From FixMyStreet today, a Wakering problem:
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Broken pavement edges.
Reported in the Pavements/footpaths category anonymously at 13:16 today
Sent to Essex County Council 4 minutes laterPavement broken with large potholes at edge. This right outside Bell House main entrance, Bell House being shelted housing. Should be attended to with urgency when considering the residents who cross pavement in this location.
If you are interested in local history, or the Wakering area, be sure to look at http://www.wakeringheritage.org.uk/index.html . The website is full of stuff on Wakering, Barling and Foulness, from executing robbers in Anglo-Saxon times (men were hung, women were drowned) , to a list of people living there in 1874, to the Luftwaffe dropping in during WW2.
My aim is to reveal the history of Great Wakering and its surrounding villages over the past one hundred years. This period covers two World Wars and goes far enough back to the days when, cars, telephones, mobile Phones and computers did not exist. Life was much slower and aspirations lower but most communities co-existed in harmony.
Foulness is surely one of the most curious places in England – it’s been inhabited for millennia, but has been a centre for Hi-Tech weapons research. You need a pass , and a reason, to visit. There’s a slight Doctor Who or Quatermass feel to the place.
The Rochford District Community Archive explains one way to visit:
There is a very interesting and active Heritage Centre on the island of Foulness which is located in the old Foulness School buildings at Churchend. The centre is run by volunteers from the Foulness Conservation and Archaeological Society.
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The Heritage Centre is a vibrant and fascinating place containing artifacts dating back to prehistoric times found on the island. There is also an extensive contributed collection of photographs, documents and memorabilia.
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After many years of preparatory work the centre was opened in 2003 to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the East coast floods. Since then many visitors from the mainland have enjoyed the friendly atmosphere. Islanders past and present also come regularly to share the community spirit found in these familiar buildings.
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The centre is only open every first Sunday of the month from April to October between midday and 4pm. The entry gate is at Landwick. To get there, take the road from beside Great Wakering church. On arrival at the QinetiQ gatehouse you must obtain a vehicle day pass and drive from there directly to the Heritage Centre car park. There is no public transport between the gate and the centre and the distance is several miles.
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Weather permitting, a one hour tractor tour of the far end of the island starts at 2:30pm outside the centre.
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Sadly the pub at Churchend is closed down, but you can get a cup of tea and a cake at the centre. The post office beside the pub is worth looking at. It won’t be open on Sundays, but you can peep through the window! St Mary’s church is also now boarded up and in a dangerous state but still looks lovely in the Spring sunshine, witness the photo at the bottom of this page taken in April 2012.
Find out more about St Mary’s church here.
And they are from opposite sides of the district:
From Councillor Colin Seagers in Great Wakering:
Pavement trip hazard
Reported in the Pavements/footpaths category by Cllr Colin Seagers at 12:45, Saturday 3 November 2012
Sent to Essex County Council 4 minutes later
In front of The Oysters, Common Road, Great Wakering, Essex (about 15m past Wedds Way) a crack and ridge in tarmac pavement running at 90 degrees across most of pavement width. 3 trips reported to me, including an ankle injury and broken teeth resulting.
and from Mark Hooper in Rawreth:
Blocked Drainage in Rawreth Lane
Reported by Mark Hooper at 12:29, Sunday
Sent to Essex County Council and Rochford District Council 1 minute later
After the downpour of rain today, water is escaping from the drainage gratings in Rawreth Lane near to Cheshunt Drive. The surplus water is then flooding the road. Presumably the drains are blocked. Please can this be rectified. Many thanks.
Three Conservatives have put forward a motion for tomorrow night’s meeting of Full Council; it’s from Terry Cutmore, Keith Hudson and Heather Glynn:
‘This Council calls on the Royal Mail to reconsider very carefully the proposals to relocate the delivery offices currently available in Canewdon, Great Wakering and Rochford town.
Whilst noting the need for efficiency, the Council is concerned for the service level available for elderly and disabled residents as well as residents without transport in respect of the collection of non-delivered items and business collections of mail.
We trust that the Royal Mail will make their concluding decisions taking these matters fully into account.’
This is the last in our series looking at the crime figures across the district.
Crime in Great Wakering seems to be pretty infrequent, but in the summertime there’s some anti-social behaviour…
By the way, the July figures are now on the www.police.uk website.
