There are currently 2 issues of interest........

1. Have Your Say on speeding through the village.

2. Street Lighting Proposals

Have Your Say

Several villagers have complained to the Parish Council about the speed of some traffic through the village.

Our local Beat Officer, Andy Cooper, attended the last Council Meeting. He informed the Council of the various strategies which could be followed to help with this.

1. The village could join with other local villages to purchase a portable illuminated speed sign.
2. Andy Cooper could bring a speed gun to selected points in the village. No prior warning would be given. He would give offending drivers speed tickets or warnings at his discretion.
3. If 10% of villagers were willing to volunteer to use a speed gun, he would provide training and support. Volunteers would only be empowered to give offenders warnings.

If you wish to comment on the above, or to volunteer to man a speed gun, please

E mail the Council on contact@smeetonwesterbypc.org.uk

Telephone either of the following:
Ann Clarke (Clerk) 0116 2793913
Gordon Arthur (Chairman) 0116 2793995

Or you could use the handy online form below.

Street Lighting Proposals

In the last week the local media have focused on a story about proposals to cut street lighting in the County. This follows a press release issued by the County Council on 8 December to coincide with proposals to be considered by the Cabinet of the County Council on 15 December. You may have been surprised to see that Smeeton Westerby has “volunteered” to take part and members of the Parish Council were equally surprised to read this. We therefore think it would be helpful to clarify what we know about this.
In common with individuals and other organisations, Smeeton Westerby Parish Council has received numerous communications exhorting us to promote or endorse energy saving schemes. At the Council’s September meeting we considered that the most obvious energy saving possibility would be some sort of limitation on the very bright street lighting in the village. We contacted the County Council to enquire about this and were told that some proposals were in fact being worked up for consideration by the County Council Cabinet in December and they would let us know more in due course.
This week details have been revealed of the proposals to be considered by the Cabinet of the County Council on 15 December and these include the following:

- dimming of approximately 2,000 lights (250w) on main routes between 22:00 and 07:00

- switching off permanently approximately 1,000 lights in rural areas or on roads where houses have no frontage

- part night lighting pilot scheme to switch off up to 40,000 lights between 24:00 and 05:30 in residential streets (starting with 6 villages including Smeeton Westerby.

Upon receipt of these details, we contacted our County Councillor, Kevin Feltham, to point out that Smeeton Westerby Parish Council had merely expressed general interest and had not volunteered to participate in any scheme. Kevin Feltham referred this to the Project Manager, Kingsley Cook, who gave the following response:
“ There are no specific proposals as yet for Smeeton Westerby, however it is likely to be part -night lighting (switching off between 24:00 and 05:30) for most of the lights. The first part of the process will be to carry out a risk assessment for the village and to prepare a plan showing the proposed changes. This will then be circulated to the emergency services and the Parish Council. I would expect we would attend a Parish Council meeting to explain the proposals and get feedback”.
Kingsley Cook has also said that if the Cabinet approves the project on 15 December he will need to allocate more staff to the project and start the Consultation process (probably in February/March) and that the earliest time for any changes would be April/May 2010.
This is the latest information available to the Parish Council and as soon as we have further details they will posted on the Parish Council website www.smeetonwesterbypc.org.uk. At the moment the Parish Council’s view is that this is a proposal worth considering but we await the relevant details as part of the consultation process.

Gordon Arthur – Chairman
Ann Clarke – Clerk to the Council
10.12.2009