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Affordable Housing in Barton Mills

The Parish Council are currently are hoping to provide a new social housing scheme to provide affordable housing for “Barton Millers” with a “connection to the Village”.

The Parish Council have appointed Havebury to be the housing association to deliver the proposal

The scheme is planned to be adjacent to the Newmarket Road (car boot field) and looks like a superb scheme. The proposed scheme consists of fifteen 1, 2 and 3 bedroom houses which will be available as a mix of affordable rental and shared ownership. They are expected to be available in early 2022.

There was be a public consultation held on Monday 5th July 2021, to view comment and feedback from the event and to look at draft site plans please visit the Havebury website.

Havebury have now submitted the planning application to West Suffolk Council. The plans are available to view on the West Suffolk Council website.

Havebury detail on their website that to apply, you must register with your local authority. You can register with Home-Link here

Litter Picking

West Suffolk Council can provide individuals with litter picking sets, if you wish to volunteer and pick litter in the village on a day and time that suits you.. Each litter pick pack will include a picker and black & blue sacks. The filled sacks can be left in or next to your bins on collection day.

For more information and to request a pack please visit the following website:

Arrange a litter pick as an individual (westsuffolk.gov.uk)

Council Tax Rebate Grant

About the Rebate Grant

This is a Government scheme being administered locally by West Suffolk Council. The Rebate Grant is for £150 and is for band A-D households to help toward the increased costs in energy bills. The money doesn’t have to be paid back.

This includes those whose council tax bill is £0 owing to an existing award of Council Tax support, as well as certain exempt dwellings. It does not include empty or second homes.

Households on direct debit

We are already in the process of administering over £6.3million of the Rebate Grant to more than 42,000 households whose residents pay their Council Tax by direct debit. Where the direct debit payee information is different to the name(s) we hold on our files for that address, payments may take slightly longer to check and process. Those who signed up to direct debit and have had their first successful Council Tax payment by direct debit before the end of April 2022 will receive their grant by the end of this month (April 2022). New direct debit payers still awaiting their first successful Direct Debit payment will be able to check our webpage https://www.westsuffolk.gov.uk/counciltax/council-tax-rebate-grant.cfm to see when they will receive the grant.

Households not on direct debit

This still leaves us over 16,000 households who don’t pay by direct debit and for whom we hold no bank details.

Anglia Revenues Partnership will be writing to these residents encouraging them to complete a simple online form so we can get the rebate grant to them as swiftly as possible. But there is no need for residents to wait for their letter. Instead, they can complete the form online at www.angliarevenues.gov.uk/WSrebate

Eligible residents have until 31 May 2022 to complete the online form. After this date, any eligible households will have the rebate grant applied to their Council Tax bill to reduce their payments for the rest of the year. This is expected to take place around mid-June after which a new bill for a lesser amount will be sent out. We will then work with any residents who due to their circumstances end up in credit on their Council Tax account, to get the Rebate Grant transferred into their bank accounts as soon as possible.

If residents chose to complete a claim form and provide bank details, then the payments are subject to mandatory pre-payment checks designed to reduce the risk of fraud. If no issues are highlighted during these checks, then the process from claim to payment should take up to 10 working days.

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Queens Platinum Jubilee

Thank you to everyone who has attended the meetings to date, it is not too late to get involved.

Proposed changes to the River Lark

The Parish Council have been made aware that the Environment Agency are considering several significant changes to the river Lark as it runs through the parish. At the parish council meeting on Tuesday the 5th of October there was a presentation by James Dyke from the Environment Agency to explain their current thoughts and proposals. This was a potentially emotive subject for a significant number of interested parties and there were around 50 parishioners in attendance.

The presentation and talk by James outlined several very important points.

These changes will affect the river Lark in several ways running from the A11 bridge down to the gas pool (road bridge on the edge of Mildenhall)
Around Christmas time some visual presentations on the proposals will be available for public consultation (The Parish Council expect to have another session on the subject)
Early in 2022 a formal consultation will be carried out allowing all interested parties or stakeholders to comment on the proposals
These changes are necessary as the banks adjacent to the Jubilee fields and the Nora Hanbury- Kelk Meadows were poorly constructed, prone to leakages and expensive to maintain. This issue must be addressed as the Environment Agency have limited budgets for these types of repairs.
The proposal will involve reducing the water level at the gas pool by around 1.5 metres and constructing a riffle (natural permanent stone dam) To the rear of Church Meadow.
This will mean that the water level between the A11 and the rear of Church Meadow will remain unchanged. The water level between the rear of Church Meadow and the gas pool will now have a steeper gradient which means that the river will narrow and be faster flowing. Along this stretch other alterations will be carried out to improve the natural element of the river (passage of fish etc) and adjustments to the flow around the island to the rear of the Riverside Hotel. The water level from the gas pool to Worlington will be unchanged.
If the project goes ahead, it will take several years to implement, and the water levels will be reduced in stages so the natural habitat can adjust in a controlled manner.
This will then reduce or eliminate leakage and flooding onto the Jubilee fields or the Nora Hanbury-Kelk Meadows. The valve controlling the water flow onto the Nora Hanbury-Kelk Meadows will be in the upstream area where water levels are unchanged. The Island to the rear of the Riverside should not then flood.