Despite the air-conditioning working well, it was stormy in the District Council Chamber tonight!
We had a meeting of the Development Committee tonight. The leader and deputy leader of the council, Terry Cutmore and Keith Hudson were both absent, and they missed quite a bit.
There were two applications that caused the most interest.
The first was for the change of use of a former shellfish packing station in South Fambridge , to be used for the recovery of cars, to be repaired and prepared for exports. If you don’t know South Fambridge, it’s a very quiet, very rural riverside location at the end of a narrow lane:
The actual site is the grey triangle next to the yellow arrow.
Local residents were so concerned about this that probably more than half the population of the village came to the meeting. It was so crowded that one resident even ended up sitting in on one of the Lib Dem spaces on the councillors seats!
Officers were recommending refusal, on the grounds of the effect on the open character of the area and the extra commercial traffic. This was proposed and seconded by ward councillor Tracy Capon and her husband Phil Capon. Chris Black and John Mason added an extra reason – loss of amenity to residents and users of the nearby bridleway.
The application was refused almost unanimously. But two councillors were pretty annoyed at some aspects of how the application was dealt with.
First of all Phil Capon was very critical of how County Highways aren’t concerned about applications like this, saying “It’s about time County Highways got off their backsides and come and look at sites like these- with the amount of council tax people pay it’s time they did more.”
Then John Mason was extremely concerned that a noise analysis report sent in by the applicants wasn’t even mentioned in the officers report on the application. Councillors should be made aware about what evidence had been submitted.
The second item of interest was for a cafe/ restaurant in Great Wakering High Street. Councillor Colin Seagers was outraged – he actually used the word ‘incandescent’ to describe himself. Why? because photos of the High Street he had taken especially for the meeting had been emailed to officers in the officers in the afternoon but weren’t there at the meeting in the evening.
Because of this he actually got the item deferred to the next meeting.
Our district has another distinction – having “the deadliest path in Britain”
From the Guardian last month:
Examine a large-scale map of the Essex coastline between the river Crouch and the river Thames, and you’ll see a footpath which departs the land at a place called Wakering Stairs and heads east, straight into – or so it appears – the North Sea. A few hundred yards on, it veers north, heading out across Maplin Sands until, three miles later, it turns back in the direction whence it came, finally making landfall at Fisherman’s Head, on the edge of Foulness Island…..
…. anxiety rolls in, like Essex mist. The Broomway, which can only be crossed when the tide is out, is the deadliest path in Britain; Edwardian newspapers, relishing its rapacious reputation – 66 of its dead lie in Foulness churchyard – rechristened it “the Doomway”.
There’s some details of its deadly history in the 1867 book “History of Rochford Hundred” by Philip Benton , on page 220:
(incidentally we have a google to this book in our right sidebar)
There are some photos of the Broomway on the Creeksailor blog.
Some more recent FixMyStreet reports:
Reported in the Potholes category anonymously at 14:38, Thursday 26 April 2012
Sent to Essex County Council 1 minute later
Pot hole caused by recent rain. and somewhat disguised as a big puddle by the rain. was shocked when i mistakenly drove over it yesterday having been away from work for a few weeks and this pot hole developed in that time. a sharp, sudden pot hole that could damage cars, esp when looking like a puddle…
And an overflowing pond in Great Wakering, reported by Cllr Colin Seagers:
Flooded Road due to Blocked ECC Highways culvertReported by District Councillor Colin Seagers at 10:37 today
Sent to Essex County Council and Rochford District Council 3 minutes laterThe Pond on Common Road Great Wakering is overflowing into the road and a nearby garden AGAIN, due to Essex County Highways failure to clear their culvert where it runs beneath the verge and cottage front gardens.
The latest lists of new planning applications can be found on the District Council website here. They are the lists dated March 30th and April 6th. Most of the applications are for extensions etc but there are some bigger ones:
C.F.P. Community Services ( Who provide “Community support for individuals with learning disabilities, mental health illnesses and other conditions, including personal care and transportation to community activities”) have an application in Great Wakering:
12/00072/FUL Parish: Great Wakering Parish Council
Ward: Foulness And Great Wakering
Proposal: Construct Four Bedrooms Within Existing Unit to Accommodate Patients Overnight
Location: Unit 1 Crouchmans Business Yard Poynters Lane
Applicant: C.F.P. Community Services
A retrospective application in Barling Magna:
12/00131/LDC Parish: Barling Magna Parish Council
Ward: Barling And Sutton
Proposal: Retrospective Application For A Certificate Of Lawfulness To Retain Two Detached Building Each For Use As A Dwellinghouse.
