Community, Parish Council & Village
The recent unexpected and rapid change in weather caught us short. Despite this the Snow Patrol, with their usual efficiency, stepped in to mitigate risks as much as they could – more about them later.
We saw, perhaps 2″ of snowfall in West Bergholt, meanwhile our webmaster reported nearer 4″ falling in just a few hours; he lives in Brentwood! By contrast, Greenstead and St. Johns had virtually none.
Continue reading “White Christmas or a Weather Crisis?”
Environment & Highways Meeting Held on 14th January 2021The Environment & Highways Committee of West Bergholt Parish Council met on 11th February 2021 and discussed:
Continue reading “Environment & Highways – 11th February 2021”
The Environment & Highways Sub-Committee of West Bergholt Parish Council met on 10th January and discussed play equipment, ponds, street furniture, bus shelter, buses parking, handymen, trees and much AOB. Continue reading “Environment & Highways – 10th January 2019”
The Environment & Highways Sub-Committee of West Bergholt Parish Council met on 8th March and discussed practice goal, playground equipment, heather, ditches & eco-survey on the Heath, pond care, tree survey, handymen and the snow patrol.
Snow Patrol Did Good!Now that the Beast from the East has passed it is good to reflect on how the village coped; in particular the work of the Snow Patrol dealing with Continue reading “Snow Patrol Did Good!”
As winter takes holdAutumn is nearly over and winter taking it’s grip, it is, then, perhaps timely to think about the prospects for snow especially since some papers are already forecasting serious drops in temperature with increased prospects for snow, for example, on 3rd December the Daily Mail (online) was saying:
Get set for coldest day of the year: Arctic blast set to sweep across Britain by the weekend with temperatures plunging to -5C.
As ever our village Snow Patrol volunteers will be preparing for serious snowfalls, but all can do their part in helping clear paths & footways. The Government publishes guidance about clearing snow outside your property, pathways to your property or public spaces, this guidance (see link below) says that there is no law stopping you from doing this.
The advice confirms that despite some media reports to the contrary, it is extremely unlikely that someone who has attempted to clear snow in a careful manner will be sued or held legally responsible if someone slips or falls on ice or snow at their property. People should not be deterred from performing a socially responsible act, such as clearing a path of snow, by the fear that someone may subsequently get injured slipping on the path.
Though the person clearing the snow does have responsibilities when doing the job, mainly to ensure that they are not making the area more dangerous, it is important to note that those walking on snow and ice have responsibilities themselves. A common sense approach is encouraged as is community involvement.
As well as HMG’s guidance on snow clearance, the Met Office also runs a useful website on behalf of the government that hosts a wealth of useful information:
… but every time we get heavy snowfall, whilst great fun for many, it still brings hazardous conditions underfoot. So we offer our congratulations and thanks to the group of 20 volunteers who worked hard to keep pavements in key areas of the village cleared during the snow and ice that came in January, helping to keep the areas safer for all of us.
We always welcome more volunteers to help keep our village safe if we have any further snowfall this winter.
If you want to help please contact – Harry Stone (Organiser ) Tel. 241026
Last year we may consider ourselves fortunate to have had only one bad spell of ice and snow. As a result of the efforts of a team of volunteers we were able to keep much of the village safely on the move by clearing pathways at an early stage.
The Environment Committee of the Parish Council is now making plans to repeat the operation should the same or worse happen again this winter. Naturally the more that volunteer the more we can do to help ourselves. If you are prepared to help in this initiative please contact Harry Stone on 241026 or Email [email protected]
Members of the community have been quick to praise local volunteers as shown on the right here.
Also a quick update to let you know that the February News Update is now available to download on our website. If you have any news that you think might be of interest to the local community please us know.