Chairman’s Report June 2025

The end of April and the beginning of May was a busy time for the Parish Council with three meetings in the space of eight days. First was our Annual Parish Meeting (APM). Thank you to all the Valley residents who attended. John Beresford gave an excellent talk on the project to improve the sports facilities and car parking at Couch Green. It was good to have many questions on the project and John was able to explain the aims, to where we had progressed and what the next stages will be.

The formal part of the meeting followed with a report from, one of our City Councillors, the Parish Council Chairman’s report and the Financial report. For those who missed the meeting and would like the details of these reports, please see our website. Also, as requested by a resident, the draft minutes of the meeting will be put on the website but please remember these will remain draft minutes until the APM agrees them in 2026.

A week after our APM we held consecutively on the same evening our Annual Meeting of the Council (AMC), sometimes incorrectly referred to as our AGM, and also our May Full Council Meeting (FCM). One of the main objects of the AMC is to choose the various roles for members of the Parish Council. Similar but not identical tolast year , the principle ones are:-

Chairman, Patrick Appleby;   Vice Chairman, Paul Moffatt;

Planning Portfolio, Christopher Langford;

Finance Portfolio, Stephen Andrews and Scot Johnston;

Open Spaces Portfolio, John Beresford;

Webmaster, David Wolfe;

Law and Order Portfolio, David Swinstead;

Rights of Way Portfolio, Scot Johnston with Chris Jeffes running the Ride on Brush Cutter Operation;

Highways and Transport, David Wolfe, Patrick Appleby and with Christopher Langford covering cycling.

Village Hall Representatives,  Itchen Abbas & Avington: Christopher Langford; Easton: David Wolfe;  Martyr Worthy: Paul Moffatt.

There are other roles as well, including membership of our Rights of Way and Environmental Working Groups. Details of these can be found on the Parish Council Website. You do not need to be a member of the Parish Council to belong to these working groups so if either of these areas are of interest please come and join us.

Having completed these appointments we moved onto our May Full Council Meeting. Apart from the usual routine items there were three others that need to be noted. A report had been received that the steps had partially collapsed at the west end of the footpath between Itchen Abbas and Chilland Lane (footpath 31). Following the meeting Chris Jeffes obtained new boards and pegs from the County Council Access Team and with the aid of Scot Johnston and one other, two new steps have been installed. Please see the before and after photographs on  page ??. The second item is the poor state of repair of the bus shelter opposite the war memorial in Martyr Worthy. There is no doubt that it either needs extensive repairs or replacing. It also appears to have been subjected to misuse. The question therefore has arisen as to whether a bus shelter is needed at this location and if not are there other bus stops where a shelter would be more appreciated. Please let us know.

A third item to note is that, once again, BT wants to remove some of the telephone boxes in the Valley. There are notices to this effect in the one in Easton and the one at Couch Green. The Parish Council has made a request via Winchester City Council that both theses boxes should be retained with operable phones.  The main reason is that mobile phone signals in the Valley are at best variable and in places nonexistent. Therefore there is a need for public phones which can be relied upon in emergency situations. The box in Avington is listed so cannot be moved but could still lose its phone. We have been advised that it is unlikely to get any of the other phone boxes listed. We have also requested that if the phones are removed that the Parish Council can buy the boxes to keep them as part of the Valley’s heritage.

As previously reported there are concerns with potentially hazardous and inappropriate diversions being imposed due to construction work for the M3 Junction 9 improvement scheme. After raising the issue some time ago a response has now been received from National Highways. Three Parish Councillors will be meeting on site to discuss these issues with National Highways managers involved with this project. We will let you know the outcome in the July edition of Itchen Valley News.

Patrick Appleby

Chairman