News Roundup

Yippee, the Nuns Walk path along the allotments has been done completely! We are very grateful to Hampshire County Council (and Jim Maynard for insisting they do all of it)! All Abbotts Barton babies in pushchairs and toddlers on scooters will love this new smooth track; you can tell clearly which part of the path was better liked by this little man:

Apparently his expression changed immediately after he was pushed off the smooth part! (Photo taken during the time when only one half was done.) I've also heard feedback that the new path is making the walk for the not so able a lot easier and safer.

We are renaming our Picnic & Play events to Picnic in the Park, so that everybody feels welcome, not just parents with children! The next one is coming up on the first Sunday in July, noon to 3pm! We are looking for champions for our picnic events, just to say hello to attendees. This is one of the easiest jobs there are, no planning involved, apart from attending yourself. Would you be interested, and if it's only once in a while? Please get in touch. Keep this in mind: Citizens Advice Bureau research proves benefits of volunteering! :)

Who is missing a glass bowl (had pasta salad in it)? It was left behind at the Big Lunch.

Abbotts Walk residents, you might want to get your boiler cables checked according to the experience of one family in this development.

Council news

If you haven't heard yet, Winchester has a new first citizen and a new city council cabinet.

Your feedback is wanted

As we know Winchester Scouts petition families to help them find new home, and you can still talk to them about their proposal. We would also be very interested in your feedback! The article is actually slightly incorrect: the 6th meet currently at Holy Trinity Church Hall, and nobody can really say yet what is going to happen in a new Scout Hut during the day until it's been discussed with and approved by the Council.

The West Hampshire Clinical Commissioning Group is holding its annual general meeting on Thursday June 26. It is open to all. This will also be the first chance for local residents to find out about priorities and plans for local healthcare for the next five years.The meeting takes place at 6pm in the Bapsy Hall, Winchester Guildhall.

Winchester City Council is set to crack on with the Silver Hill project (latest proposals) but we might not be getting what we need. Take a look at the Winchester deserves better website to find out more.

Hampshire County Council is running a consultation about Hampshire's waste recycling centres.

(An overview of current consultations and local issues can be found in the Have Your Say section of our website.)

Environment

Earlier in June we had this: Residents could lose rights about fracking under their homes / Concerns voiced over fracking

And now this: Controversial wind turbine plans at Bullington Cross rejected

At least in Lymington a community-owned solar farm takes shape.

Things to do

Has anyone noticed the Fun Fair setting up at the Garrison Ground in Winchester? It will be open this week only, Wednesday to Friday from 5pm to 9pm, Saturday 2pm until 9pm, and Sunday 2pm until 6pm. All rides and inflatables cost around £1.50, £2.00 for dodgems [2 people], £2.00-£2.50 for stalls with prizes! (Info as published by WCC.)

Free events and activities for 11 - 17 year olds this summer holiday can be found at saferwinchester.co.uk.

Winchester bursts into life this summer with live festivals, check out what's coming up.

Other news

Abbey Mill in Winchester handed over to River Cottage

Abbotts Barton Open Space Consultation Results

In regards to the consultation that was running in May we received this from Winchester City Council today:

The consultation over the improvements to the open space at Abbotts Barton has finished and we can now announce the results:

Footballs Goals
Yes	24
No	10

Picnic benches
Yes	30
No	5

Use of benches
Yes	27
No	8

In addition to the votes above we had lots of really useful comments and would like to thank all residents who took the time to complete the questionnaire.

As the majority of residents were in favour of the options proposed the City Council will be taking these forward. Residents who asked for further involvement in the process will be invited to a meeting on the open space to agree the location of the new equipment.

Thank you to everybody who gave feedback to the Council! I am looking forward to being able to sit on a bench in the park at some point! Sylke :)

Councillor's Surgery June

This time it was Jane and Sylke who went to the Councillor's Surgery, and it was great to see all three of our of our local ward City Councillors, Jim Maynard, Dominic Hiscock, and Sue Nelmes in attendance.

Nuns Walk path – we thanked Jim Maynard for following up on the path being only resurfaced half-way and making sure that it would be done all the way over to Hyde. Work on this will continue this week.

