Category: News and Announcements

Winter Salting 2016/17

Please find below details of this winter’s gritting/salting regime, which has been forwarded to us by Essex County Council:

Map of salting Routes: http://www.essexhighways.org/Transport-and-Roads/Interactive-Maps-and-Live-Travel-Information/Highways-Information-Map/Highways-Information-Map-Portal.aspx

Policy: http://www.essexhighways.org/Transport-and-Roads/Roads-and-pavements/Winter-travel/Salting-routes.aspx

Salting routes
We have a total of 59 salting routes.  We operate 62 machines with ploughs plus two mini gritters.  All routes on the salting network are treatable in a maximum of 3 hours.

The salting routes consists of:

 ·       ’A’ roads that Essex Highways are responsible for. This excludes the A12, the A120          and the A130 which are administered by other organisations

·       ‘B’ roads

·       The access route to the main settlement of a Parish of 50 or more households not               already on the precautionary salting route

·       Roads served by at least 4 public bus services per day for 5 days per week or more

·       Roads that link sites of national importance (e.g. airports, ports, fuel refineries etc.) to         the main salting network

·       We also include roads which allow ambulance and fire stations access to the main             salting network

Changes to Local Bus Services – from 10 April 2016

From 10th April 2016 there will be important changes to many of the routes, timetables and service numbers of bus services in Essex.

Passengers, particularly those using the bus to go to school or work, are strongly recommended to check for the revisions using the National Traveline Service, available at: www.travelinesoutheast.org.uk shortly before undertaking their journey, so that they are aware of any changes that have been made.

The majority of dedicated school contract services, which are not open for use by the general public will not be affected.

Notice of Temporary Road Closures 14-16 March

ECC have notified the Parish Council of a temporary road closure from 14-16 March 2016, at:
(a)Birchleys Road, Pebmarsh, between the junction with Oak Road and the junction with Pebmarsh Road and
(b)Catley Cross, Pebmarsh, between junction with Sudbury Road and junction of Collins Road.
These are for the purposes of carriageway patching and to lay planings. Please see the links below for details:
http://roadworks.org/?tm54849
http://roadworks.org/?tm54831

Telecommunications Mast

Mobile Telecommunications Mast

Despite the best efforts of the Parish Council, there will, regrettably, be no Mobile Mast erected in the Parish for at least a year.

This decision has been taken by Arquiva, the company who have the contract from the government body funding the scheme to cut down the number of “not spots” in the country (of which we are one, as reinforced by the survey we undertook). This government body is the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and they have endorsed this decision.

The reason they have given for the decision is that funding for this scheme runs out in March 2016 and if they cannot restart the process until October, this would give them insufficient time to complete before the funding runs out. The significance of October is that this is when the Craystons complete their purchase of Hunts Hall, near to which is the currently preferred site. We have pointed out that the Notts, who are selling the property, are willing to co-operate in the process and sign any necessary documents, but to no avail.

Other factors leading to this decision are the history of problems and objections which have been encountered to date; regrettably many of the recent objections contained inaccuracies. Additional factors were the inefficiency of Arquiva’s agents Harlequin, and the fact that Arquiva have already spent considerable sums of grant money surveying and assessing three sites in Pebmarsh.

It is possible that funding for this will be renewed for a further year (until March 2017) but we will not know this until later in the year. If this happens then we should be in the frame again.

Survey – Telecommunications Mast

Thank you to all who have returned the survey, we have had an excellent response so far, which provides the Parish Council with a good overall view of current mobile coverage and opinion, which will aid in forthcoming consultations. We need them back by Friday 5 June, so if you haven’t returned it yet, please do so ASAP!

You should all have received a survey and a prepaid envelope through your door – if you have not, please contact the Clerk at either:
pebmarshpc@hotmail.com
or on 07790 598363.

Thank you for your support.
Philippa Potter
Clerk