Given we are currently focused on our local roads (though speed has not been the main issue over the last few days), it seemed timely to create this post in response to Living Streets‘ new campaign (see their press release below) to persuade Councils to move faster on creating more 20 mph speed limits.
In January of this year the Department of Transport issued new guidance giving Councils more freedom to create 20 mph zones. Road safety is a topic that is periodically raised here on the Blog and with Parwich Parish Council. Previously there has been some local support for creating such a zone in Parwich; the Peak Park Authority would potentially support this, but historically the County Council has been resistant to schemes in villages such as Parwich.
Does the new government guidance give us a chance to raise this again? Is this also an issue for Alsop en le Dale, Ballidon and Pikehall? Will ‘part night’ street lighting impact on what are safe speeds? What are your thoughts? (more…)
There continues to be strong support for some form of reduction in street lighting (86%), with the largest group in favour of making a decision on a light by light basis. So far the individual street light polls in general suggest some lights remain on all night in Main Street (including Chestnut and Sycamore Cottages) and Shaw Lane, through routes, including some that the County Council propose part night, but there is a split vote in relation to Smithy Lane, also a through route. In contrast for the rest of the village the polls support all lights being part night, more than proposed by the County Council, with the exception of Kiln Lane where there is support for the Council’s proposal to turn some lights off completely.
Parwich Parish Council have set up a sub-committee to forward their views, and will be taking these poll results into account on Wednesday. The County Council’s community engagement runs to the 2nd of April, so you can still contact them directly. The polls here at PARWICH.ORG will continue open until next Sunday (31st March), so those who have not done so already can still vote:
Polls for individual Parwich street lights: (more…)
Here are some interim results from the polls at PARWICH.ORG on the County Councils proposals for part nightstreet lighting in Parwich village, which are being discussed at tonight’s Parish Council meeting.
Although there is a wide range of genuinely held opinions, so far there seems to be strong support for some reduction in street lighting (86%) with the largest group in favour of making a decision on a light by light basis.
Decide on a light by light basis – 53%
Turn all lights off for part of the night – 23%
Turn street lights off altogether – 10%
Keep all lights on all night – 14%
Looking at the individual polls (see Draft Interim Report for the workings out), PARWICH.ORG readers so far disagree with the proposals for 14 lights, have not reached a consensus for 4 lights, and agree with the proposals for 15 lights. (more…)
So far there seems to be strong support for some reduction in street lighting (89%), with the largest group in favour of making a decision on a light by light basis. Up to this morning, Friday 15th March, 36 people have responded to our general poll:
Decide on a light by light basis – 50%
Turn all lights off for part of the night – 28%
Turn street lights off altogether – 11%
Keep all lights on all night – 11%
In relation to the polls for individual lights, so far, things are less clear cut: some indicate agreement with the County Counci’s specific suggestion, others indicate disagreement with the proposals, though for many there is a split vote giving no clear consensus. (more…)
The poll in our previous post is so far indicating a majority support some form of part night lighting in Parwich. This further post contains individual polls for each street light in the Village.
You can have your say on which street lights are turned off for part of the night and which remain on by contacting:
Derbyshire County Council directly by Tuesday 2nd April 2013 on their Parwich consultation page or by post to Street Lights, Derbyshire County Council, County Hall, Matlock, DE4 3AG
Parwich Parish Council prior to their next meeting on Wednesday 20th March 2013, by speaking to a councillor, by emailing the Clerk on sandra.hampson@hotmail.co.uk, or by attending the open section of their meeting.
or here at
PARWICH.ORG by completing the polls below and adding comments. We will then forward poll results and any comments to the County Council prior to the close of the Parwich consultation on the 2nd April.
The County Council’s rationale in deciding their proposals can be seen on their website, but they will not understand as well as us how we might be effected, so please fill in at least the polls for the lights outside your house.
There should be a separate poll below for each Parwich street light (based on plan circulated by Derbyshire County Council): (more…)
Although the Council have already consulted on the general issue, we felt our readers might like to have a say on whether ‘part night lighing’ in general is a good idea:
Parwich households should have received a letter today telling them that Derbyshire County Council is now consulting on turning some Parwich street lights off for part of the night. (Click here for the consultation timetables for Derbyshire communities.) (more…)
Derbyshire Dales District Council is managing a scheme to make homes cheaper to heat.
Old and uneconomical boilers could be replaced for free as the District Council encourages local residents to improve energy efficiency. But the deadline for applications is the end of March.
Around £2.5m funding is being shared between 14 district and borough councils across Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire after the District Council was successful in a national competition run by the Department of Energy and Climate Change. In order to make homes warmer and more energy efficient, householders can apply to the scheme for the replacement of old and inefficient boilers, replacement boilers where it is not economical to repair, boiler repairs and installation of new heating systems.
