It may be a cliche, but where has this year gone? December already, not long ’til the winter equinox and we can start to look forward to the evenings pulling out again. Not that I’m wishing the time away, but it’s much more difficult to get out in the parish when it’s dark by 4.30pm.

With the autumn weather the footpaths are pretty muddy and my dogs are getting covered up to their oxters! I’ve walked most of the paths around Port Isaac. Reporting to Cornwall Council’s Countryside Access Team the large muddy area on the South West Coast Path in front of Khandallah, at the top of Roscarrock Hill and removed a small tree from Port Gaverne valley.

In Port Isaac I cut back overgrown vegetation in both Margaret’s Lane and Meadowstile. Having bagged up the worst I had assistance from Paul (Biffa) with his trusty blower! This will be ongoing through the rest of the autumn and winter.

Having continued emailing Cornwall Council and involving County Councillor Mould in the lack of maintenance in and around Mayfield Close I am pleased to say that some much needed groundwork has been carried out. Its taken ages, but with persistence something happened!

I was hoping that the work quoted for at Trelights Village Green would’ve been done by now. It seems the tree surgery company has had machinery trouble. The work involves some light removal of lower limbs for the Horse Chestnut tree, removing an Ash tree with dieback and tidying up the smaller trees and shrubbery around the perimeter of the green.

A tentative beginning to improve the fencing at the play area has started. Not much has been done yet, due to the weather conditions and trying to fit the work around other commitments. But if a little is done often enough it’ll soon be completed!

The monthly play inspection was carried out and only a couple of small jobs were required. The other play items will get some TLC when time/weather permits.

There’s progress on the proposed bus shelters; one has been ordered to be erected on the grass verge at the junction of the B3314 and the turning to Trelights, where the school bus stops. It’ll be approximately a month to six weeks before delivery. The shelter for Port Isaac is on the back burner for the time being.

And progress on the additional stone for the Port Isaac War Memorial has been made too. Please see the separate item in this months Trio. It shows a mock up of what was agreed at the November Parish Council Meeting. I’m hoping if anyone has any comments they contact me. The next step should be seeking Listed Planning Consent from Cornwall Council.

Cornwall Council’s Waste & Environment Contracts Officer visited Trelights and reported there would be a mechanical sweeper assigned to visit as part of the village is below the expected standard. A small lorry was deployed and cleaned most of the residential areas. But around the village green and surrounding roads the leaf drop wasn’t cleared. I informed the officer of this and hope its been remedied.

At the beginning of November I attended Cornwall Community Flood Forum’s Annual Conference, held in Lostwithiel, no pasty inducement this time! However, the day was very interesting and informative with presentations focusing on development, planning, resilience and adaptation, with speakers from the Environment Agency, Cornwall Council, South West Water, University of Exeter and Cornwall Wildlife Trust. Other presentations were two Community Flood Group’s from Portreath and Truro.

At the Full Council Meeting I took the Minutes as Beth and some of her family had unfortunately contracted Covid.

I’ve spent some time with an electrician at Roscarrock Hill toilets, assisting an attempt to fix the door lock. After 3 hours it still wasn’t working, in fact it was worse! I felt I couldn’t expect the guy to stay any longer. It was 5.45pm, the weather wasn’t great, he had an eight week old daughter, to get back to at Shortlanesend. The problem has proved to be quite tricky and between Rich, the electrician, and myself we’ve had further input from both Corserv and Healthmatic (public loo specialist company) on how to remedy the situation. At the time of writing I’m awaiting a spare part which should be easy to fit and with the extra knowledge picked up by Rich.

There were engineers at the Main car park WCs too, to repair the meteorological station. Last month I reported that Symon, from Maggie’s kiosk and myself had tried to help while being given instructions over the phone, but we were unable to get the problem sorted. Fugro, who fitted  the equipment sent two engineers. They spent over a day on it and eventually left telling me that with a little software tweak the system should be back online. I tried it and it’s definitely working.

Regarding the proposed development of the field below the football pitch and to ensure that all aspects are covered I spent a few hours trawling through a couple of filing cabinets of old documents incase anything relevant was stored away in the damp, slightly smelly folders. I did find a few interesting records about the land and how its ownership came to be in the hands of St Endellion Parish Council. There’s still more to go through and I hope to get to it soon.

One of the things that came up reading the correspondence received by the previous Parish Clerks was regarding the use of the football field for exercising dogs. It won’t be for some time, but the field will probably be added to a Public Spaces Protection Order which will in some way restrict the area for dog walking. I think it’ll be prior to any actual building work and not sure what form it’ll be. Once I have more info I’ll let you know. Any questions my email and phone number are at the end of the page.

There’s a couple hundred words left which I can easily fill with tales from the toilets! I’ve already introduced you to Rich and the saga of the door lock on the accessible loo at Roscarrock Hill. Then there’s the broken flush handle in the same cubicle, ‘out of order’ notices were placed on the door and on the actual loo. Incase someone ignored the first notice, which they did, resulting in the ball valve breaking and water flooding the floor and pouring down the road! It was an easy and quick fix once I got there, just turning off an isolator tap. Then sealing the door closed with red and white hazard tape!  On the positive side planning permission has been granted for the work to improve this toilet block and structural engineers have been contacted as the next stage in the proceedings.

Meters for electricity and at Port Gaverne water have been read. Pledges for donations from organisations in Port Gaverne have been received to help the Parish Council with the running costs of having the loos open for 6 months of the year.

At the Main car park WCs a complicated 16 page procedure had to be carried out as a maintenance check to the three hand driers. In fact once the lengthy instructions were read it took about 10 minutes max to do the adjustments!

If you’d like to contact me about any parish issues my mobile is: 07494 589 638 or email cllarejonsten@gmail.com.