For further information see www.brecks.org/bfer

Choose “projects”, “read more” and 1.1 “River lark Chanel restoration” or 1.4 “Barton Mills Sluice”

West Suffolk Draft Local Plan

A message from West Suffolk Council

It’s almost time to have #YourSay and shape West Suffolk’s future

Residents from across West Suffolk will have their chance from next week to have their say on where new homes are built and employment growth takes place.

Councillors have this evening (17 May) given their backing for public consultation on the next stage of the West Suffolk Local Plan, due to begin next week.

The West Suffolk Local Plan covers the period up to 2040 and will eventually become a legal document used as the basis for deciding planning applications. It guides where land such as countryside is protected and where development for new housing or land for employment can take place.

The local plan also contains the policies that will secure the delivery of affordable housing, new play areas, green public open space, health and education facilities, transport provision. And it contains the basis for policies that will address climate change, increase biodiversity, and aid people’s health and wellbeing including homes that can adapt to support people’s changing health needs as they grow older.

Without a local plan, development can and will still happen – but the council and the residents will have less of a voice and less certainty over the council’s approval or refusal of applications that come forward. Without an up-to-date local plan, the council won’t be able to prevent inappropriate, speculative development from taking place as national guidance would favour sustainable development. That in turn would mean less protection for greenfield sites and the countryside, fewer safeguards to stop employment land being used for housing, as well as inappropriate garden, infill and other development that negatively impacts on local communities.

Public consultation on the preferred options sites and emerging policies will start next Thursday 26 May and run until 26 July. It is the second stage of public consultation on the draft plan, following “Issues and Options” consultation in 2020.

West Suffolk Council is encouraging residents and businesses to have their say either through its online virtual village hall the details of which will be publicised next week, or by coming along to the public exhibition events taking place in the following towns and villages below.

Venue	Date	Time
Barrow village hall – main hall	Wednesday 8 June	3pm to 7pm
Brandon market	Saturday 9 July	9am to 1pm
Bury St Edmunds – The Apex	Saturday 11 June	10am to 4.30pm
Bury St Edmunds market	Wednesday 29 June	9am to 4pm
Clare market	Saturday 18 June	9am to 1.30pm
Haverhill market	Saturday 2 July	9am to 3pm
Ixworth village hall – main hall	Friday 24 June	3pm to 6.45pm
Kedington community centre – committee room	Friday 10 June	3pm to 7pm
Lakenheath Peace Memorial Hall	Thursday 30 June	3pm to 7pm
Mildenhall Hub	Saturday 25 June	9am to 4.30pm
Newmarket - The Guineas shopping centre outside the library and The Pantry	Tuesday 14 June	9am to 3pm
Newmarket - The Guineas shopping centre outside the library and The Pantry	Saturday 16 July	9am to 4.30pm
Red Lodge Sports Pavilion	Wednesday 22 June	3pm to 6.30pm
Stanton Village Hall - small hall/lounge	Thursday 16 June	3pm to 7pm

The creation of a local plan has to go through several stages of public consultation as set out by the Government. The evolving local plan has already undertaken a call for sites and an Issues and Options public consultation in 2020.

Public feedback from that stage, conversations with stakeholders and emerging evidence and national policy guidance has been used to narrow down the sites for consideration. It has also helped the creation of new policy guidelines, which will eventually become future planning policies to be used in planning decisions.

This consultation on the preferred options will lead to further changes to the draft local plan and will followed by another public consultation next year on the “submission” draft of the plan. Finally, the plan will be submitted to the Secretary of State who will then appoint a Planning Inspector to carry out an independent examination – and it is only after the Planning Inspector has found the plan acceptable, that the local plan can be recommended to a meeting of the council to seek its adoption.

