PANNAL VILLAGE SOCIETY

Newsletter 78

Annual General Meeting 2nd October

Before the AGM Nigel Sinclair, Vicar of Pannal gave a most interesting talk on St Robert of Knaresborough, tracing his story in the 12th and 13th centuries from childhood in a wealthy York family through a life of self-denial, dedication to helping the poor, confrontation with the Sheriff of Knaresborough Castle and King John to his final years as a hermit in the cave by the Nidd.

48 members attended the AGM and copied below are the Annual Report and the Accounts.

Chairman’s Annual Report

Society membership has remained stable at just over 600 which may be a significant help during consultation in the final stages of Harrogate Borough Council’s Local Development Framework, strength in numbers matters. The Committee met at regular intervals during the year.

You will recall that the Council identified the field opposite Fieldhurst on Leeds Road as a potential site for 8o houses. The Society strongly opposed the idea on the grounds that it set a precedent for more ribbon development towards Harrogate. During the year we had discussions with Pannal Junior Sports who need football pitches in the area, and this land on the A61 seemed a good site for them. We put this idea to the Council during their deliberations on housing site allocation. The Council has, in its latest house allocation for inclusion in the Local Development Framework, suggested 40-60 houses on the land with the rest of it allocated for sports, thus creating a buffer between Pannal and Harrogate. The Dunlopillo site is zoned for employment by the Council in the land for jobs allocation, and no proposals for development have come forward at this time from the owners. We have been trying to get the Council to agree to some land adjacent to Pannal Green becoming allotments for the village. Progress on this has been frustratingly slow, but we now have the backing of the cabinet member responsible for such activity and hope that things will now speed up.

Councillor Pat Jones gave a talk before the 2011 AGM on her year as Harrogate Mayor. Pat’s enthusiastic style went down well at a well attended meeting. Iain Ward-Campbell ran the quiz in November which was, as usual, a sell out. Carols on the Green were again popular in the run up to Christmas. Maggie Poppa gave a talk at the wine and cheese evening in March on her life as a journalist and the celebrities she had met during her career.

Work on the gardens at the station has continued all year under the guidance of Liz Ward, and the Society has gained excellent publicity for this community work. Many passengers stop to express their delight to the volunteers at what we are doing on Thursday mornings. We will probably enter the Harrogate in Bloom competition next year.

Anne Smith, a founder member of the Society in 1994, has resigned from the Committee to be able to spend more time on a family project with which she is involved. I would like to put on record my thanks and, I am sure, the thanks of all members, to Anne for her work over many years on behalf of the Society, and we wish Anne and Basil well for the future. We had some vacancies on the Committee, and I am delighted to say that three members have volunteered to join it. They are Mick Phipps of Westminster Drive, who will take on the planning role from Robin Barlow in 2014, Peter Dickinson of Pannal Avenue and David Hopkinson of Crimple Meadows.

I am very grateful to Dorothy Little and Robert Welburn who have once again done sterling work as Secretary and Treasurer. As you know Dorothy and I will be standing down at next year’s AGM and are looking for people to volunteer to take on these two roles. My thanks also go to the other committee members for their support and work during the year.

Accounts

INCOME & EXPENDITURE ACCOUNT
FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 AUGUST 2012
INCOME / EXPENDITURE
2012 / 2011 / 2012 / 2011
Subscriptions & Post Levy / 1,164.00 / 1,267.00 / Carols Around the Tree / 51.42 / 17.94
Donations / 13.00 / 123.04 / Meeting Expenses / 132.00 / 100.00
Bank Interest Received / 0.98 / 1.04 / Printing, Stationery, Postage / 243.35 / 352.52
Quiz / 19.50 / 120.75 / Licence Fees for Notice Boards / 20.00 / 20.00
Cheese & Wine with Speaker / 41.34 / 83.97 / Pannal Station Gardens / 45.37 / 0
Excess of Expenditure / 0 / 916.45 / Insurance / 195.63 / 191.76
Web Site / 0 / 1,277.23
Christmas Lights Pannal Green / 0 / 447.00
New Notice Board for PVS/Church / 0 / 96.55
Visit to Saltaire / 0 / 9.25
Excess of Income / 551.05 / 0
£1,238.8 / £2,512.2 / £1,238.8 / £2,512.2
BALANCE SHEET AT 31 AUGUST 2011
Balance Brought Forward / 2,359.34 / Balance Carried Forward
Current Account / 209.46
Excess of Income / 551.05 / Reserve Account / 2,700.93
£2,910.3 / £2,910.3

Officers and Committee

Mick Phipps and Peter Dickinson were elected to the committee to fill the 2 vacancies. Chairman, Secretary, Treasurer and other members of the Committee were re-appointed.

Local Development Framework (LDF) - Dunlopillo to be designated for mixed development

At a special Council meeting on 17 October, Harrogate BC determined the sites on which houses could be built over the next 15 years. The proposals will be published on 18 November for public consultation over an 8 week period ending mid-January.

The Council had a late change of mind on the Pannal sites with the Dunlopillo site being included as a mixed development incorporating 120 dwellings, while the proposal for 60 dwellings on the Leeds Road site was deleted. The whole of the latter site including land to the west of the Crimple will be designated for low intensity sport and recreation.

Dunlopillo Proposal

The mixed development proposal being put forward by Forward Investments, the owners of Dunlopillo includes:

- 4hectares of land for 120 dwellings, 2.5 hectares retained for employment business park

- a park and ride for 75 cars

- small scale retail facilities fronting onto Station Road

- new car, cycle and pedestrian access onto A61 south of the site

- provision of 1.35ha of outdoor sports pitches to south west of the site.

(both of these last 2 items are on green belt land).

Forward Investments are currently in discussions with planning officers before submitting a formal planning application. Part of the pre-application process is a public consultation which may take the form of an exhibition sometime in the New Year.

It should be stressed that the Village Society did not lobby for this change other than objecting to the Leeds Road housing proposal from the outset. The Committee meets on 12th October to consider this new scenario.

Christmas Lights

The Village Society is working with the Council to replace the lights that were damaged in a storm last winter, and the new ones should be in place soon.

Memorial Hall

The Hall will be launching a new Pannal Village website at their AGM at 7.30 on 6th November. It will be called the “Pannal Junction” and will be a “portal” site to enable all our local community groups and their individual websites to link in free of charge.There will be a short presentation (on the new big screen!) of the Hall’s recent successes and their plans for the future followed by a demonstration of the new web-site. All are invited to the AGM.

Anne Smith

Anne does a blog annesmithpannal.blogspot.co.uk in which she posts news about Pannal, you might find it interesting.

Committee members:

Chairman:Peter Stretton, 7 Hazel Drive, HG3 1NY. Tel. 549837

Treasurer:Robert Welburn, 58 Crimple Meadows, HG3 1EN. Tel. 879374

Secretary:Dorothy Little, 62 Crimple Meadows, HG3 1EN. Tel. 870292

Committee:Robin Barlow 879505; Liz Bowden 870007; Peter Dickinson 879079; John Glynn Jones 872180; Judith Long 872464; Joan Newby 871209;Mick Phipps 870911; Liz Ward 872577.