Extracts from Executive Committee minutes

Meetings are held on the 2nd Tuesday of the month at 8pm in St John's Church Hall, Hallowell Road.

Meeting held on Tuesday 13th May 2008

Whilst waiting for the guest speaker to arrive, two planning matters were dealt with:
a). Planning Application for 42 – 46 Ducks Hill Road. The Director of Planning was recommending refusal. The application was due to go before the Planning Committee that evening, 13th May.
b). Cornerways, Tudor Lodge and Santa Rosa, Green Lane. Application to demolish three detached houses and build 14 flats in a 3-4 storey block. Our Road Steward for Green Lane West had asked us to email all of the other Road Stewards to alert them to this application and ask them to write letters of objection.
It was agreed that we should not use Road Stewards’ email addresses for this purpose, but that the following action be taken:
- Colin to write a piece about the application for the web site.
- NRA to write a letter of objection.
- If they wished members present to sign the petition which Sue had brought on behalf of Road Steward.

In the absence of the expected guest, the meeting continued:

Matters Arising from April Minutes.

Malcolm reported that he had written to the Borough Commander regarding the increase in burglaries in Northwood from August 2007 to February 2008. He had also requested a Crime Prevention talk. There was concern that our Safer Neighbourhood Team had helped in the operation to clampdown on burglary in the South of the Borough.
Mossleigh Appeal. No result yet.
Additional meetings. It was agreed that it was not for the NRA to organise meetings for politicians, but that it would be good to enable other groups e.g. police, health workers to answer questions from members. Colin to organise an open meeting in October.

Correspondence.

Glenn Nuttall had asked
a) Why the tree outside Barclays Bank had been felled
b) Why the Eastbury Road uplift trees had been trampled.
The tree was felled as part of the Improving Northwood scheme. Valerie had spoken about it to Sally Phillips at LBH who had made the following comments:
1. The tree had been under review for three years
2. It was overgrown and obscured the CCTV camera
3. Suckers needed cutting back
4. Possibly causing (or would cause) subsidence
5. Three trees to be planted in lieu

Sub-Committee Reports

Environment.

Barry had circulated his report before the meeting.
BT Kiosks. Lisa had sent a copy of her proposed petition to the meeting. This was accepted with the one proviso that it should name NRA as the organiser of the petition. It was agreed that the petition should be placed in several shops and that Lisa would organise a rota of committee members to collect signatures in the town centre during June.
Holy Trinity Safe Routes To School. Sue had met Andy Codd from LBH regarding Holy Trinity’s needs. It emerged that St Martin’s school also needs to produce a travel plan before LBH will look at measures for Kewferry Road. Holy Trinity school needs safe crossing places on Rickmansworth and Kewferry Roads.
Andy Codd had suggested that pupils get up a petition and send it to LBH.
Rubbish. LBH has been advised of the Rowland Place problem.
Estate Agents’ Boards. At the request of a resident, Barry had investigated the regulations for erecting For Sale boards. Details will be in the newsletter. Barry had sent photographs of many boards contravening the regulations to LBH.
Speeding in The Drive. A resident had contacted the committee about this via the web site. Tony said this emphasised the need for 20 mph zones.

Health

Valerie and Lesley had circulated their report covering:
- Community Voice Meeting 1.5.2008 The speaker was Jan Filochowski, CEO of West Herts Hospitals Trust on “Watford General Hospital & West Herts Trust”.
- The Radiotherapy Centre at Mount Vernon now officially opened.
- Minibus service is operating between Hillingdon Hospital and Mount Vernon and between Mount Vernon and the Royal Free.

Improving Northwood.

Keith announced that he had decided to step down from the committee as he is spending much less time in Northwood than he used to.
He was still waiting for LBH to arrange a further meeting on the Improving Northwood Plan, and urged the committee to keep up the pressure to make sure the Plan is actually implemented.

Membership.

Nothing to report.

Business membership.

Gareth will press on with the task of enrolling businesses.
Window stickers for 2008 members should be ready in a few days.
Keith reiterated his point that businesses do need to get together as a group.

Police.

- Ann still had no acknowledgement for our comments on the Asset Management Plan.
- She announced that she is joining the executive Consultative committee which was due to meet the following month.
- The current crime problems are the theft of garden furniture and metals.
- Discussions are taking place regarding the Youth Club management.

Planning.

Colin welcomed Alan Prue, who is returning to the committee on a temporary basis to deal with Planning matters. An advert for a Planning Officer will appear in the Newsletter.
Alan circulated his report. The only application to which objections had been made was the one at ‘Cornerways’ (see 2b), and comments had been made about two others.

Woods.

The Open Day had been well attended by the public who were able to see falconry displays, lumberjacks working etc.
Pond pollution in Copse Wood – a source had been identified.

Web Site.

The number of visits had increased to 734 in April. Members do use the web site to communicate with the committee e.g. this month we have had membership applications, requests for help and information about Estate Agents’ boards, residents’ parking bays and speeding cars in The Drive.

AOB

a). Colin had received a request from the Northwood Live at Home Scheme for a donation to help them run training courses for their volunteers. Keith proposed that we should donate £500, seconded by Alan Klein. The proposal was accepted by the meeting.
b). Keith was presented with a gift in recognition of his time serving on the committee and thanked for all his efforts in producing the NRA Improving Northwood Plan.
c). David Wilson suggested that it was time we used stronger language to express our dissatisfaction with our council; we were in danger of becoming simply a talking shop. It was agreed that he would write a hard-hitting article for the newsletter.
d). Barry reminded everyone to put Alan Prue back on their email lists. (Also need to delete Keith).
Barry also floated the idea of having a stall in the town centre to promote the NRA.
e). In view of the musical performance taking place in the main hall, Valerie asked if we could consider a new venue for meetings.
f). Newsletter. Ros reported that five businesses had submitted small ads and that a great deal of copy had been forthcoming. She requested that, if necessary, she could extend the newsletter to 10 sides instead of the usual eight. It was agreed that she could do so.

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