PARISH COUNCIL CHAIRMAN'S REPORT - MAY 2009
The Annual Parish Meeting held on 29th April took the usual format with reports from the Chairman, Clerk, HEARA, Hickling History Group and Hickling Infants School.
Other organisations submitted reports to be appended to the minutes.
The Chairman thanked HEARA for the successful outcome on the Natural England report.
Although Eric and Ken will now take a back seat, they will be keeping up to date with developments regarding the Shoreline Management Plan.

The results of the new village community centre questionnaire were reported on and it was confirmed that the 8% blank/undecided returns have not been included with either the 'Yes' or 'No' results.
There were many people offering their skills, and others willing to run various clubs in the new building. Many thanks were extended to these parishioners. The Draft minutes of the APM are available from the Clerk and will be on the Hickling website in due course (www.hicking-village-norfolk.co.uk).
After the meeting was officially closed, a small celebration was held so parishioners and parish councillors could thank Ken and Eric personally for their HEARA help.

At the Parish Council meeting on 18th May, the Council voted in favour of going ahead with the new building on the recreation ground, which means selling the existing community hall and the two building plots at the end of Mallard Way. There is still a long way to go before this happens and building actually begins, funding being the main obstacle.

The NNDC have allocated money for the Street Name Signage capital programme for 2009-10, which means that in the next 12 months 1000 new signs will be installed and another 200 repaired/replaced across our region.
If you know of a sign that needs attention or is missing, please contact the Clerk on who will inform the appropriate department.

Poop Scooping and the Law: the Parish Council have had repeated complaints about dogs fouling around the village. In January 2008, under the Clean Neighbourhood and Environment Act 2005, NNDC introduced a Dog Control Order.
This order designates all land open to the air and to which the public are entitled or permitted to have access to as a poop scoop area. If land is designated under this act and you don't clean up after your dog, you may be asked to pay a fixed penalty of £80 and taken to court for the offence if the fine is not paid.
The NNDC Dog Warden has been visiting Hickling and some new signs will be displayed shortly.
We ask everyone to be more vigilant in cleaning up after their own dog or reporting people that do not.

The next Parish Council meeting is at 7.15pm on Monday, 15th June, in the Community Hall.
All parishioners are very welcome to attend.

Contact numbers:
Chairman, Viv Tallowin, 598410
Clerk, Shirley Sainsbury, 598882
Police Community Officer, Jeanette Hawes, 0845 456 4567