Chairman’s Annual Report 2023 – 2024
It is with sadness we record the death of Audrey Dellow, who died on 3rd February after a short illness. Audrey worked tirelessly for the community and served on the parish council for 12 years and will be sadly missed.
We would like take this opportunity to welcome Cllr Dominic Brown, who has recently joined the Parish Council.
Summer Front Garden Competition We are holding a best front garden competition again this year. This will be judged by a walk around the village during week commencing 15 July and a prize of £100 will be awarded to the winner, £50 for second place and £25 for third place.
Recreation Ground Improvements
The new children’s play area has now been opened, complete with a perimeter enclosing fence to prevent dog access, along with other improvements to the Activity Track. 132 trees have been planted around the park. 75 of these were planted by a cracking effort during a Community planting day by Dinnington and Wideopen Scout Groups, including 5 donated by a local resident. Due to the extreme wet weather we have been experiencing recently the area is still very wet underfoot, hopefully as we head towards summer it will continue to dry up. However, taking notice of comments from the community we are in discussions with NCC to see if the areas of rubber crumb flooring can be extended or surfaced paths linking the equipment can be provided to improve matters for the future.
The new equipment can be enjoyed now and hopefully the Recreation Ground will continue to be used by future generations for many years to come.
New Litter bin adjacent School
We have purchased a new bin from NCC to be located adjacent the main school entrance on Sycamore Avenue, on the grass at the rear of the footpath. It was proving impossible to get a bin in the Recreation Ground in this location within the park, due to emptying issues and the footpaths immediately outside the park entrance not being wide enough. Hopefully this will deal with litter issues in the area and encourage dog owners to pick up and deposit when leaving the park.
Traffic calming measures on Main Road and reducing the speed limit to 20mph
Newcastle City Council have now reviewed all comments raised by residents and stakeholders during their consultation, and have confirmed that they are looking to move forward with the scheme.
As a number of the comments were made in regard to the proposed roundabout they are looking to remove this from the scheme and replace it with additional speed cushions either side of the junction. NCC will write to residents later in the year to advise them of the updated scheme and when it will proceed.
Improvements to the Footpath down to Big Waters
A new gravel footpath will be constructed by Newcastle City Council from the bridge adjacent to the Sewage Pumping station ( east end of the Recreation Ground ) heading east to the gravel farm track approx. 250m. Access ramps will be constructed both sides of the bridge. 2 x New Kissing gates have already been provided on the Main Track down to Big Waters. A new gate will be installed on the Brunswick section to allow tractor access for hedge cutting along the footpath and some minor improvement works will be carried out at Big Waters Park. The main works will be carried out by Newcastle City Council over the summer.
Development of the field adjacent to the allotments known as the Pleasure Grounds to facilitate additional Allotments
Planning permission for the new allotments has now been granted, subject to providing mitigation measures to deal with some environmental issues. Once this has been resolved, tenders will be sought for the construction of the 19 new allotments, a small car park and central water point. Work will hopefully get under way in the summer.
New Doctors Surgery
Following on from the public consultation by the doctors for their proposed new surgery last year, their Developers have now successfully obtained their Pre Planning Application from NCC. This has taken some time to move forward and has resulted in the site having to be made slightly larger to accommodate the additional parking and entrance road required.
The plan is still to construct the new Doctors surgery immediately behind the current building and when complete decant from the current building into the new and then demolish the old building, level the area and construct a car park and entrance at the front. The programme is to progress to obtain full planning permission in the next couple of months and hopefully complete the works towards the end of 2025.
Neighbourhood Plan
The final “Submission” version of the NP was submitted to NCC on 1 Jan 23 and is being subjected to a final round of consultation led this time by Newcastle City Council. Due to the Doctors now requiring a slightly larger area in the Old School field than they did when the Neighbourhood Plan was submitted, the plan had to be temporarily paused, as in its original form it would have compromised the new GP surgery land requirement. Now that the Doctors have finalised their land requirements, discussions have resumed with NCC to move forward again. This will now go to an independent examination to ensure the Plan meets statutory requirements.
The final step of the Neighbourhood Plan process is for the Plan to proceed to a referendum, organised by Newcastle City Council and open to all residents of Dinnington Parish. If this results in a majority support for the Plan, it will then be adopted and be used by Newcastle City Council as a statutory document in the determination of future planning applications in the Parish.
For all the Facebook users out there we'd like to reassure you that although we don't have a Facebook presence, we do monitor the posts particularly relevant to the Parish and take appropriate action as required.
Further Projects we are pursuing, utilising S106 and CiL money.
Turn the area of the Old School Field remaining after construction of the Doctors into a small simple park for the enjoyment of the public, constructing traffic calming measures on Main Road and reducing the speed limit to 20mph (subject to the recent consultation), a new village map beside the Post Office to replace the out of date existing one, additional litterbins and possible additional grass cuts, if the need arises.
Speedwatch Volunteering
In response to frequent comments from residents about speeding in the village, one of our members decided to become a Northumbria Police Community Speed Watch Scheme volunteer.
As a volunteer, they will be working with officers to gather information on those speeding and offending on the roads. As well as raising awareness and deterring speeding, this will reduce noise and pollution that will improve the quality of life in our community.
Those caught speeding will be sent a letter about their offence and data will be monitored so further action can be taken against repeat offenders.
We still have a number of vacancies for new Parish Councillors and if anyone is interested in joining please contact the Parish Clerk
Mike Wood, Chairman
