Northwood Parish Council

Posted by Admin on 20 April 2013, 4:14 pm

MEETINGS

Meetings of the Parish Council are held on the first Tuesday of the month, commencing at 6.30pm.
The meeting of the Planning Committee, if required, is held on the third Tuesday of the month, commencing at 6.30pm.

ALL MEETINGS ARE HELD AT
NORTHWOOD PRIMARY SCHOOL, WYATTS LANE, NORTHWOOD

unless otherwise stated.

MEMBERS OF THE PUBLIC AND THE PRESS ARE VERY WELCOME TO ATTEND.

The comments made in the following articles represent the views of the individual contributors, rather than Northwood Parish Council.

PARISH COUNCIL NEWS

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Sgt Mike Sizer, as the senior officer in charge of the Cowes and East Cowes Local Safer Neighbourhood teams was in attendance to address some of the concerns raised at the previous meeting with regard to the recent changes in personnel. Sgt Sizer explained that the changes in staffing resulted from an internal re-shuffling, undertaken at his direction and apologised for not attending the March meeting to explain the effect of this. He referred to the excellent reduction in crime rate statistics in the Cowes area. Following a question, Sgt Sizer advised that no one reason had merited the change, but through partnership working with other agencies, visiting schools, alternative schemes and community working rather than taking the perpetrator to court had all combined to achieve the successful outcome.
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It was queried as to whether officers’ local knowledge had been lost due to the changes. Sgt Sizer reassured that was definitely not the case. In response to a further question, he confirmed that plans were still in place for the police station to eventually move into the Cowes Enterprise College, although no timescale could be given.
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Mr Harvey, a Police Support Volunteer and a Community Speed Watch Coordinator for the Cowes / East Cowes area provided a brief outline of the new scheme that required volunteers’ island-wide to identify vehicles exceeding the speed limit. After being logged three times within a 12 month period details of the owner would be passed to the Hampshire Constabulary who then might take further action. Three volunteers were required to man each location. They would each have undergone specialist training and have received high visibility jackets, wet weather equipment and monitoring equipment in order to undertake the task.
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Cllr Ferris suggested that the bus stop near to the hairdressers along Nodes Road was perceived to be in a blind spot for both bus drivers and passengers waiting for the bus to Cowes. Cllr Bentley advised that he had recently travelled along this route in order to question some of the bus drivers, but no problem had been reported to him. The clerk also referred to the results of the Parish survey where this perception had also not been reported by any respondent.
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A member of the public, who was present, advised that when waiting inside the bus shelter it was impossible to view along the road, making it rather unpleasant during inclement weather.
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The IW Council had informed that due to the close proximity of the tight bend at the Four Cross junction, the bus stop was required to be situated by way of the lay-by in order to maintain the traffic flow along this busy section of road.
It was agreed that the Clerk writes to Island Roads, for their views.