Chairman’s Report – Year ending April 2025

After twenty-six years as our parish clerk, we said a big thank you to Ann Addison on her retirement from the position in January of this year. Ann had worked alongside three chairs and a whole host of councillors during her years of service for Pattishall Parish Council. Our thanks go to Iris Illingworth who stepped in to fill the role whilst the council sought a permanent replacement for Ann. Thanks also to David Keeble who took on Financial Officer part of the clerk’s duties.

We welcome Maria Sadler as the new clerk for our parish who will take up the position at the beginning of May. Maria, who lives locally, has already got experience of being a clerk having covered two maternity posts in the last couple of years. Information of her contact details will appear on the Parish Council website once she is in position.

The Parish Council has developed its communication channels by:

Regularly updating the Parish Facebook page with messages and has promoted the parish on Radio Northampton. We have migrated the parish website to the new domain – pattishallparish.gov.uk and continue to fund our Around Pattishall newsletter, published five times a year and delivered free to every home in the parish.

The defibrillator located at Pattishall School has been maintained and checked regularly and please note that there is another defibrillator located at the Parish Hall. The parish council has had regular contact with the staff of Pattishall Parish School. It has continued to take an interest in the pupils with their work and activities at the school. The grant money received by the council for the Community Café has continued to cover the cost of the hall hire where at fortnightly gatherings over fifty people meet over a hearty meal at affordable prices. The council are pleased to donate monies to The Produce Show £150, Seniors Christmas Lunch £150, Save Towcester Now £1500, Parish Hall fire alarm system £1000 & Cornhill defibrillator £200. Gayton & Tiffield bus continues to support residents, and we contributed a grant towards this service. In addition, a volunteer from the parish has come forward as a driver.

The Parish Council is aware of the need in the future to acquire further burial plots for the parish. There are vacant plots in the new burial ground and the Garden of Remembrance has many plots.  The footpaths continue to be monitored by our wardens, and they oversaw the installation of two new gates that replaced stiles at Hodge Close in Astcote and to the rear of Suttons Walk. The damaged footbridge along the path from  our parish to Bugbrooke was also repaired.

There has been lots of action regarding highways  and maintenance:

• Road surface patching (not re-surfacing) for the following parish roads – Church St, The Beeches, School Road, Birds Hill, Gayton Road Eastcote.
• Complete tarmac-surface on the Cornhill to Bugbrooke Road.
• Part of Leys Road, Simons Walk, Valley End and Sands Close micro-surfaced – Festival Road and the part of Leys Road not completed at the same time, as the concrete base had deteriorated to the point micro-surfacing would not work. Another solution to be offered by WNC Highways,
• Some footpath repairs on Church Road, School Road, and Butchers Lane
• A new 40 mph limit on The Banbury Lane coming in from Rothersthorpe
• Engaged with National Highways in an attempt to have traffic calming on the A5 through Fosters Booth – (still awaiting outcome and chasing for it)
• Replacement 50 mph signs northbound installed on the A5 plus new 50 mph repeater signs too
• Confirmation that the 30-mph limit coming into Eastcote on the Gayton Road is to be extended out to the Eastcote village sign (waiting for work to be completed)
• An additional drain / gulley added at the bottom end of Pool Close to stop a big puddle forming
• Went through the process of choosing Speed Indicator Devices to assist with traffic calming. In addition to have all the legal licensing in place and larger poles installed to hold the latest devices (still awaiting fitting date)
• Footpath on Birds Hill widened (technical expression – sided out)
• The start of drain unblocking on Pound Lane to alleviate flooding on Banbury Lane – ongoing
• New paintwork outside the school for zebra crossing, zig zag lines and double yellow lines

During the last twelve months, the parish council has installed seven LED lanterns, with part night cells, and fitted part night cells to the twenty-one LED lanterns which were installed before the introduction of our policy of part night street lighting.  All our one hundred & four streetlights now have LED lanterns and all, except those at the three major junctions, are fitted with part night cells.  We are incredibly pleased with the performance of the new lights.  Not only have they given us better street lighting but our energy consumption has markedly reduced, particularly important given the continuing prohibitive cost of electricity.  There is also less light pollution from the new lighting.

The work on village maintenance has continued apace with repairs and cleaning of paving leading to Garden of Remembrance.  The bench has been reinstated on Church Street and replaced, and we have extended the dragons teeth bollards on Pattishall Green. We have replaced glazing to a number of notice boards which had deteriorated over the years.  Additional play equipment has been added to Booth Close and there has been replacement grass matting to Butchers Lane Play Area. Wet pour has been placed to the agility bars and parallel bars at the Parish Hall Play Area along with repairs to the child’s snail. An extensive refurbishment of the roundabout at the Hall Play Area was undertaken and we now have a very cheerful and safe piece of play equipment.

We had a dry and sunny day for the litter pick this year. The turnout of residents was particularly good. Around twenty-two adults were involved on the day plus a great number of Explorers, Scouts, Cubs and Beavers. There were a couple of residents that could not make the day and went out around Eastcote and Dalscote earlier in the week, which was much appreciated.

The rubbish bags were picked up from around the parish by Dale and Ruth Furniss, many thanks to them both. There was a great community spirit during the whole morning which was very nice to see. A big thank you from the Parish Council to all those who took part.

During the last year the Parish Council spent nearly £110,000 on the provision of our standard services (grass mowing, tree pruning, street lighting, maintenance of our play areas and other assets, donations to the Parish Hall and several community groups, dog bins, etc) and also investment in new play equipment, Speed Indicator Devices (SIDS), and the final stage of upgrading our street lights.

In the coming weeks we will issue a report on our progress on delivering our 5 Year Plan.
We have set our Budget for 2025 / 26 and this is on our new parish Council website.
The tasks of setting our annual budget and our 4 year forecast, and managing our finances during the year, are a very important responsibility and this is reported and discussed at every Parish Council meeting.

During 2024 we moved our banking to a new Online service provided by Unity Trust Bank who specialise in banking for local councils. Their banking app is fast, secure and efficient.
We will have our AGAR (Annual Governance and Accountability Return) audits in the coming weeks and these are  carried out by both NCALC (Northamptonshire County Association of Local Councils) and PKF Littlejohn and the results of these are reviewed at Parish Council meetings and posted on our website.
Our main income for 2025 / 26 will be from our Precept from WNC (£65,500) and in addition we expect to receive further CIL (Community Infrastructure Levy) monies and Bank Interest. We will make further investment to improve our community as we strive to deliver the next phase of our 5 Year Plan during the coming year.

We continue to monitor new planning applications in our parish and discuss them at our Parish Council meetings where parishioners can also make comments. In parallel we have worked with WNC Planning Enforcement to ensure all Conditions for approved applications are discharged.

The DHL application north of Towcester was rejected by the WNC Strategic Planning Committee and then went to a Public Enquiry Appeal in February. The final decision did not go in Save Towcester Now’s favour with the DHL planning was approved but with over forty stipulations. Parish Councillors worked closely with the Save Towcester Now team during the year and two councillors made presentations at the Appeal.

Both Pattishall and Cold Higham Parishes have joined together to present a weekend of events to commemorate the end of the Second World War. It calls for a lot of community liaison and we are working to put on events to mark this momentous occasion in British history and to provide something for all parishioners to enjoy and remember. With a memorabilia display, fete  a forties bash with food & entertainment it promises to  be a weekend of enjoyment and reflection.

I thank all those who contribute to life in our parish; no matter how small it all helps to foster a sense of community spirit. Also, thanks to my fellow councillors for their time freely given in helping to provide a better service to

 Barry Evans

Chairman Pattishall Parish Council