FROM YOUR ON THE SPOT PARISH COUNCIL REPORTER
Not much to to report from the June parish council meeting. There were only three councillors present, no Westmorland & Furness (W&F) cllrs and quite a short agenda. The update on the 20mph speed limit didn't reveal much new. Consultation on the issue is now delayed due to the General Election and when it does get off the ground the format will be decided by W&F. The parish council is already thinking about how to ensure that all households not only get the information but can have their say.
Having seen what an improvement to the village green and church environs removal of the bus shelter has made, there are now no plans to resite the notice boards in that area. The council are still looking at other options to make the notice boards more noticeable! Renovation of the pavement has been asked for and there was also some discussion and a suggestion about how to stop parking on it afterward.
The annual audit for 2023/24 of the financial position has been completed satisfactorily and the associated annual paper work completed and signed. No current cash or budget statements were presented to the meeting, 'the books being with the auditor still'.
More interesting snippets of information came up during the Correspondence section. The work which was due to start in June and would close Oxenholme Lane has now been delayed until July and after St Mark's school has closed. It took one of the cllrs to intervene to get this decision but you really would have hoped that Open Reach themselves could have come up with this obviously better solution. There was also some talk that at some point fibre would have to be laid to get across the village green. As neither digging up the green nor poles across the green are acceptable lets hope a bit of lateral thinking can be applied to that challenge.
No reply has been received from W&F about the meaning and legality of the white lines at the bottom of Oxenholme Lane so an enterprising cllr went to the police for a decision. There too there seemed to be a bit of confusion about the purpose of those specific lines was but in general white lines delineate the edge of the road (in this case the wall seems to do that job quite effectively) and any other intention would not be enforceable.
The next meeting is on Monday 29th July at 7pm.