The preferred options report suggests which sites should go forward in the plan including early indicative numbers for how many homes could be built on a site.
In total, the Government has identified that 15,200 more homes will be needed in West Suffolk by 2040 to meet future housing needs. Some 8,600 of these already have planning permission which leaves land for at least 6,600 homes to be identified through the new local plan. The preferred options stage includes land for 7,134 homes – this is because the Council has to over allocate to provide a level of choice and certainty that it will meet its housing needs. The preferred options are made up of new sites as well as sites in the existing plans of the former St Edmundsbury Borough and Forest Heath District councils that are yet to gain planning permission, and which are now being reassessed as part of this new local plan.

Cllr David Roach, Cabinet Member for Planning at West Suffolk Council said: “This isn’t the final plan but it is a key stage in its preparation. The plan is evolving as we engage, listen and take on board the feedback given.”

“The local plan is crucial to meeting housing needs so our communities have somewhere to live, that homes are built to good quality and are adaptable to support people’s changing health needs as they get older. The plan also allocates land for different types of businesses, supporting their ambitions and with it jobs and the future of our communities.”

“To not have a local plan would be to fail our residents. Without an up-to-date plan, we and our residents would have less say over how we manage development, protect the countryside and other greenfield sites, secure affordable housing and make sure that health, education, and roads improvements keep pace with growth. Without a plan, we and our residents would have little or no voice over the development that will come forward.”

“That is why it is so important that when the consultation opens on Thursday next week, people take the time to look at this latest draft plan and have their say. Through this they will be helping to shape the future of communities and employment in West Suffolk. It’s #YourSay, YourFuture, #YourWestSuffolk.”

Full details on how people can have their say will be published when the preferred options consultation launches next Thursday (26 May).

Alongside the public consultation, the Council will also issue a further call for sites. This is because the last call for sites did not generate a sufficient quantity of smaller housing sites of one hectare or less to comply with national Government policy, and to ensure a wide choice of employment sites to meet the demand established in an employment land review. The Council will also issue a call for sites specifically to identify land for Gypsies, Travellers and Travelling Showpeople. The Council has statutory duties and an assessment is being undertaken with some initial findings indicating accommodation needs.

Police online reporting tool

Reporting a non emergency crime can now be reported online on the Suffolk Constabulary website.

Alternatively you can dial 101.

In an emergency dial 999

Lightwave Food Bank

Lightwave runs a food bank which is based at the Red Lodge Pavillion. It is open every Thursday from 11am to 2pm for people to access food parcels or for donations to be dropped off.

More details can be found on their website

https://www.light-wave.org/red-lodge

Barton Mills Playing Field

The Parish Council would like to remind users of the rules when using the playing field:

- that no organised events should take place on the field without prior consent from the Parish Council

- no litter should be left on the field, litter should be disposed of in the bins available, if no bins are avaialble then litter should be taken home to dispose of.

Street Lighting

The majority of the street lighting in the village is owned by the Parish Council of which some are maintained by Suffolk County Council and some by the Parish Council.

To report a faulty street light first go to the online reporting tool on Suffolk County Council's website and use the map to locate the street light, if this is maintained by Suffolk County Council you can log the fault, if not the reporting tool will inform you that Suffolk County Council do not maintain the said light. If this is the case, then please contact the Parish Council clerk at clerk@bartonmills.net

Pot Holes and other Highway issues

The majority of roads in Suffolk are maintained by Suffolk County Council.

You can use Suffolk County Council's simple reporting tool, found on their website to report Highways issues including pot holes, blocked drains, trees/hedges affecting a highway and pavement defects

The Barton Miller

Volunteers in the Parish produce a monthly magazine called the Barton Miller.

News, local events and information can be found in the Barton Miller.

Past copies of the Barton Miller can be found on our website.

Sunnica

The Planning Inspectorate has opened up the window for residents to register their views, whether positive or negative, about the Sunnica scheme.

The full Sunnica application has been published online.

Registrations must be done by 17th March.

To register please visit the Planning Inspectorate website.

Road works - Newmarket Road

SCC are planning to carry out road resurfacing along C576 Newmarket Road, Barton Mills (from A11 to Golf Links Road). The works are programmed to take place overnight between 8 and 10 November 2021. The road will be closed each night between 8pm and 6am to ensure that they can carry out their works safely.

For the duration of the road closure, traffic will be diverted via Newmarket Road, A11 and vice versa.

As we plan roadworks in advance, we schedule extra days to allow for bad weather or other delays beyond our control. If we need to make major changes to our work dates, we will update the information signs on site.