To qualify for the free work, Dales residents must be owner-occupiers with savings of less than £16,000, and be in receipt of certain benefits such as Pension Credit, Income Support, Child Tax Credit or housing/council tax benefits.Anyone not receiving benefit but having a total household income of £18,000 or less, could also be eligible for support from the scheme.
The scheme is being handled by the established Warmstreets team, who have been working with Derbyshire Dales District Council over the past two years to provide loft and cavity insulation.
To enquire, call the Warmstreets team on 0800 043 9569.
Applications are being invited to run the café at Derbyshire Dales District Council’s Arc Leisure Matlock as the landmark attraction nears half a million visits.
Arc has gone from strength to strength since opening to the public in August 2011 and being officially unveiled by London Olympics mastermind Sebastian Coe KBE a couple of months later. The facility currently attracts as many as 6,000 visits in a single week.
Chairman of Derbyshire Dales District Council’s Communities Committee Councillor Mrs Carol Walker said: “This is an incredible opportunity for an established or start-up business that understands what regular visitors to Arc Leisure Matlock want to see on the café’s menu.”
For further details call Dave Turvey on 01629 761224 or email dave.turvey@derbyshiredales.gov.uk
The first detailed policy review in 10 years of public car parks across the Derbyshire Dales begins soon.
And Derbyshire Dales District Council – which operates 33 pay and display car parks throughout the Dales – will be inviting local people and traders to give their views on the way ahead.
The first opportunity will be at the District Council’s latest series of Area Community Forums in February, at Shirley Community Space (St Michael’s Church) on Monday 4th, Wirksworth Memorial Hall on Monday 11th and Bakewell Agricultural Business Centre on Monday 18th. All start at 7pm.
A formal consultation programme will follow in March and April, including focus groups with traders, residents, disabled users, town and parish councils and tourism and stakeholder organisations.
Feedback will also be available by post and online.
Every household in the Derbyshire Dales currently receives a free car park permit enabling them all to park free of charge at every District Council car park before 11am and after 4pm every day of the week. For the past five years the District Council has also made parking free after 2pm for everyone throughout December to encourage people to shop locally. (more…)
For the avoidance of doubt, not every property in the Dales gets a double collection next week: only those properties where collections have been missed to date.
So, the many Dales residents who have been lucky enough to have their usual collections through the snow will just get their regular collection next week.
We have received this from Deryshire Dales this morning:
Derbyshire Dales bin collections update:
To enable us to catch up with this week’s missed bin collections caused by weather disruptions, please note we will be collecting food, household waste and garden waste AT THE SAME TIME next week, from Monday 28 January, on residents’ normal collection day.
So, as a one-off, if we have missed bins because of the weather, we’re asking residents please to leave out food, household waste and garden containers together next week.
Properties that did not receive a recycling collection on Monday 21 January because of snow should get a collection this weekend.
Any recycling collections not possible this weekend will be completed on the next scheduled recycling day.
Any other recycling collections missed this week will now be completed on the next scheduled collection day.
We have received the following communication from Derbyshire Dales District Council:
By working yesterday (Sunday), crews managed to catch up with most of last week’s snow-enforced missed collections. Any remaining areas missed last week will get a “double” collection (household waste and garden waste) this week – these households should please leave out household and green waste containers, plus food caddies, for collection.
The following Christmas parking concession has been announced by DDDC. It takes effect from 1st December.
“Free parking from 2pm throughout December comes on top of residents’ parking concessions which allow local people to park free every day of the year up to 11am and after 4pm. So, over the Christmas period, Dales residents have free parking for 21 hours each day (before 11am and after 2pm). The aim is to help local people and local traders.”
Free parking extends to midnight each day and motorists are reminded not to leave anything valuable in their vehicles as the lead up to Christmas can also be a choice time for thieves.
The Labour candidate, Alan Charles, was elected as Derbyshire’s first Police and Crime Commissioner. Nationally there was a very low turn out of 15.6%, though locally in Derbyshire Dales it was slightly better at 19.1%.
Earlier this week our new waste and recycling contractor Serco Ltd issued a media statement in which they stated they were confident all outstanding containers would be delivered and missed collections cleared by today (Friday 2 November).
It is now evident that Serco won’t hit this target, so here’s a statement from Derbyshire Dales District Council’s Director of Community Services, Peter Foley:
We are hugely disappointed with the performance of our waste contractors, Serco. But whilst we appreciate they have experienced serious issues, the only thing that matters to us is that our residents receive the service they have every right to expect.
We are working with Serco on a continual basis to resolve the problems. At the highest level, Serco are fully aware that we are holding them to account and they have responded with an action plan that includes the use of significant extra resources.
We know from comments made to us by local people that the majority of households are delighted with the new service as it enables them to recycle more at home than ever before. So when Serco eventually get it right for everyone, it’s going to be a first class service.
However, Serco know their performance to date is unacceptable and they need to get it right – and soon – to comply with their contractual obligations. They are fully aware we are not prepared to accept anything less.
Broadband speeds seem to have become remarkably variable in the village, those of us using AOL on WiFi perhaps currently feeling the most frustrated. However everyone please don’t forget to register for better Broadband with Digital Derbyshire to help push improvements through.
10-20am Have just phoned the Council on their waste hotline (tel 01629 761122) to confirm that the general household waste collection is going ahead today. Took about 8 min to get through, but I guess that is not bad given the change over will be at its height. Cheryl and Patti and others will be calling about their missing blue bins.
They have confirmed that our black (or are they grey) general household waste bins should be collected today as normal on the old rota. They can’t confirm what time other than by 4pm. So leave your bins out.
Good luck dealing with the rubbish rainbow.
Peter
Added 12am: the bins around the Green and in Church Walk have now been emptied.
Next Thursday (October 11th) will be the last week of bin collections under the old regime.
Next Wednesday (October 10th), households in Parwich should be receiving their new containers. We will be keeping our existing grey and green bins, but we will also be welcoming three exciting new pieces of kit into our homes. Let’s meet them, shall we?
1)A full-sized blue bin, which replaces the old blue box and blue bag. The main part of the bin is for glass and plastic bottles, cans, and beverage cartons. An additional removable “basket insert” will sit inside the bin, to hold paper recycling.
For some households, i.e. those that don’t have room for an extra full-size bin, existing blue boxes and bags will be retained.
Larger amounts of cardboard, i.e. those that won’t fit inside the “bin within the bin”, should be flattened and left on the street, next to the bin. Don’t just put them in the main part of the bin, though! This would be a hideous mistake!
2)A small plastic “caddy”, to hold food waste (including tea bags). This will be kept indoors, probably in your kitchen. Special liner bags will be provided, or you can just scrape your food waste straight into the caddy. Warning: don’t use any other plastic bags as caddy liners! You will get into terrible trouble if you do!
3)A larger kerbside caddy, that gets put out for weekly collection. When your indoor caddy fills up, just tip it into the larger caddy. You don’t have to empty the special liner bags; you can just tie them up and plonk them in.
The new collection regime starts on Wednesday October 17th. All Parwich bin collections will be on Wednesdays from that point on – unless it’s a Bank Holiday week, which will mean a Thursday collection instead.
For Alsop and Ballidon, it looks as if Wednesday will be your new collection day as well. For Pikehall, it’s probably going to be Thursdays instead. To check, follow this link and enter your post code. This will give you the first few collection dates, plus your own calendar to download. Note that the new regime doesn’t start until you’ve received your new bins, which does contradict some of the earliest dates on the main results page. (I’ve pointed this out to Derbyshire Dales, so they might correct this.)
Kerbside food caddies will be emptied every week. All the other bins will be emptied every fortnight. Yes, that includes your regular grey bin – but the theory is that you’ll be recycling so much stuff in your other bins, that there will hardly be anything left to put in your grey bin.
The fortnightly cycle will be: regular grey bins one week, green and blue bins together on the other week.
We will also mark each collection day on our DIARY page, and on the weekly “what’s on this week” posts. We will also keep a link to the collection calendar on our INFO page.
Derbyshire Dales are holding a number of roadshows, where you can get further advice from actual human beings, rather than websites and leaflets. However, none of them are coming anywhere near Parwich! But for those of you who are as “passionate about waste” as the council hopes you’ll be, here’s a link to the roadshow timetable, just in case you fancy making a special journey.
Still confused? (Or still not confused enough?) Then how about watching this special instruction film, put together by the good people at Derbyshire Dales District Counci?
(Sadly, it’s only eight and half minutes long, so some of the finer points of “best practice” may be somewhat glossed over.)
The roadshow is the latest element of an awareness campaign that includes an introductory leaflet that is being posted this week to all 33,000 homes in the Dales and online information at http://www.derbyshiredales.gov.uk/including a list of Frequently Asked Questions and a YouTube video guide.
Available soon will be an online postcode search facility, and detailed instructions and a collection calendar will be delivered with the new containers by the District Council’s new contractor Serco Ltd early in October.
The information roadshow was launched in Bakewell this Monday (24 September) and the mobile unit moves into Wirksworth on Tuesday, Matlock Sainsbury’s on Wednesday and Ashbourne Market Place on Thursday from 9.30am to 3pm each day. (more…)
Business Peak District sent us details of a day event aimed at helping local businesses improve their on-line presence:
FREE BPD Network Event – 19 September Marketing – Bringing your website alive and keeping your customers happy,
Business Peak District would like to invite you to the second Network Event on Wednesday 19 September 9.30 – 12.30 at The Royal Hotel, Hayfield. Once again we have some excellent speakers to offer advice and tips about email marketing campaigns, using videos and images to bring your website alive.
