News from Whaddon

This page contains links to recent pieces of information, in particularly other articles on the site. It is (we hope) a quick way of seeing what is on here other than just the links etc which form an essential part of a village web site like this.

Whaddon has a newsletter, the Whaddon News, which appears four times a year. The editor is Joan Pascoe who can be contacted on 01223 208062.

See the calendar for upcoming events.

The data from the Speedwatch checks in Whaddon so far is available here.

June 2010

20 June--Whaddon Open Gardens

A new venture, suggested by Wendy Evans, for villagers to open up some of their gardens to visitors to raise funds for the village hall, has been a great success. Eight gardens were open round the village, and tea and cake was provided in the village hall as part of the entry price. The amount raised is in the region of £1300. We thank Wendy for the immense effort she put into organising this, and to everyone who contributed their time or their garden to making it a success.

If anyone has any photographs, could they send them to the webmaster so he can put them here?

22 June--Exhibition of documents from the Cambridgeshire Archive

In the course of 2009, a document relating to a land transfer in 1438 in the parishes of Whaddon, Meldreth and Bassingbourn appeared at a London dealer. The three villages were asked if they would be prepared to contibute to the cost of buying it for the Cambridgeshire Archive, and they did so. The document was subsequently purchased and conserved for the Archive.

Whaddon suggested in 2010 that the document be exhibited in the villages so that residents could see to what they contributed. An evening was arrange in Whaddon Village Hall to which Philip Saunders and his colleagues brought not just this document but a number of others relating to the villages, as well as general information about the Archive. A lot of residents of all three villages attended and the event was considered a great success. It is very important to connect local residents with their history and the three parishes are very grateful to the Archive for making this possible.

The document itself is illustrated below; a PDF file of a translation and notes by Philip Saunders can be obtained from the Meldreth web site by following this link. There was also a news item in the Royston Weekly News.

April 2010

Bus service!

The 127 bus between Royston and Guilden Morden has finally been brought to Whaddon, thanks to a joint effort between Whaddon Parish Council and Cambridgeshire County Council. The Parish Council is subsidising the service for an experimental period of six months from 12 April. Here are a couple of photos of the first bus in Church Street.

Buses will serve Meldreth Road and Church Street from Monday to Saturday, and will call at Tesco and Royston Station before terminating at Royston Bus Station. The Bridge Street times to Royston are 08:32 and 10:12 (on Wednesday the existing market bus will run instead of the 10:12, leaving 09:40). Return times from Royston Bus Station will be 13:10 (12:40 on Wednesday) and 17:10--for the latter please tell the driver you want to go to Whaddon. The bus will stop anywhere safe through the village.

March 2010

Annual Parish Meeting, 27^th April 2010, Whaddon Village Hall 8 pm

Villagers will have seen in the Whaddon News that we are instituting an Annual Parish Meeting this year. This is what appeared in there:

The purpose of the Annual Parish Meeting (APM) is to give a forum for villagers to come along, hear reports on all the activities taking place in the village, and to ask questions on any subject they like. This is a new departure for Whaddon, and it will take over many of the items which in the past have (not quite correctly) formed part of the Parish Council AGM, which will now become a much shorter meeting.

Although the APM has to be chaired by the PC Chairman, it is NOT a meeting of the PC, but a meeting of the village, but it is hoped that as many Councillors as are able will attend.

All parishioners are urged to attend, and we will be offering refreshments from about 7:30 pm.

Bus Service

At last! The 127 bus is being diverted via Whaddon for an experimental service for six months, starting 12 April. Details will be circulated to all households, and posted here when we have them.

Precept

You will have read here and in the Whaddon News that the Precept for 2010-2011 is unchanged (click here for details). Many of your will thus be as surprised as the Parish Council was to open your Council Tax bills and see that your contribution to the Whaddon Precept has gone up by 4%.

The Chairman took this up immediately with SCDC. The explanation is as follows: the total precept has to be divided between the number of properties in the Parish paying the tax, as you might expect. Unbeknown to the PC, the number of empty houses in the ex-MOD rental area of Cardiff Place has increased from one last year to sixteen at present. Thus there are fifteen fewer houses to pay, and thus the rest of us have to pay more to make up the difference.

The PC is of course not privy to what happens in the rental part of Cardiff Place, but is in the course of writing to SCDC to ask that we be kept more closely informed about variations in the number of tax-paying houses there in future. The Chairman has been assured verbally by the CEO of SCDC that they will look into this.

Blue Bins

You may have heard that SCDC are introducing another concept into recycling, that of the Blue Bin--this looks just like the Green Bin except it is a different colour. The Chairman has seen one at SCDC. Basically, it replaces the Green Boxes, which will no longer be used (and which will not be taken away by the Council--you can use them as you wish once the new system comes in). Bottles and cans, plastic or glass or metal, can all be thrown in the new bin, and the separation will be done automatically at the recycling depot. In addition, the Blue Bin will have an inset tray in the top for papers, which will not have to be put in a bag. The final version will have an extra pocket in the back for recycling batteries.

So, when is it happening? Well, the new bins are going out in September 2010, with the first collections under the new system in October. We shall let you have more information as it becomes available. For sure there will be an article about it in the South Cambridgeshire magazine.