to use less plastic especially in wrapping.

  Use reusable bottles, bags and coffee cups.

• Use alternatives to plastic: paper cotton buds, wax wrap or boxes instead of plastic film. 
• Don’t use single-use plastic cutlery, straws or coffee cups.

Plastic makes pollution
And pollution is bad
So we have to stop now
Before the world turns sad

The SID recently monitored traffic in King Street outside the entrance to Mayhill and Buryfields schools for 4 weeks.  The road is used by approximately 750 vehicles per day and the average recorded speed was just under 19 mph.  85% of vehicles were travelling at less than 26 mph (this is the percentage which might trigger action if it exceeded the speed limit).  OPC will continue to press for an extension of the 30 mph limit beyond the Cricket Club and will monitor the traffic in King Street as frequently as possible to gather more data.

OPC has been contacted about The Listed Property Owners Club (https://www.lpoc.co.uk/).  This may be of interest to the owners of the 167 listed buildings in the Parish.  However OPC does not endorse this organisation and there may be other sources of similar information.