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Annual General Meeting 2004Minutes of the Cottenham Village Design Group Meeting held on 24 February 2004 at CVCRobin Heydon, chairman opened the meeting and welcomed everyone. There were 14 people present. Robin introduced the talk by Chris Jakes, Curator of the Cambridgeshire Collection. Refreshments were served after the talk. The Annual General Meeting of 1. Apologies were received from Hugh Gautrey and Moira Malfroy. 2. Treasurer’s report. Steven Poole presented his report. The group has spent very little money in the past 12 months. Income has been low. The total balance on 31 January was £283 83p. Steven proposed raising the membership subscription from £3 to £4 per annum. This motion was carried. 3. Planning applications report. Steven reported that the Group viewed a total of 91 applications over the past 12 months. There were 14 Traveller-related applications. Every year the greatest proportion of applications relate to extensions. Often we pass no comment on this type of application. Last year there were a few infill applications and almost no plans put forward for more than one building. SCDC approve most applications. The refusal rate is about 22%. However, most applications are granted by SCDC the second time. In the past year we did not comment on 37% of applications. These were mainly extensions. We objected to 20% of the remainder. John Williams stressed that though we made some negative comments, we seldom gave just negative ones on an application. We always draw from the Design Statement for our comments. Any member of the Group can help with the planning comments. If interested please contact Steven Poole? 4. Activities of the Group. Robin talked about Northstowe and a meeting some of the committee had with Gallaghers, the property developers for this proposed new town. The two burning issues are flooding and traffic. From the floor, Mike Mason commented that discharge of water is a critical issue. Robin what are the next steps with Gallaghers? Are we proposing to have further meetings with them and if so how are we progressing with this? Robin pointed put that the guided bus system has now been approved. However, the route will not pass through Cottenham parish. Nevertheless, there will be an impact on Cottenham from increased traffic e g near the Oakington stop. Robin, what is this report on the Guided bus system, where we have to give comments by the end of March? During the year there were two outings by some of the members of the Group. The first in July was to Cambourne, where we met Mike Huntington. He gave us a tour of three different areas of the town, starting with the oldest area of the settlement. In January 2004 we visited Dickerson’s waste management park, Waterbeach. 5. Election of Officers. There were elections for the posts of officers of the committee. The results were: In addition Nick Stevenson and Rebecca Tindall Stevenson were re-elected onto the committee. Both Andrew Withers and Hugh Gautrey have resigned from the committee. In the past 12 months. We have approached both The Parish Council and The Village Society for nominees. No nominations have been put forward. The 2004 committee is: Robin Heydon - Chair 6. Revision of the Village Design Statement. Robin reported that the design statement will stay as a supplementary planning guide for the next 3 years. It the needs to be updated. John Williams provided provisional review on revision comments last November (recorded in the Minutes of 25 November Meeting). He commented that we are light on general principles in the statement. He commented on: extensions, mobile homes, bricks and tiles, thatch, features such as roof ridges (don’t use red ridges with grey slate), chimneys, outside meter boxes and boiler flues, roads and street furniture, light pollution. The statement needs to be strengthened in all these areas. We plan to do this by a supplement to the existing statement. We should be aware that SCDC is working on a generic (is that the right word?) statement. What action are we actually taking for the revision of our own statement? John or Steve leading this? 7. AOB. Mike Mason raised the issue of the two village greens, currently being discussed by the Parish Council. Hugh Gautrey has voiced concern about the second green. Mike Smith said we have not been involved with the Village Plan and need to be. Way forward? 8. Date of next meeting. Tuesday 16 March 04. |
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