Setting a benchmark

Article by WALTER HEMMENS

Knockholt drank His Majesty's health with such gusto at the Coronation shindig on the rec last year, the council is inviting you to a repeat. Not officially a royal event, just a jolly, but after the King's cancer diagnosis, the duty of every loyal subject, and anyone else who likes an ale, is plain - to drink his health even more. Come and oblige on 26 May, 2pm-6pm.

Plenty of benches there for drinking loyal toasts. A bench is a great way to commemorate someone - practical, long-lived, civic-minded and philanthropic. As was Joe Malzer, and the council is glad to approve a bench on the rec in his memory. Joe, who died in September, served on the parish council and carnival committee, helped to run the village centre and added greatly to the revels of Knockholt Amateur Theatrical Society, memorably as an Ugly Sister in panto. Joe's bench will go with the one for his wife Joan, who died in 2018.

The council has also put new benches at Letts Green pond and on the Pound - with perfect timing. Minutes after it was installed, the Pound bench had its first occupants, three Bromley Ramblers eating sandwiches. Just what it's for.

It's nice to sit on a Pound bench, watching the world go by, except that on Main Road most of it goes by way over the 30mph speed limit. The council put up watch-your-speed devices, Kent Highways made it take them down, now Kent is doing a speed survey, which will find out officially what anyone on a bench could tell you - some drivers speed.

Trees usually don't, but can still be risky.

The council knows most of the trees for which it is responsible, and monitors their safety, but there are scraps of roadside land whose ownership has been unknown for more than 30 years. If someone gets clobbered by a branch, the council does not want to be saying "Sorry, guv, didn't know it was our tree."

So it has asked Kent County Council's Highways Definition Team.

It really does exist, and even lives up to its wonderful name by providing a definition of the highway: land where the public may "Pass and Repass without hindrance". Apart, it does not add, from potholes, blocked drains and temporary traffic lights.

The team can say which land is whose, but just now are overwhelmed by demand. When they're out of the woods, the council will get to the root of this.

The trees will take time, but let's not wait to fix the atrocious litter under them. The council's Spring litter pick meets at 10am on 6 April at the village centre.

Since it was decked by a falling tree two years ago, the stump of the street lamp at Chine Farm has been sealed with a sophisticated electrical safety device - a yoghurt lid, with the slogan "Feed your inner happiness". A better breakfast slogan might have been "Rise and shine", and it's about to happen - the council has paid for a new street lamp and is waiting for UK Power Networks to instal it.

A matter of great importance to many villagers: the council has refurbished all four swings on the rec. A resident called Oliver recently tested them. He was rather shy, but his spokesgrandmother told Parishes Together: "He likes the swings." Oliver is two.

The council next meets at 1845 on 8 April at the Village Centre. Come and have your say.