We had our formal Annual Parish meeting on Wednesday April 7. Thanks to everyone who attended - it was the best turn out yet. A very long agenda but an important one.

Looking back at 2003

There have been considerable achievements for which everyone in the village should feel pleased and proud. It’s been a busy year with considerable discussions and planning on several areas of concern: highways, trees, the KirkDale situation, the playing field and some planning enforcement matters of concern to the village and of course preparation for the sewerage work.

During the year we said farewell to John and Ann Naden and to Chris and Dave Davies. It was a particular pleasure to have our village get together at the end of the December Parish meeting to say farewell to Dave and Chris. The food, prepared and masterminded by Pat and Marlene, was beautiful and appreciated by everyone. Thanks to them.

Four new families joined the village family during the year. We welcome them most warmly and wish them a long and happy association with Sheldon.

During the year we also changed our clerk. Chris handed over the reins to Julie Pearson and we are very grateful to Julie for taking on this important job. We also at the same time lost our Village Hall secretary and two village hall trustees.

Last summer Highways resurfaced, at last, the road through the village and Johnson Lane.

Severn Trent fixed overflows in the sewerage drain down near Yew Tree Cottage just before Christmas. They also discovered a complete blockage in the system about there, which they also fixed.

Financially we reached our target of a thousand in the contingency fund. Thanks to Brian for that. And we reduced the precept by 17%.

The tree roots on the footpath in two places in the village were at last sorted out by Highways and the footpath repaired.

The condemned tree on the Green was removed with grants from outside bodies. We also had a village questionnaire about the kind of tree we should plant to replace the condemned tree on the green cut down last year. This will be planted in the autumn

1. The planning enforcement notices were issued on Home Farm and these are now being implemented.

2. A large extension to The Old Hay Barn - this was objected to by the Parish Meeting and the meeting was informed that this application was rejected by PDNP on 12th December 2003.

3. Limestone toilet/washroom at Once a Week Quarry – the majority of the planning sub-committee approved this application, but asked for conditions to protect the wildlife and that the development could not be seen from the road.

4. A small extension at the back of Woodman’s Cottage - was considered and approved without objection by the planning sub-committee and subsequently approval was granted, subject to conditions, by Peak Park

5. And a planning application was made for part of the playing field to become a children’s playground. This is now before Peak Park and a decision is expected in a few weeks time.

Looking forward to 2004

The big projects for 2004/5:

• the Conservation and Recreation Committee to become a charitable trust.
• the playground to be fully operational by June this year.
• the new sewerage works to be built and completed with sewerage pipes into the Playing field for our use
• the electricity overhead lines to be put underground to the church as part of the sewerage work.
• Severn Trent to pay £500 compensation for moving three metres of the playing field corner so that their trucks can turn into the access road more easily.
• a new drain to be installed down the main road by Severn Trent to stop flooding at the bottom of the village and better soak away of storm water.
• Highways are to replace the big signs on the A6 pointing to Sheldon with fewer and smaller ones.
• new warning signs are to be painted on the road down the dale and Highways are discussing other ways of making this road safer.
• The Village Plan is to be completed, part of which will look at a safer road for the children in the village, a ‘ be careful driving through our village’ sign, moving the speed restriction signs further out of the village in both directions and reduced speed limits for the village.
• Decisions to be made as to which kind of revamped waste collection we would like and our decision given to Derbyshire Dales by May this year.
• planting the replacement trees this autumn on the greens.
• continuation of monthly newsletter to keep whole village informed of what’s happening
• completion of the bridge and footpath rerouting at bottom of Kirkdale

Brian gave the meeting the financial statement for the year ending March 31. The full balance sheet will be pinned up on the notice board for all to see. But basically all accounts are looking healthy with our target of a contingency fund of £1000 reached and stable. We have a balance of £1104.86 in the Sheldon Parish Meeting Account; a balance of £2921.72 in the Village Greens Project; and £1609-44 in the Playing Fields account. Congratulations to Brian for all his hard work as Finance Officer. We also approved a new bank account to be set up with NatWest in Bakewell for the Playing fields account as part of our process for making the Playing Fields Committee into a charity.

The trees have been planted by Peak Park on the Playing field as a start to the new development. And East Midlands Electricity put the electricity wires underground across the playing field. We now await the planning decision by peak park to allow us to build the playground. That should be announced in a few weeks time.

