Parish Council News
There was a meeting of the Parish Council met on the 17th October and amongst the topics they discussed at the meeting were Caldbeck public toilets, Caldbeck car park, planning applications and Caldbeck village clean up day. The full meeting minutes can be found on the Parish Council website https://www.Caldbeck.org.uk/parish-council/.
Caldbeck Public Toilets
The legal transfer of the public conveniences from Allerdale Borough Council has been completed. As part of the transfer agreement the Council received a £9,000 grant for works related to the village toilets. The Council has already received a £1,000 private parishioner donation to help with the toilet work for which it is very grateful. The Council has looked for potential sites to build a new toilet block without success. The acquisition cost of any unidentified suitable land and build costs has resulted in the Council deciding that it will have to refurbish the existing toilets, and tenders will now be invited.
Caldbeck Car park
Caldbeck “Tenters” car park is common land forming part of Caldbeck Common. As such it cannot be improved as a car park nor can any other “works” take place without Secretary of State consent which would be opposed by the Open Spaces Society unless the works planned were to enhance the common as opposed to the village community. The OSS indicated they would not oppose an exchange application to de register the car park as common and register other land suitable to add to the common in its place. The Council would like to acquire about ¾ of an acre of land to make the exchange but as the application fee for an exchange is £4900 plus costs the Council has difficulty justifying the sums involved to remove the car park common land status. Since the meeting Electricity North West have quoted £2100 to provide an electric supply to the donation box to enable card donations. That will be considered at the next Council meeting on the 5th December. The present donation box income from this car park is about £3,000 a year.
Planning Applications
The Council discussed applications for the Cottage Pasture Lane, Ratten Row Gate and Burblethwaite.
For the Cottage Pasture Lane, the Council noted the representations from the LDNPA Rights of Way officer and the Ramblers Association about the impact the proposed application would have on the public footpath and agreed that this was detrimental. It agreed that the lack of onsite parking would worsen as the changes removed a parking place whist increasing the potential number of occupants. The Council agreed to object to the application on these bases.
The Council considered the Ratten Row Gate planning application and the associated tree application at Ratten Row gate together as the tree application includes the application to remove a tree which is necessary for the extension proposed in the planning application. Following discussion the Council had no issues with the other seven trees or the proposed extension works but felt that the tree that needed to be removed to allow the extension was worthy of consideration for a Tree Preservation Order. The LDNPA would be asked to assess the tree properly.
The Council had no objection to the Burblethwaite application.
Caldbeck village clean up day
The 2022 Caldbeck village clean up day will be held on the 1st December. All are welcome, please meet by the pub for a 9:30 am start.
