I would like to briefly mention two planning projects that did not form part of the above figures, but which have regularly featured in Parish Council meetings and conversations on both sides of the river:

Firstly: Controversy continued during the last year in relation to the building of a large new house to replace Wood Cottage. The property has now been finished and the house is currently on the market. Although the high levels of correspondence and discussion on this high profile project have reduced, there is still a lot of resentment within both Streatley and Goring concerning this property and its design, prominence and overall impact on the AONB.

Secondly: Despite various statements from Gladedale Homes regarding the land it owns within the village, no planning application has been made. We as a Parish Council have had several meetings with Gladedale about the future of the land and I will be updating you later in the meeting on the outcome of those discussions.

The Parish Plan
The Parish Plan Implementation Management Committee continue to work closely with the Parish Council and other Groups to implement the actions and aspirations of the Streatley Parish Plan. The Streatley Village Design Statement which lays down the qualities and characteristics that local people value in their village and its surroundings having been approved by West Berkshire Council, is currently available to all parishioners and other interested parties. In an effort to save both money and avoid the unnecessary use of paper, we have made the document available as both a pdf file and on a CD-ROM. Additionally, for anyone who does not have a computer or the required technical skills, then a very limited number of paper copies will be made available on request.

If you would like a CD-ROM version, then please collect one from xxxxxxxxx as you leave at the end of the meeting. If you would prefer it emailed to you as a pdf file, then please give your email address to Mark Kibble at the end of the meeting and he will send the document to you.
You will be pleased to hear that your Council have had a busy year in terms of progress on the Action Plan and some notable key achievements and initiatives have been realised during the year, notably:

We have built a new multi-sport facility aimed at the youth of the village. This focuses primarily on allowing participants to use the facility for basketball, cricket, hockey and soccer, and includes an astroturf all weather surface for all year round enjoyment.

We have opened up a short but highly valued permissive path running parallel with the A329. The path is set higher that the road but has safety fencing between walkers and the steep incline down to the road. It starts at the southern access to the village and joins up with the National Trust path giving access to The Holies, a popular walking venue.

We have installed two new picnic tables on the Recreation Ground each seating eight people. These have been securely fastened to the ground due to the fact that we had two previous sets of tables stolen from their site next to the play area by desperate but ingenious thieves.

We have installed new access gates and fencing panels at the entrance to Streatley Chalk Pit.

We have also repaired and refurbished much of the play area woodwork and fencing due to the fact that it was starting to deteriorate.

Our thanks go out to Susan and her dedicated team of committee members.

We have made temporary repairs to the badly potholed lane from the High Street to the Recreation Ground with materials supplied by us and manpower support from Thames Water. This was completed prior to the annual carol singing and torchlight procession in December, but I have to say that due to the traffic flow along this narrow lane, the scalping used to fill many of the potholes and puddles have been disturbed and distributed all over the area causing the lane to look almost as bad as ever!

I mentioned earlier that we had our Village Design Statement approved and accepted by West Berkshire Council. Additionally, we have set up a website: www.streatley.org to keep people informed of what is happening in the village and also to provide a medium for local groups and organisations to promote their services, events and messages to anyone who accesses the website. This exciting project is still in its early stages, but we hope that it will be regularly visited by people who want to remain informed about what is happening in our small but busy village.

On the website you will see our new logo which was designed by Dominic Hale and reflects nature, hills and the river, each one a feature of our beautiful surroundings.

Traffic and Highway Matters
The long awaited safety and traffic flow improvement scheme at The Bull Crossroads has finally been agreed after lengthy negotiations between the Parish Council and West Berkshire Highways department. Work will commence and hopefully be completed in July this year. West Berkshire Highways have promised to do everything in their power to minimise disruption, but it is inevitable that there will be a degree of inconvenience to both traffic and pedestrians. This has been a complex project to reach agreement on and ultimately involved some compromise to achieve what we are told is the optimum solution. We will be talking in more detail about what is happening and how it came about later in the meeting.

2009/10 Expenditure
The "regular" expenditure for 2009/2010 amounts to some £15103. As in previous years, most of the regular expenditure is for general care and maintenance of the Recreation Ground and Greenhill Common; street lighting; administration; insurances and Auditor's fees. This expenditure has been met primarily from the Council Tax levy.

Non-recurring expenditure of some £5302 has been primarily for printing the Village Design Statement, setting up the web site: fencing and gates at the Old Chalk Pit; fencing and other work to the permissive path along the Reading Road; and repairs to the surface of Church Lane footpath, all as proposed in the Action Plan. These have been funded mainly by a grant from West Berkshire Council and donations from Friends of Streatley Recreation Ground and private individuals. The largest project in the year, however, was the ball games facility in the Recreation Ground. The cost of £30,000 was met entirely by grants from outside bodies including the AONB Leader Fund, RASP, West Berkshire Council, Greenham Common Trust, Hairy Legs Fund, Goring Gap News and Developer (S106) contributions.

2010/2011 Budget
At the Council meeting in January 2010, the Council reviewed provisional expenditure estimates for 2010/2011 and agreed a budget of £16310 whilst maintaining the proposed precept at £16,000, as in the previous year. The scope for further expenditure is being kept under review until the financial implications of a possible project that we will be discussing in detail later in the meeting have been clarified.

B. G. Baldwin
Chairman of the Council

Annual Report 2008/2009