To Retain One Building For Use As Stables And One Building For Use As Stable And Tack Room
Location: Land North Of Ropers Farm Mucking Hall Road
Car Wash By Rayleigh Station:
12/00158/FUL Parish: Rayleigh Town Council
Ward: Wheatley
Proposal: Use of Area of Car Park as Car Wash Facility Including Erection of Canopy and Office Building
Location: Car Park Station Approach Station Road
Extra house in Trinity Road, Rayleigh:
12/00003/FUL
Parish: Rayleigh Town Council Ward: Rayleigh Central
Proposal: Subdivide Plot and Construct One Four Bedroomed House with Rooms in Roofspace
Location: Land Adjacent 57 Trinity Road Rayleigh
Extra house in Church Road, Hockley:
12/00147/FUL Parish: Hockley Parish Council Ward: Hockley West
Proposal: Subdivide Site and Construct Two Storey Four Bedroomed Detached House and Detached Garage
Location: Westview, Church Road Hockley
The latest list of new planning applications can be found on the District Council website here. It’s the list dated March 16th
As usual, most of the applications this week are for house extensions etc. But there are some bigger ones:
Office in Great Wakering to become takeaway:
12/00116/COU
Parish: Great Wakering Parish Council Ward: Foulness And Great Wakering
Proposal: Change of use From Office (B1) to Takeaway (A3)
Location: Units 13 To 15 Star Lane Industrial Estate Star Lane
Purdeys Industrial Estate – from retail to childrens play:
12/00144/COU
Parish: Rochford Parish Council Ward: Rochford
Proposal: Change of Use from A1 Retail to Class Use D2 And Use As Childrens Soft Play and Famly Entertainment Centre
Location: 6 Purdeys Way Rochford Essex
Extending a bomb shelter in Barling Magna… for a nursery
12/00151/FUL Parish: Barling Magna Parish Council
Ward: Barling And Sutton
Proposal: Single Storey Extension/Re-Roofing and Refurbishment of Existing Air Raid Shelter to Form Ancillary Room to Main Day Nursery
Location: The Old School 400 Little Wakering Road Barling Magna
Demolish one bungalow in Hockley, and build two:
12/00154/FUL
Parish: Hockley Parish Council Ward: Hockley Central
Proposal: Demolish Existing Bungalow And Construct Pair Of Semi-Detached Bungalows With Parking And Garages, Provide New Vehicular Crossover To Buckingham Road
Location: 58 Main Road Hockley Essex
There’s an interesting interview on the Rochford Life website with Rochford Councillor Keith Gordon.
Here’s an extract:
It’s been fairly easy since last Christmas. One of the ones people may not know about is having to make an Executive Decision about Sex Shops. This was because the government changed the rules, and we didn’t have a policy for this so I had to sign off a policy for it.
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Another thing I’ve done since Christmas is close Wakering Sports Centre. That closed officially Friday last week, which wasn’t a happy thing to do but it saved us about £81,000 a year. Unfortunately not a lot of people used it. It was used mainly by people out of the District for parties. We’re still negotiating with some other people who might take it over, as either a soft play area or something like that. We’re also in discussions with the primary school there and Essex County Council to maybe give them a bit of a boost to get their swimming pool covered over, and that will become their main hall and become a sports facility for Wakering.
We are Liberal Democrat councillors and campaigners in Rochford District.
We want to improve local decision-making and we see onlineFOCUS as a good way of keep residents informed and involved.
Please click here to email us .
Ron Oatham
Trevor Parrett
Bruce Smart
Chris Stanley
Pam Waldie
Elena Black
If you want information on a particular planning application, you can find it on the District Council website here.
If you want to know what new planning applications have been submitted this week, click here.
If you want to report a problem, you can email Lib Dems councillors by clicking here.
There's also an independent website called FixMyStreet. It's very good for reporting minor street problems like holes in the road, grafitti or failed streetlights. You can find FixMyStreet here.
Rochford District Council carries out grass cutting on behalf of the County Council.
If you see a grass verge that badly needs cutting, you can report it
here.
This is the official master document for planning policy in our district! To download it, click here
click here. (2.5mb)
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