Severn Trent had asked to buy 3 metres of the verge which is owned by the village as part of the playing field. This amounts to a total of 32 square metres and they offered us £500 compensation and to pay all associated legal costs. The Meeting approved this request. That money will be used for playing field matters. Severn Trent will rebuild the stone wall in the new position so that their trucks can more easily turn from the lane into the field where the new sewerage plant will be located. They will maintain the lane as and when necessary.

I explained our thinking behind the Playing Field becoming a charitable trust. This will enable us to claim back certain VAT, will make it easier to get some grants which would otherwise not be available to us ; allow the grant money and any income and expenditure to be ringfenced and easily transparent. There would be an executive committee ( the present playing fields committee) and two trustees, one of whom must be the chairman of the Village Meeting. I suggested that the full and official name of the new trust be: Sheldon Community Conservation and Recreation Area Trust which we could call in shorthand ‘ the playing field trust’. The other important aspect of the Playing Field Committee becoming a charitable trust is the constitution that is needed. I explained this in detail to the meeting . It is the formal one we adopted for the village hall and the one which the Charity Commission asks everyone to use if possible. But it has to be formally approved by the Village Meeting. However I would like everyone to have a look and feed back any comments to me before the next Village Meeting in May. The Proposed Constitution is therefore attached to this newsletter. Have a look, and if you have any comments let me or Brian or Mick or Ralph or Julie Pearson know so we can feed it back to the next Village meeting when it will be formally adopted, if everyone agrees.

Having agreed at a previous Village Meeting to develop a playground we’ve applied for grants to more than cover the cost and already we’ve got eleven thousand pounds. Work will start on the playground in May and it will be complete by June. We’ve requested grants from DDDC, Awards for All, Chatsworth Estates Trust, Friends of the Peak Park and Living Spaces. We are on target for receiving all the money we need for this project. Planning permission is now going through the process with Peak Park and I hope there will be a decision on this shortly.

Derbyshire Dales are proposing to introduce waste collections in Wheeled bins. I read out the letter from the council and we agreed that details should be put in the newsletter for all to see and consider. At the end of this newsletter you’ll find a tear off slip for your comments on this. Please give back your comments to me or Brian or Julie Pearson in Rose Cottage by the end of April.

Basically Derbyshire Dales wants to change the way it collects waste. There will be a special community forum at Bakewell agricultural Business centre on May 17, so if you can go and hear what they plan. They have asked for our written comments by May 14 and I intend to do this as soon as I’ve collected comments from all of you. So please return the slip with your comments as soon as you can. But definitely by the end of April. They also want to collect compostable waste as well as the usual domestic household waste, and do it separately. The council says it has decided to use wheeled bins instead of sacks whenever possible from the edge of properties ( except for disabled people when they would do the wheeling for them when they collect the rubbish). Basically they are suggesting three possible systems.

1. compostable waste would be collected one week and residual waste would be collected the next. So there would be a fortnightly collection instead of the present weekly one. To cope with this each person would have TWO very large bins ( each 240 litre) Problems of course would be the smells of long kept waste and contamination.
2. Weekly collections for residual waste and fortnightly for compostable waste. A 140 litre bin would be provided for residual waste and bags for the compost waste. This would be very expensive
3. Residual waste would be collected between Tuesday and Friday every week and all compostable waste would be colleted every second Monday. Collections would be unaffected by Bank Holiday Mondays.

I mentioned the need for us to write a Local Village Plan for Sheldon. This will provide a blueprint for the future and give the village increased protection as well. The plan is something which we can do in conjunction with the relevant officers of the Peak Park and will allow us to tap into significant grants for any work we want to do in the village to make it a better, safer place. For example it will allow us a grant for a regular village newsletter such as this one. This will mean setting up a small independent committee to pursue the work on this And we agreed at last night’s meeting that an ad hoc committee of three or four would be formed later for this purpose. So I’ll shortly be asking for volunteers. Other villages in the area, such as Monyash are already doing it and it will benefit us in all kinds of ways. I will ask the peak park officer who will be helping us to attend part of the next Village Parish meeting. Any thoughts about what you’d like to see in the Plan, please let us know. But one of the important aspects will be increased road safety through the village.

During the past year we used the village hall very effectively to show the plans for the Playground and playing field and of course to have the financial books available for anyone to see. It seems to me that the Parish Meeting can make even greater use of the Hall, such as perhaps effectively having it as our ‘office’, with even a filing cabinet or some such to keep the various documents in. We haven’t discussed this yet with the Hall trustees but the meeting agreed that I sound them out during the coming year to see whether something of this sort would be possible. The village can get a grant for the installation of a phone/computer terminal and we will discuss this also with the trustees later in the year. It seems to me that it would be a valuable additional village amenity if there were a computer terminal or similar here, possibly even with IT installations for the use of the village. There could then perhaps be computer or other IT classes for the good of the village and surrounding area. We also wondered about starting a Film Society to make more use of the Hall’s amenities.

