Beautifying Eves Corner

People may recall that last year the flowering cherries, which Danbury Society provided for the edge of Eves Corner some years ago, became diseased.  The National Trust, owner and manager of Eves Corner green, had to take them out.  

Richard Wallace, the National Trust Head Ranger for Essex, reported that there were traces of Chondrostereum purpurem - silver leaf fungus - present on the few branches bearing leaves.   Cherries suffer from canker and dieback diseases and as there was no regrowth from the four stumps, root disease (phytophthora) couldn’t be ruled out.

 
Danbury Society arranged to provide two white and two red flowering hawthorns as replacements.  These were planted on 15th February.  The Society's Chris Sharpe was on hand to record the process.  

Lining up the planting positions in front of the car park

The new trees will not be in the same place as the old ones. They had grown up in front of the houses on the east side of the green - Adams Cottage and Willow Cottage - blocking the view of these attractive dwellings.  They also restricted the light to the residents there.   Adams Cottage is a listed building and makes an attractive visual contribution to the perimeter to the green.

Instead the new trees have been planted to give some screening to the car parking area.

Striking the impacted ground to make the planting hole.

The hole is enlarged to take the rooted sapling. Adams Cottage in the background.

Final firm treading-in and fitting the tree guards to protect from rabbits and rodents.

Danbury Village Hall – Centenary Year

Most village halls are owned and operated by the local parish council. Danbury’s Village Hall is a little unusual in that it is run by a charity whose Trustees are representatives of its users. This post is to mark the hundredth year since Danbury Village Hall was opened and is mainly based on the first account book, which is now at the Essex Record Office.

The story appears to have started about 1908-9 when interested individuals identified the need for an assembly hall in the village.  The subscription list opened in June 1910 when Lt. Col. the Honourable Alwyn Greville and Mrs Greville donated £100, equivalent to £8,235 in today’s money.  They subsequently made more donations but even so their generosity spurred others so that in that first month £220 was raised.  Among other donors were the Reverend Plumptre and his family who gave £65.  By the end of the year a total of £553 had been subscribed.  To raise an equivalent amount in 2012 would mean over £45,000!

The first interest to be earned was £5-11s-8d on a balance of £623 – an interest rate not much better than the Village Hall gets on its money today.   That year saw the Coronation of King George V and a Coronation Committee was set up.  What celebrations were arranged is not known but they generated a net income of £12-4s-6d. 

Subscriptions in 1911 totalled £762 so there were sufficient funds to start building.  The Church Commissioners had provided the land and a firm called Allen Brothers of Bealden, Chingford was engaged as builders.  Construction appears to have started in October 1911 with a progress payment of £100 made on the 16th.  The account book shows the final account to the builders a year later when a total of £959-0s-9d had been paid.  A sum of £64-10s-0d was spent on furnishings and £69-6s-0d on fixtures and expenses.  Adding in a few pounds for miscellaneous items gave a grand total of £1,100-15s-7d for a complete Village Hall ready to run. 

Could the hall be built and equipped today for the equivalent of about £88,000?

When was the Opening Day?  The cash proceeds of the opening entertainment were recorded as £11-5s-0d on 25 April 1912.  That was a Thursday.  Was the opening that day or possibly the day before?  It was over two weeks after Easter, which fell on the 7^th that year.  

The first recorded letting was on 12 June 1912 when the Coon Minstrels paid 15s-0d to hire the hall. The next month the Rector held two meetings and paid 2s-0d while the County Council had to pay 15s-0d.   Fifty chairs were hired out for 8s-4d and the Band of Hope came along to give an entertainment on the evils of drink and paid 7s-6d.  Other income came from subscriptions, which were set at half-a-guinea or 10s-6d.  It is unclear from the accounts the purpose of the subs.

There were expenses in that first year, of course.  Fuel comprised 2 cwt of coal and 10 cwt of coke and cost 16s-6d.  (1 cwt = 50kg) The first caretaker was a Mr A Enefer who was paid 4s-0d a week from which 4d was deducted for tax – or perhaps for Lloyd-George’s national insurance scheme introduced the previous year.

No annual accounts were reckoned in 1912 but in 1913, the first complete year of operations, a surplus of £3-6s-5d was declared – say £266 today.  The year after was 1914 and the start of the Great War.  The finances of the Village Hall - and what it was used for - changed dramatically.

