Eastington Parish Council Clerk

Automatic External Defibrillators are portable units that can be used to stabilise a heart rhythm in certain medical situations.  We now have four defibrillators:

·         Westend Suites – on the outside wall of the first business unit on the right
·         Eastington Community Centre – left of the front door
·         St Michael’s Church – on the outside wall of the Lychgate inside the churchyard
·         Old Badger Inn – on the front wall

All four are available 24 hours a day.  No special training is needed to use the defibrillator.  In the event of a medical emergency please call 999 as normal and the operator will direct you to the closest defibrillator and talk you through how to use it. 

The defibrillators are checked monthly by the parish council and we have a contract with Community Heartbeat Trust to maintain the equipment.  The Parish Council is grateful to funds raised in the parish via Old Badger Inn, Westend Suites and Eastington Horse Show that has enabled us to purchase these defibrillators for the parish.

Stroud District Council is carrying out a Community Governance Review, the first stage consultation will run for 6 weeks and closes 26th November 2018.  Eastington Parish Council held an Extraordinary Council meeting to discuss the Review and also to consider an approach from Stonehouse Town Council to move the parish boundary.  After much discussion, Eastington Parish Council put forward the following response (see link below).

Community Governance Review – response from EPC

Further information on the Review can be found on the Stroud DC website: https://www.stroud.gov.uk/council-and-democracy/elections/community-governance-review

From 28^th October Gloucestershire County Council’s Household Recycling Centres (HRCs) will be closed one day mid-week, either on a Tuesday, a Wednesday or a Thursday.

As the evenings get colder and darker, the HRCs across the county receive almost 30 per cent less waste and recycling. In order to reflect this and save taxpayers money, HRCs will be open from 10am until 4pm, six days a week.

On Tuesdays, Fosse Cross (Cirencester) and Oak Quarry (Coleford) will be closed. On Wednesdays, Pyke Quarry (Horsley near Stroud) and Wingmoor Farm (Bishops Cleeve) will be closed. On Thursdays, Hempsted (Gloucester) will be closed.

The council collected data from recycling centres and this told us that midweek is the quieter period at our sites.

Residents will have a reasonable alternative recycling centre with this closure pattern, by closing sites at opposite sides of the county. The new opening arrangements and how the sites are used will be monitored.

The closure rota also means HRCs in the county will still be open on Bank Holiday Mondays and Good Friday, which are especially busy days at the sites.

More information on the closure days, new seasonal times and the location of our sites can be found online at www.recycleforgloucestershire.com

To celebrate the completion of the new skate area in Eastington (at the Owen Harris Memorial Ground), we are having a “Skate Jam”.  This will be a free drop-in event from 10am until 3pm following this timetable:

10am to 11am – those with little or no experience riding scooters at skate parks. This can look more in to safety and key skill development.
11am to 12pm – experienced scooter riders. Trick based riding.
1pm to 2pm – those with little or no experience riding skateboards at skate parks. Again this can look more in to safety and key skill development.
2pm to 3pm – experienced skateboarders. Trick based riding.

There is limited car parking available and request that local visitors walk to the skate area rather than drive please.

The agenda and meeting papers for the next Full Council meeting are available on the “Meetings” page – we are back in our usual venue at the village hall.

Due to the General Election on 8th June, the parish council is unable to use its usual meeting venue (the village hall) as it will be a polling station for the day; instead we will be using the Sue Jones Room at Eastington Community Centre.  There’s plenty of parking next to the playing field, and to access the room go to the right of the building and in the door about half-way down.  We will be upstairs in the room on the left.  We’ll be back to the village hall in July as usual.

The Parish Council has ordered 5 sets of village gateways to be installed around the parish (Grove Lane either side of Westend, Claypits Road, Bath Road, Spring Hill).  These are to be delivered today to Highways ready for installation next month.  Most of the gateways will have a flower planter attached to create a pleasant welcome to the parish.  The picture shows an example, some of the signs will include the speed limit.  The gateways have been funded through a variety of grants (Gloucestershire Highways, Local Highway Offer, Police & Crime Commissioner) and Eastington Parish Council finances.  Please get in touch if you’d like to help look after the flower planters.

Sunday 12th March saw a number of us learning how to use a defibrillator and having a refresher on CPR techniques.  We also had a look at our own defibrillator stored on the external wall of the Community Centre at OHMG.  It was a worthwhile couple of hours with tea and biscuits to keep us sustained!  Another session has been arranged for Saturday 16th September at 1pm, please come along.

Eastington Parish Council has received a prestigious award as part of the Local Council Award Scheme. This achievement recognises that the council achieves good practice in governance, community engagement and council improvement. Moreover, the council goes above and beyond their legal obligations, leading their communities and continuously seeking opportunities to improve and develop even further.

The Local Council Award Scheme is a peer assessed programme that has been designed to both provide the tools and encouragement to those councils at the beginning of their improvement journeys, as well as promoting and recognising councils that are at the cutting edge of the sector. It is through the sector working together to share best practice, drive up standards and supporting those who are committed to improving their offer to their communities that individual councils and the sector as a whole will reach its full potential.

In terms of the future, the council is now reviewing ways in which it can keep on improving its offer to the local community and welcomes input from local people and partners on this. Eastington, and other local councils like it, are at the front line of the government’s localism agenda and are doing as much as they can to delivery services whilst being efficient and cost-effective. The council is now exploring ways in which it can improve even more and attain the next level of award (Gold!).

Here’s an interesting find. A copy of our accounts book from 1895-96, the first year of Eastington Parish Council accounts. Elected Parish Councils were introduced by the Local Government Act 1894 and transferred all the non-religious functions from the church to the elected parish councils; out of 13,000 civil parishes 6000 of them with a population greater than 300 were to have a parish council. The entire council was to be elected annually on 15th April, this changed to every 3 years and now we elect the council once every 4 years in May.

The Parish Council income came via the assistant “Overseer”, a parochial church role that collected rates and overseeing relief of the poor. The term “overseer” continues through the accounts book for some years despite the transfer of non-religious functions.