Chairman's message

Chairman’s Message

Dear Parishioners,

Once again I have had the honour of being elected Chairman of West Hallam Parish Council for the next year. We have a mixture of old and new councillors and the make up is very interesting. We have several councillors who also represent not only West Hallam/Dale Abbey on Erewash Borough Council but councillors who represent Abbotsford Ward. We also have councillors who have not been elected to a parish council before. I think sometimes it is good to have a change and to bring in fresh ideas. Hopefully both in one of our newsletters and on our web site all councillors are going to do a short biography to perhaps give you an insight into their lives and their aspirations for West Hallam.

Councillor Mrs Carol Hart
Chairman of the Parish Council

I do not know whether the next four years will be as eventful as the last, we certainly managed to complete a good number of projects, including the Village Enhancement Scheme, new play area at Beech Lane and the multi-user games area at the Community Centre site and, of course, two projects have overlapped the terms of office, namely the CCTV cameras and the building of the new Powtrell Community Pavilion.

The most pleasing thing about the projects either completed or in the process of being completed, is that we have managed to lever in funding from various sources, namely East Midlands Development Agency, Erewash Borough Council, Safer Derbyshire (Derbyshire County Council), Erewash Community Safety Partnership, Ann Powtrell Trust and the Football Foundation. Just making a quick

Powtrell Community Pavilion
construction underway - May 2007

calculation I would estimate that by the time the new pavilion is finished we will have received approximately £300,000 worth of funding for projects in our village.

Once the pavilion is completed and all the associated bills paid we can then look at our finances and decide what projects we would like to look at next. Any suggestions are always welcome, I have some ideas but as with everything finance is usually the stumbling block, but I am sure that if you are determined there are usually ways around the problems.

I will just finish by saying that as always anyone is welcome to attend the Parish Council meetings, held on the 1st Wednesday of every month commencing with the open session at 7 p.m. The meetings are held at the Methodist Church Hall, High Lane West. If you cannot attend you can always send any questions via our web site or all councillors have telephone contact details.

Kind regards,

Carol Hart