Happy Christmas to all of our readers

As Christmas Day is fast upon us we wish all of our readers and the residents of the ward a very Happy Christmas and a Prosperous New Year.

Best Wishes from Trevor, Gordon and Ben.

There are no events planned this week.

Review of Full Council and look ahead to w/c 17th December

Full Council - Thursday 13th December

Key points from last full council were:

1:  Presentation to the Chairman's' secretary Dawn Bircher who will be sadly missed and also to the outgoing members of the Standards Committee.

2:  A debate was held on the motion proposed by our Labour group leader Cllr Kevin Richards to ask the Council to look into becoming a Living Wage employer.  After some resistance, a slight amendment was requested and the motion was accepted.

3:  During a review of previous minutes, the issue of lack of broadband on Castleton park was brought to the attention of full council.  Further news on this item will follow in due course.

The meeting was held without the Chairman and Vice-Chair due to illness of the Chairman and the Vice-Chairs' husband.  We wish them all a speedy recovery.

W/C 17th December

With Christmas fast approaching, there are just a few meetings planned for this week:

Wednesday 19th December - Audit Sub-committee

Thursday 20th December - Special Environment & Development Services Committee and Special Finance & Management Committee.

Archived Newsletters

As we are not always able to deliver our newsletters to all houses within the ward, we will copy information from them onto the blog.

These can be found in the archived newsletter page on the right hand side.

The latest newsletter was mainly aimed at households potentially directly affected by proposed developments or recently approved ones.  It was distributed to Thorpe Downs Estate, Church Street and the Swadlincote Lane end of Castleton Park.

Big thanks to Mick and Lloyd who helped with the delivering - it was much appreciated.

Weekly Update w/c 10th December 2012

After another fairly quiet surgery on Saturday in which we did have residents expressing concerns over proposed developments, events for this week are as follows:

Tuesday 11th December

Tree Planting in Maurice Lea Park by local School Children.

Planning Committee - 6pm.  

No items within Church Gresley Ward.

Wednesday 12th December

Overview and Scrutiny Committee - Civic Offices 6 pm

Thursday 13th December

Full Council - Civic Offices 6 pm

Forthcoming Events: w/c 3rd December

Thursday 6th December

Finance & Management Committee - 6pm.

Friday 7th December

Derbyshire Young Achievers Award Ceremony - Matlock

This is not a South Derbyshire District Council event but will be attended by the Chairman.  We mention this event as there will be local youngsters collecting awards.  Among them will be Nikita Robinson, 17, from Church Gresley who has shown great motivation and initiative and provided our community with a fantastic outlet for youngsters aged 3-9 by setting up Nikita's Mini Stars and Choir.

This is a truly wonderful event with many inspirational children and stories to match.  The prizes will be given out this year by Robbie Savage.

Saturday 8th December

Our Surgery at York Road Methodist Church - 10am.  All Welcome.

Housing & Community Services 29th November

Several items on the agenda were discussed including a solution to reduce homelessness costs, a report to update how the council will improve understanding of the government Green Deal, a pilot scheme on the use of Sprinkler systems in partnership with the fire authority in 8 properties with vulnerable occupants, a review of the Strategic Tenancy Strategy, approval to make vital repairs to Netherseal village Hall and some small amendments to housing allocations policy with respect to armed forces personnel.

The Corporate and Work Plan were also reviewed.

All items on the agenda were approved, with agreement being made on all except the Strategic Tenancy Strategy.  The Labour Group had several reservations on certain points.