News from The Parish Council – April 2024

The rate of return of the Acol Household Survey was above 30%, which is excellent for surveys of this type. On behalf of all our community, heartfelt thanks to all respondents. Analysis of the results will be posted to the Neighbourhood Planning webpage, when complete, as will progress along the Neighbourhood Plan Roadmap. Some understandable concerns were expressed about confidentiality and the possibility that, although the results will be anonymised, individuals would be identifiable through data such as household makeup in such a small community. As the PC Lead for Planning & Development, Councillor Gavin Winpenny has a pivotal role in processing the survey data, so it’s fortunate that his “day job” is data analysis! Gavin has produced a report on Survey Data Handling, which is available on the Neighbourhood Planning section of the Acol Parish Council website. The following extract addresses most of the concerns that were raised…

• “We will issue a report that provides insights from the data, along with a set of data presentations, primarily summary statistics aggregated by variable e.g. analysis by age group or analysis by gender. We will be cautious in the use of combined variable analysis, e.g. analysis of age group by gender, as these, by their nature, can be more identifying of people. We will also identify data limitations (e.g. missing data).”

One of the respondents asserted that “the community has a right to know… the extortionate and unnecessary expense from APC funds”. All expenditure between Parish Council meetings is reported at each meeting. However, the cost of printing the survey was £138. Councillors time is, of course, unpaid, and no other costs or expenses related to the survey have been paid.

I should also stress that the reason it’s so important for our community to develop its own Neighbourhood Plan is to give us a voice, that’s on a par with District Planners’, over developments that may affect us.  It is not instead of, but in addition to, other key workstreams for the Parish, such as working to address the excessive traffic volume and speed, and pedestrian and cyclist safety.

The Local Government Boundary Commission has commenced a 10-week consultation on Thanet Ward boundaries and names based on the premise that the number of Thanet District Councillors will reduce from 56 to 42 at the next election. Among the consideration for Acol Parish Council are how the wards map to parish boundaries and how we are represented at Thanet District Council. (Currently there are three Thanet District Councillors in a Thanet Villages Ward that includes Acol.) Anyone can contribute to the consultation online at the Boundary Commission website.

We cannot adopt the BT telephone kiosk, at present, as it went beyond its minimum use level in a year around the time, last summer, we were announcing consideration of its adoption. 🤔We had planned to repaint the kiosk during April but will now ask BT to repaint it.

The next Parish Council Meeting on Thursday 18th April at 7.30 pm in the Village Hall will comprise the Annual Parish Meeting – with the opportunity for parishioners to raise any issues or matters of concern - and the Annual Meeting of The Parish Council, where we’ll report on progress made over the last year and look ahead to the coming year. Please attend if you can. 🙏

Richard Steel (Chair)

PARISH COUNCIL MEETING

The next Parish Council meeting will take place on Thursday 18th April 2024 at 7.30 pm. This will include the Council's Annual Parish Meeting & The Annual Meeting of The Parish Council.

Members of the public are welcome to attend.

 

Parish Council Office

Ring the Parish Council on 01843 845363, or ring the Clerk any day (9am to 5pm) on 07712 430142.

Please ring either of these numbers if you have problems, and do not know who to contact.