On the left is the interior of my garden shed. The picture was taken yesterday morning. I am rather proud of the shed this year since it really is very full! It is, of course, that time of the year when all the little plants are getting pot-bound, but I hesitate to put them out into the garden before the magic date of 1 June, when frosts really should be a thing of the past. Gardening has become more of a preoccupation in recent days because, with the exception of a bit of a row at the Development Committee today, life at Babergh has gone rather quiet.
The Council Meeting due to be held on 3nd June has been cancelled due to lack of business, and even the agenda for the Development Committee, at which I was a substitute this morning, was rather a short one. Members did get rather excited towards the end of the meeting, however, when they were invited to discuss a draft report about the activities of the Committee over the past twelve months.
The report by and large showed that the Committee had been doing a good job, making decisions which were on the whole sensible and not taking too long about it. It seems that we are in the top quartile when it comes to having our decisions upheld on appeal, which means that by and large we follow the guidelines that we have set ourselves.
There was a good deal of heated discussion however about what has happened to the money already received by the Council as a result of Section 106 agreements. This is rather a technical subject, but concerns funds that developers agree to pay into the community when they receive planning permission for their schemes. Councillors are of course eager to get their hands on the loot on behalf of the electorate, but it seems that the failure to produce an appropriate protocol for the distribution of the money is holding up the process.
We are promised a report on the matter soon, but I have to say that I am constantly amazed at the slow pace of activity in matters such as this. At this rate Babergh will be dead and gone before the community gets its hands on the money, which in some cases runs into thousands of pounds.
I will be returning to this subject at a later date, but as I said in the meeting, I really do think that the failure to sort this matter out in a timely fashion is very disappointing, and actually rather shocking.