Where? – The Royal Hotel, Hayfield SK22 2EP When? – Wednesday 19 September 9.30am -12.30pm What? – Marketing – Bringing your website alive and keeping your customers happy – for anyone looking to use their website and email marketing campaigns to better attract their customers Why? – Promote your business locally, Networking and learn how to have an impressive visual website & carry out email marketing campaigns How? – complete the Booking Form by Monday 17 September via Survey Monkey link below to reserve a place!
We have an event packed with informative and helpful advice such as:
Duncan Wright, BSA Marketing, Glossop – a Practical Guide to email marketing campaigns
Dina Holland & Anna Brown, Derbyshire Retail Help – Open all hours – online selling skills
David King, David John King, Bamford – how to bring your website alive with video and images
Warm up to energy bill savings – before it’s too late
Time is running out for Derbyshire Dales residents to take advantage of lofty savings on their energy bills.
In the past year Derbyshire Dales District Council has helped local people save over £43,000 in energy bills and is urging local householders and private tenants to sign up to a scheme for free and discounted loft insulation and cavity wall insulation.
Last autumn 326 Dales households prepared for winter and beat rising energy prices by applying for subsidised loft and cavity wall insulation, resulting in an annual CO2 saving of 220 Tonnes.
Chairman of Derbyshire Dales District Council’s Environment Committee, Councillor Steve Bull, said: “The recent weather, which has felt more like October than July, should prompt local people to prepare for winter now to save cash when you really need the energy.
“Funding for the free and discounted scheme the District Council runs in partnership with Warmstreets ends in December 2012, so our advice is call us now.”
Call 0800 043 9569, or if calling from a mobile 0333 557 9569. Alternatively, visit warmstreets for more details. Warmstreets provides deals in renewable technologies, external wall insulation, replacement heating systems and other home improvements.
With the London Olympics creating a buzz throughout the country, Derbyshire Dales District Council has re-launched a range of summer holiday sporting activities for local youngsters.
StreetGames, a Safer Communities through Sport project, offers ‘doorstep’ sport to young people, helping to increase youth participation in sport, prevent youth crime and create volunteering opportunities.
All sessions are funded externally at no cost to Derbyshire Dales Council Tax payers and StreetGames for local young people are being staged by fully qualified coaches weekly across the Dales.
Here’s the Summer 2012 Street Games programme:
Ashbourne (Clifton Road Multi Use Games Area) – Thursdays 5.00pm to 6.00pm
Matlock (Helicopter Park, Hurst Farm) – Tuesdays 6.00pm to 7.00pm (11+ years)
Middleton-by-Wirksworth (Village Hall and playing fields) Thursdays 7.00pm to 9pm (8+ years)
By following these suggestions over the summer you will also be able to reduce what goes into the kerbside caddies when they appear this autumn as part of our spectacular new reycling scheme! Jane B
New press release from Derbyshire County Council.
LOVE FOOD HATE WASTE OVER SUMMER
Every month UK households each throw away an average £50 worth of food that could have been eaten. Wasting food also harms the environment and contributes to climate change.
Food lovers are being urged to visit a website which features tasty tips for using leftover food when having get-togethers over the summer. Derbyshire County Council is urging families to make use of tasty food or leftovers already stocked in cupboards, fridges or freezers over the summer months. Councillor John Allsop, cabinet member for technology and recycling, said: “We’re urging people to check out our website full of great ideas on how to prepare meals using leftover food.”
Some of the recipes you’ll find include:
A Quick Use-Up Pizza using leftover cheese and any favourite toppings you might have in the fridge.
Olive Tapenade Toasts which turns leftover bread into something more interesting.
Crispy Chicken Skewers which use a crispy coating made from leftover cheese and breadcrumbs made from slightly old bread.
For full recipes – and other great ideas for cutting down on food waste – go to the Love Food Hate Waste page of Derbyshire Council Council’s website. The recipes are in the “related documents” section near the bottom of the page under the title “recipes for special get-togethers”. For lots more recipes for all occasions check out the Love Food Hate Waste website.
Derbyshire Dales have recently launched a slide show to promote their new refuse and recycling service. This new service includes a new kerbside food waste collection and a number of other changes. Just incase your memory needs refreshing nearer the time, the following slideshow can also be found under the INFO tab at the top of the page. Any questions?!
This slideshow requires JavaScript.
If you are having difficulty seeing this slideshow then visit DDDC webpage to view it on their site, it’s the second video on the page.
PARWICH.ORG 