Read the next post.    

Olletts – a new development

Readers may recall previous mentions of Olletts, part of the erstwhile sheltered housing scheme in West Belvedere that has been empty for a couple of years. It looks as though it is now coming down to be replaced by houses. 

Olletts was originally opened and run as a warden supervised building with one-bedroom accommodation by Chelmsford Borough Council. It passed to Chelmer Housing Partnership (CHP) when the local authorities surrendered their housing stock.

New government guidelines on the standards for old people’s dwellings were introduced in the early 2000s. Among the guidelines was a requirement that every apartment should have private bathing facilities. Olletts had shared bathrooms so was not up to scratch. CHP decided that the cost of rebuilding to the new standards was not worthwhile. As residents died or left to live elsewhere, the accommodation was not relet. Eventually Olletts became empty in 2009.

Both buildings and car park of Ollett are now empty.  Beyond the wall at the end, is the Royal British Legion Business Park..
Now CHP has come up with a redevelopment plan for the site. It has filed planning application 11/01885/FUL with the Borough Council that can be examined at www.chelmsfordbc.gov.uk > view planning applications. Alternatively the following link takes you direct to the application http://bit.ly/zAnvjH

 

Site plan for Olletts redevelopment outlined in red

The planned terrace of eight homes with car parking spaces in front.

The existing building is to be demolished and a terrace of eight 2-bedroom affordable houses built in its place. The terrace will run roughly north-south with the front doors opening onto a small parking area with two spaces for each dwelling. Each house has a small rear garden that backs on to the fence surrounding the Royal British Legion Business Park (industry area). In front of the parking area is a small landscaped piece of land.
The houses appear to be of uncontroversial design, in keeping with the style of other houses in the area.

 Front elevations of the proposed new houses.

The Parish Council considered the planning application on 10 January. No date has been set for consideration by the Borough Council but public consultation ends on 20 January 2012. Danbury Society sees no grounds for objection to this development but hopes that CHP ensures proper access for those who live in the five old people’s bungalows that remain on the site. (marked within the blue line on the site plan)
The Society anticipates great difficulties in getting construction vehicles, plant and materials on to site. West Belvedere is a narrow and winding cul-de-sac dominated by street parking. One solution to that problem might be to ‘come in the back door’.

Winding, narrow and congested - the West Belvedere access to Olletts.

As the site backs on to the industrial estate and in particular a car park used by employees and visitors, access from that direction might be easier.  It would need negotiation with the existing users, of course.

View of rear of existing Olletts building as seen from the RBL Business Park. (all photos Norman Bartlett)

Why enlarge the village?

Readers will have seen articles in recent issues of The Journal and Contact magazine from the Landisdale Almshouse and Unknown Donor Charity (number 206928, popularly known as the Landisdale Trust) and its hope to build houses on a green field site outside the village boundary. Danbury Society opposes any development that encroaches further on the fields and woods around our village.

The location of Sandpit Field at the eastern edge of the village on Maldon Road.

Landisdale Trust advances its cause on two grounds: shortage of low cost accommodation in the village and the creation of a Community Land Trust that would preserve the land from developers. On both grounds Danbury Society disagrees.

The posting on this blog of 24 March listed a number of empty properties including two that were intended for older people, one of the categories that Landisdale Trust wants to benefit. Landisdale Trust says “…there is an increasing need for affordable housing…” but if there is such a demand for this type of property, why have they been left empty in Danbury?

Community Land Trusts (CLT) were started in 2006 as non-profit, community-based organisations run by volunteers. They develop housing or other assets for long-term community benefit. The occupiers pay for the use of buildings and services but the CLT owns the property in trust for community benefit.

Sandpit Field is 5 acres or about 2 hectares in area. According to planning guidelines there can be 75 dwellings per hectare to less than 25 dwellings per hectare depending whether the development is high or low density. Although Landisdale Trust talks blithely about building just 2 dwellings it is unlikely that any CLT that aspired to provide “long-term community benefit” would be content with that. Danbury Society is concerned that once the door was opened to a modest 2 dwellings it would not be long before a fully-fledged scheme for 100 dwellings or more was in the pipeline. (Some may recall Berkeley Homes proposal for the same site a few years ago).