I have now been an elected Parish member of the Peak Park for a year and will remain a member of the Authority until 2007. At that time a new membership number will come into operation which will reduce the number of members from 38 to 30. This will mean a proportionate reduction in councillors, appointed secretary of state members and elected parish members. I am on a Members Advisory Team looking how this should be implemented. We are also looking at ways of streamlining the operation of the Authority and reducing the number of committees. More on this when the final decisions have been made in July.

I was re-elected chairman for another year and I thank everyone for their support.

• Brian was re-elected Finance Officer.
• Planning Committee elections: John, Brian, Ralph, Mick, Tony and Alan
• Finance Committee: John, Brian, Julie, Elaine
• internal auditor: Ethel
• Recreation Committee: John, Brian, Bronwyn,Mick, Ralph
• Village Hall: Pat was elected a new trustee and Jenny Warbuton was elected Village Hall secretary thus bring the Hall committee back to full strength for the first time in several years. The Trustees are: Rev. Clive, Mick, Pat and Marlene with Jenny the Secretary. Pat was thanked for her continued excellent work looking after the Hall.

There has been no current secretary since Chris Davies left but Marlene provided some thoughts on the year. The cream teas had been the most successful they’d been and the money raised was considerable. Some new tables and chairs were bought. Brian gave details of the financial statement which was approved. There was a cash balance of £1987.99 at the end of the financial year.

Sheldon Day: July 24

Last year’s was one of the best ever, with everyone finding it a very successful and happy occasion. Even the weather behaved. Ralph masterminded the whole occasion like the efficient ringmaster he is. For that we are all very grateful.

The Sheldon Day money was split into two and given to the Village Hall and Church. Rev. Clive formally thanked the village for the kind donation and The Village Hall trustees thanked the village and Sheldon Day organisers for the donation.

This year’s Day was discussed in detail with Ralph agreeing to organise the event again, for which we all expressed our gratitude.

We want more sponsors for raffle and event prizes. We will be looking for a sponsor for the Fell race as well. We decided that again there would be a poultry show, so successful last year. A volunteer is needed to look after that. Tim will be organising another vintage tractor show and Ralph is looking for a volunteer to help him with the dog show. The Fell Race will also be held as usual before Sheldon Day and stewards are needed as well as contributions towards prizes. There will be market stalls, cake stalls, and we would like to have about 15 different stalls if possible. The Band will be playing again on the Day and we will be buying new bunting.

Anyone who has any other ideas for stalls or events, please let Ralph know - all ideas welcome. Last year was our most successful so far; this year we want to make even more money. Let’s try this year for a profit of £2500.

The meeting also discussed the Cancer research fundraising walk that Julie Pearson is undertaking along the Great Wall of China in May. She still needs over £2000 and will continue to raise this sum after she makes the walk. So all contributions and sponsorship for this very worthy cause will be welcome. Please let Julie know. The Village Meeting agreed we should support this fine venture as a Village activity in any way we could and asked the village hall trustees if they would discuss the possibility of some donation to the event as well. The Cream Teas and cake stall on Easter Sunday were in aid of this project.

I would like to thank those who have supported me and the village during the past year. Special thanks to Brian Greasley as always who shoulders a big burden in the village and has control of the finances in such an efficient way. Without Brian the organisation could not have functioned, especially over this past busy year. Thanks also to those who have served on the planning and finance committees and to those on the renamed Playing Fields committee for all their time and effort. Thanks also to Rev Clive for making available to us web space he has set up for Sheldon church. This space now carries the minutes of Sheldon Parish meeting as well as the minutes of meetings of the village hall. So you can see these minutes, and my annual report on this site. Thanks to Ralph for his help, delivering the newsletters and looking after Sheldon Day so well last year. We are as ever grateful for his support and hard work. And finally thanks to everyone in the village, to those who regularly attend the meetings and to everyone for all their help during the past year. Attending our meetings, which we try to make as short as possible and as infrequent as possible, is good, but I realise that we’re all busy people and I know that those of you who can’t make the meetings as village members are with us in spirit, which is what matters. It’s for that reason that the village newsletter detailing what has happened at the Parish meetings is of such use to us all. It is important that everyone feels part of what is happening and knows what is going on; and this open approach to decisions, plans and problems is very important.

John Herbert

7 April, 2004