In the year since the Parish Plan was published, the Parish Council has been concentrating efforts on the long-term issues of planning, housing and traffic which are the key to the future development of the village. This has coincided with the North Herts Local Development Framework consultation and the priority has been to ensure that Knebworth’s unique problems and opportunities are properly considered by the North Herts planners and councillors.

Work has also been progressing on some of the other issues identified in the Parish Plan including crime/antisocial behaviour, support for young people and promoting community events such as the village festival and the recent hedge-planting day in Old Knebworth.

There is now an opportunity to invite volunteers from the community to support two new projects:

1. Parish-wide Communications and News Coverage
Despite our excellent Parish News Magazine, a weekly news column in The Comet and the village website, news coverage across the parish is still patchy. The Parish Plan research highlighted this as being a particular problem for local organisations trying to promote events and keep villagers informed and for new-comers moving into the village. The intention is to form a working party to come up with some ideas and funding options for the Parish Council to consider. This will be a fixed term project – likely to be about 6 months. Anyone with media or IT skills would be especially welcome as would support from local organisations and businesses.

2. Pavements and Footpaths
Volunteers are invited to help carry out surveys of pavements and pathways within the village areas (Knebworth and Old Knebworth) to identify those in need of attention or improved lighting so that pressure can be put on the relevant agency or landowner. This working party will also look at footpaths and rights of way in the rural parts of the parish with a view to producing an updated parish map showing walks and places of interest. This is likely to be a 12 month project but volunteers can help by doing one-off surveys of their own roads or favourite country walk. Suitable for anyone who enjoys walking (young or not so young!) but other volunteers are also needed to help with administration, co-ordinating the surveys and report writing.

The Parish Council is also considering a new Litter Campaign and would like to investigate support for making Knebworth a Plastic-Bag-Free zone. Some of the village retailers are already offering eco-friendly bags but with each adult in the UK using an average of 300 plastic bags a year (for an average of 12 minutes per bag!) there is still plenty of scope for improvement. Apparently a small town in Devon (Modbury) has already become plastic-bag-free and other communities are following on. So if this is one of your soap-box subjects and you are up for a challenge, this could be your chance to make a difference.

As ever, the success of these projects will be dependent on enough volunteers coming forward to support them. If you are interested, please give me a call or email or I will be at the Parish Council’s Annual Parish Meeting at the Village Hall from 7.30pm on Wed 7th May. Hope to see you there.

Linda Brookes
01438 812168
brookesknebworth@btinternet.com

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You can download the full PARISH PLAN below: