Local News

Please see current Local News below. Items of interest and archived news can be accessed from the links on the left hand side.

Avon Dassett 'Village Spring Clean Day'
St John the Baptist Bells
Lower End Parking Lay-by- UPDATE
Parish Website Update
St Johns Closure for Repairs
Avon Dassett Postcards for Sale
Affordable Housing UPDATE!!!
Avon Dassett News Links

Avon Dassett ‘Village Spring Clean Day’

Last year our proposed winter clean of St John the Baptist Church had to be cancelled because of the repairs being carried out on the roof. Instead village volunteers spent the day working on the new nature area, planting bulbs, erecting bird and bat boxes and cementing furniture into place.

Now the weather is getting warmer we would like to give the village and church another spring clean and invite everyone to come along on Saturday 24th April to either whisk a duster and broom around the church in readiness for the May Day bell ringing or tackle a spot of weeding and pruning in the village (please bring dusters and brooms or gardening equipment with you). Tea and biscuits will be provided.

If you would like to take part in ‘Avon Dassett’s Spring Clean’ let a member of the Parish Council know or just come along any time from 10am onwards on 24th.

Church of St John the Baptist, Avon Dassett.

Mayday, Mayday!! Not a distress call but a peal of bells to celebrate the start of summer and a chance to properly christen the bells now they have been restored by Graham Nabb from Kineton and his friends and engineering contacts, who have been working tirelessly and voluntarily on them for almost a year. This has been made possible by the completion of a huge amount of work by the CCT to repair and restore the spire over a long period. In addition their builders have just completed more work by re-roofing the south side of the chancel.

In order to show our appreciation to them and to graham and his team of ringers we are putting on refreshments in the form of hot drinks, sandwiches and cakes at a small charge so that we can raise funds to cover his material costs and make a donation to the churches conservation trust who kindly, after everything else, made a contribution to the bell restoration.

We are very lucky that such a small village has attracted so much kindness and generosity of funding.

This event will take place over lunch time on 1st May between 1pm and 2.3opm and refreshments will be served in the church so that the bell ringers can be on the spot. They will be going on to ring at other churches later. All visitors and the many bell ringers are asked to kindly park in the village or in the cemetery car park at the top of the hill.

everyone is welcome from our sister villages and we will be looking for willing sandwich and cake makers in Avon Dassett so we can keep costs to a minimum and make more money for the good causes. Kind helpers please contact Lily Hope Frost on 690 472.

There will be a short bell ringing on Easter Sunday which will act as a practise run and at the same time give pleasure on a special day.

Proposal for Parking Lay-by at Lower End- UPDATE

In Avon Dassett's Parish Plan published in March 2008 one of the action Points for the Parish Council to consider was ‘...a lay-by on the playground side of the road for Lower End residents’. It was felt that the provision of a parking lay-by at this site would remove the obstacle of parked cars on the approach to this sharp bend, increase visibility , ensure that cars were travelling on the correct side of the road when entering the bend from the B4100 direction and reduce the potential for accidents.

The proposal was sent to Stratford District Council in October 2009 with a request that it be considered as an area funded roads / transport project. Unfortunately the scheme was not one of those awarded funding and on 2nd March we received this feedback:

‘The above proposed scheme was considered by Stratford Area Committee at the Stratford Area Transport Capital Seminar on Friday 26th February 2010. After discussion and consideration unfortunately this scheme was not chosen for implementation. Resources are limited and schemes were prioritised in order of merit and importance. After a bad winter extra funding was especially made available for carriageway repairs and emergency drainage schemes’

Avon Dassett Parish Website

The Avon Dassett Parish website (http://www.avondassett-pc.gov.uk) continues to go from strength to strength. The site is attracting hundreds of new and returning visitors each week from across the world. On March 12th we will be representing parish websites throughout Warwickshire in a digital inclusion event at the Heritage Motor Centre.

Recent updates to the website have embraced web 2.0 technology. We have a Flickr group (http://www.flickr.com/groups/984114@N22/) where people can upload photos of Avon Dassett and the surrounding area. The images are then fed directly onto our homepage. We have created an interactive google map of the village (http://www.avondassett-pc.gov.uk/find.cfm) We also have an RSS feed which shows the ten most recently updated pages. Go to our site and the RSS logo should appear on the menu bar of your browser.

The website contains a wealth of information about the village including a monthly diary, information on groups and people, a comprehensive history of village with documents to download, planning information, and minutes and agendas of the parish council. We are always happy to include more content on the website. Please contact Jill Burgess (jburgess22@tiscali.co.uk) or Sarah Richardson (sarah.richardson@warwick.ac.uk) for more information.

St John the Baptist Church Closure

St John the Baptist Church will be closed from Monday 23rd November until the end of January 2010 to enable The Churches Conservation Trust to carry out essential repairs to the south nave roof.

Avon Dassett Postcards for Sale

Three winning images from the summer photo competition have been turned into postcards. The designs by Sara Lyth, Sandra Rice and Sarah Rutherford are on sale from Avon Dassett Parish Council at 50p each. If you would like to purchase some postcards please contact Jill Burgess

Affordable Housing

The Avon Dassett Housing Needs Survey completed in June 2007 identified a need for 3 new affordable homes for local people. The homes needed are 2-bedroom houses to rent from a housing association. The Parish Council want to explore the level of support there is in the village for a development of 3 new affordable homes for local people. The Housing Needs Survey indicated a certain degree of support, only 41% of households returned their survey

The Parish Council carried out a further survey in June. The results of this survey were counted and verified at the Parish Council meeting on Monday 7th July. The results are as follows:

Votes for a development of 3 affordable homes = 47
Votes against = 22
Spoilt papers = 1
70 returns out of 100 surveys delivered

Two landowners came forward to offer pieces of land for housing. However, for a variety of reasons both plots proved unsuitable. However, a landowner has now come forward with a third piece of land for proposed development. This is now being evaluated by Warwickshire County Council and Stratford District Council. Please contact us if you have any comments or suggestions.