One of the criteria that an aspirant CLT has to develop is a local consensus. Now Danbury Society along with the Parish Council and many interested residents has spent some years, many hours of debate and detailed consultations with the community to develop a Village Plan. The Borough Council accepted that Village Plan, a copy of which was sent to every home in the village, as providing part of its own Borough Plan. It sets out very clearly the development boundary to stop Danbury spreading.

After all that work Danbury Society, at least, will not allow its principle to be eroded.

The view across a green Sandpit Field towards Runsell Green on which the Landisdale Trust wants to build houses.

Danbury Society thinks that it would be more sensible if the Landisdale Trust looked at opportunities to build within the village, not outside it. According to the CLT National Network, some of the most successful CLTs have benefited from partnering with a not-for-profit housing association to develop and manage their homes. There are a number of ways that Landisdale Trust could partner with Chelmer Housing Association, for example by rejuvenating Ollets, the erstwhile old peoples accommodation in West Belvedere.

Danbury Mission Rises Anew

The new auditorium for Danbury Mission on Maldon Road is beginning to take shape. It looks huge and some people are beginnning to wonder if it will be out of scale with its surroundings.

We reported in July when the old front of the building was pulled down and the building work started. Now, four months later, the building is starting to take shape although perhaps a bit behind schedule according to the original plan. By now the brickwork and blockwork should have been completed but it is clearly not so. The picture shows the still bare steelwork; the last was put in place by a large mobile crane a day or so before this picture was taken

However, as the picture below shows, the materials are on site, so it should not be long before the building begins to take on what will be its finished appearance.

After the blockwork is done, windows and external doors will be installed. The roof is due to go on before Christmas. Completion date is set for 15 June 2012. This will be a week or so after the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Celebrations marked down for 5th-6th June.

Just as a reminder, you can view the design online at http://bit.ly/ddoNY5 and click on the links on the left-hand side.

And of course, you can always leave a comment on what you think about the new building by clicking on the 'post a comment' link below.

Parish Council Award

Most residents will have just received the latest issue of Danbury Times, the occasional newsletter from the Parish Council. Either from modesty, oversight or lack of space, no mention appears in its pages of a recent award to the Council.

The Communications Competition of the Essex Association of Local Councils (http://www.essexinfo.net/essex-association-of-local-councils/) invites Councils to submit a copy of a document they already produce in order to communicate with their electorate, to include events and achievements during the past year. There are two categories with Certificates awarded to commend winners in each category with an overall winner's prize, all awarded by the judging panel. Councils submit either or both of the following categories; Newsletters and Annual Reports.

At the AGM of the Essex Association in September, the results were announced. There were two semi-finalists, as it were. The winner of the Newsletter category was Bowers Gifford North Benfleet while the winner for best Annual Report was Danbury Parish Council.

The judges said they liked the Chairman’s Report, short clear reports from other councillors,and particularly liked the list of achievements.

Unfortunately in the final, Bowers Gifford North Benfleet was favoured and won the overall award. Danbury came away with just a certificate and Parish Secretary Margaret Saunders and Parish Chairman Stuart Berlyn are seen here showing it off.

The Communication Competition was sponsored by Monster Play Systems, a Hertfordshire supplier of playground equipment.

Better Broadband from BT

British Telecom (BT) has announced that it is to upgrade the broadband performance at 114 telephone exchanges. Danbury is on the list!

Danbury's unlovely telephone exchange in Butts Lane. (Norman Bartlett)
It forms the latest part of BT's programme to offer fibre-based broadband to around 16 million premises, or two-thirds of the country, by the end of 2015. After all the widespread moaning from all and sundry about broadband services, BT claims its new rollout is one of the fastest in the world and is on track to pass 10 million homes and businesses in 2012. Danbury, along with the 113 other exchanges will be upgraded by the autumn of 2012.

Most of the premises - about three quarters of the total - to get this high-speed broadband will get fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC) connectivity. This means that there will still be a copper connection between the green cabinet in the street and your home or office. It means a download speed limit of around 40Mbps. The upload limit is around 10Mbps.

The remaining quarter of the newbies are due to get fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP), which offers speeds closer to 100Mbps, with scope for increasing that rate. However, BT has encountered technical difficulties in carrying out its FTTP plans.

Whether Danbury users will get FTTC or FTTP remains to be seen.