Grass cutting – we were told that the contractor didn’t do what was supposed to be done not only here in Abbotts Barton but all over Winchester. The grass should be cut regularly and should definitely not be getting as high as it did in May. Sylke also enquired about the unkempt pavement area on the corner next to her house and was advised to report this to HCC.

Abbotts Walk ‘pond’ – the infiltration basin has been spoken about at the Council and the conclusion is that it was built wrongly and has become impervious due to debris blocking the ground. It will be dug out again to make it work the way it is supposed to work.

Recent Council meetings – we asked if there was anything interesting to report from the recent Council meetings (Council and Cabinet): Councillor Ian Tait is back leading the Cabinet (Housing) Committee.

HCC consultation about the Waste and Recycling Centres – we were wondering what was behind this consultation (could it be that they want to close some centres?) but were assured that this is more about the kinds of waste brought along and how much of them to accept (as in too much builders’ waste that should go to a different place).

Hyde and Abbotts Barton Good Neighbour Scheme – Jane enquired if the Councillors knew anything about this scheme but it was unknown to them.

Community space – we discussed Jane’s recent meeting with the manager of the football club and how we are hoping to work with their new Commercial Manager Jane Carley to publicise events to the community and also make the club more attractive to local youngsters. There is currently no news re the Scout Hut plans.

Leisure Centre – the ward councillors are still very interested in finding out how much people are in favour of the leisure centre staying put rather than moving to Bar End. Sylke said that everybody she talked to really wants it to stay. It is important that local people give this kind of feedback direct to the Councillors to help influence the Council’s discussions about this! We also discussed that if a new centre should actually be built on the area that currently houses the tennis courts and the football pitch, that this does not necessarily mean that Winchester loses a cricket pitch and a lovely field to play on, as there is still enough space for the cricket pitch to be moved. Most of the field would still be there to be played on by children! The important thing would be to make sure that the land occupied by the current centre would be used in such a way that it makes up for the loss - space could be made available there for the tennis courts and the football pitch.

The next Councillor's Surgery will be Thursday 3 July!

Big Lunch 2014

First of all, thank you to everybody who turned up to our Big Lunch event this year! Especially all the newcomers to our area, it was so nice to meet them all!!! (You can already see, this post will be full of exclamation marks...)

I am so, so tired now, I've talked to a lot of people today! But so have Jane (below in blue dress) and Lynne (below in brown trousers)! If you were there you can't have missed us, the three women with the clipboards (I so wished somebody had taken a photo of us together, nevermind)! We much appreciated everybody being so nice to us and giving us their names and email addresses for various lists. We will work on those over the coming weeks.

Once again, people were very generous and brought along great things to eat, but again, I missed the perfect photo opportunity; I took my photos too early, with only half the lovely things being there:

We had lots of helpers today too, many more than in the years before! Big thanks to all of those who helped set up and to also tidy up afterwards! (I don't have everybody's names, sorry!) Very important: a big thank you to Jane! Without her this event wouldn't have happened! She got all the things you can get from the Big Lunch organisation, she printed posters, created cards and name collection sheets for our Community Group, she got decorations, furniture, cutlery, beakers, serviettes, brought toys for the children, and possibly more! Of course some other people contributed with stuff like that too, not to forget Frank who made sure we had 50 inflated balloons! Thank you to everyone!

We were so lucky with the weather this year, it was perfect, not too hot, not too cold. The children looked like they enjoyed themselves tremendously even though some of the toys of choice looked quite scary (pirate cutlass, Minecraft sword and pickaxe, various types of rackets, and a rocket shooting device). Many played swing ball, and tried their hand at cricket and throwing huge Frisbees.

Good thing is that our park is big enough to allow to be away from it all too:

Update - I received a list of names of all the people who helped with the Big Lunch. So here it comes (in no particular order):

Ben, Frank, Andrew, Colin, Louise, Kevin,
Luke, Hiko, Kerry, Jemima, Caleb, Lexie,
Jane, Sylke, Lynne, Tim, Jasmine, Dylan,
Marina, Oma Gertrud, Kerry, Grace, Noah,
Yannick, Samuel, Christina

Thank you, all!!!