Hillam Parish Council Update

A BIG THANK YOU to all the residents, and we know there are many of you, who pick up litter when they are out walking. There is such a lot of rubbish and fly tipping around, this seems to be a national problem looking at the news. Residents have been very good at reporting fly tipping into Selby District Council, you can keep on doing that directly or by reporting to hillampcclerk@gmail.com.

Just a reminder that the two Planning Applications on the Green Belt have required us to get more professional support and the Parish Council has appointed a Planning Consultant, Mr S Vendy, to help us, he has written to Selby District Council on behalf of the Parish Council (residents) and will represent us at future Planning Committees. Mr Vendy has experience in the District of Selby and has studied both the planning applications in the Green Belt on Hillam Lane. As we stated in the last Hillam News this will incur a cost of approximately £3,600. We do have some capacity in our current budget, but going forward costs may be incurred beyond normal and we may need further professional assistance; consequently we have raised the precept which has shown on your Council Tax bill, this is being raised for this specific purpose and will be ringfenced. You can read Mr Vendys letters to Selby District on the Hillam Parish Council website.

Selby District Council are no longer posting neighbour letters to make you aware of planning applications near to you. They will still put up the notices on posts and street lights, where they can locally and they will also be in the Selby Times. Consequently, residents will have to keep themselves up to date and the Parish Council have now have a list on the Website with links to applications in Hillam or of applications that are of a wider interest to us. Yorkshire Water are now working to resolve the flooding and sewage issues experienced on Hillam Hall Lane and Chapel Street. They have now installed a pipe line to the new pumping station on Stocking Lane and future works are planned to line 3 manholes chambers, this will help to seal the chamber and help to prevent groundwater getting into the sewer network. Works will commence 19th April.

Staying with Yorkshire Water, they will be shortly demolishing the old water treatment plant on Stocking Lane so there will be extra activity on the Lane. We have now have a Facebook page should you wish to follow and get updates.

The Parish Council have been promoting and encouraging responses to a Broadband initiative which will take advantage of the Governments Gigabit fibre voucher scheme (https://gigabitvoucher.culture.gov.uk/). Under this scheme, which aims to support getting up to gigabit speed fibre broadband direct to your house (as opposed to the current "end of the road"), residential properties can apply for a voucher of up to £1500 and businesses up to £3500 towards the costs of making this happen. At this stage, we are canvassing residents, in order to gauge interest and we will then work with Openreach to determine the overall costings of the initiative, based on the likely uptake of the voucher scheme. In simple terms, if enough people are interested and take up the scheme, this could be a zero cost improvement for everyone in Hillam. You will be asked in to input minimal information, the easiest way to complete the survey is to go to Hillam Parish Council website and follow link on RHS of Home page. Remember the better the response at this stage then the whole village could gain the benefit from much better quality Broadband for lower or zero cost to households.

The Parish Council is holding its Annual Parish Meeting on Tuesday 4th May. This will be our last virtual meeting before resuming physical meetings in June.

All residents are welcome to attend the Annual meeting and we would welcome attendance. There has been a lot happening that maybe you wish to find out more about or ask questions about.

The meeting will start at 7pm on Zoom. If you wish to take part then please contact our clerk on hillampcclerk@gmail.com and she will send you details and ask if there any particular topics you are interested in.

Hillam Parish Council www.hillamparishcouncil.co.uk

Monk Fryston Parish Council www.monkfryston-village.co.uk

Burton Salmon Parish Council: www.burtonsalmonparishcouncil.co.uk