Each month in my e-magazine Hethersett Herald I try to reflect and report on many of the issues affecting our village. I thought that the latest edition was full - but that's before I read the agenda for tonight's parish council meeting and also read comments on social media about village issues.
The following are my own views on a number of current issues for what they are worth. These views are not something I will be expressing in the e-magazine which is all about balanced reporting.
Firstly we have an application to add 200 more houses on a North Hethersett site. This application has arisen because the developers have found that they can shoehorn in more houses than they originally thought.
There have been numerous comments on social media against this and some residents have taken exception to some of these on the grounds that they are unwelcoming to new residents.
The reality, however, is that we cannot fight development per se. It is going to happen and people coming to the village will be welcomed. What we are against is the proliferation of building that comes with no attempts to improve the facilities or infrastructure. We do have a sparkly brand new primary school but we still don't have other facilities to cope with a population explosion that will see our village numbers rise from 5,000 to almost double that.
This 200 house application will be discussed by the parish council this evening.
The second current issue is the destruction of trees, bushes and nature habitats on the stretch of road between Hethersett and Little Melton. I drove along this road a couple of days ago and will be having a walk to take photos for the next e-magazine.
Somebody referred to this as "the rape of the countryside" and I have to admit that it looks horrendous. The developers have said that all tree and hedgerow removal work is being carried out in accordance with the outline planning consent. It is still difficult to come to terms with what has happened here and I don't think this has been carried out with reference to any planning rules.
Finally I have heard that there is an application in for planning permission to create two new homes on the site of the historic Hethersett Church Hall in Henstead Road. Once again residents took to social media to say that the building had to be saved, but who exactly is going to save it?
As far as I know the plans are not to demolish it. I have written quite a lot over the past year or so about the finances of the parish church and can see both sides of this story.
The church has to raise over £1,500 a week to keep going. Those who point out that the Church of England is very rich and should be able to meet the costs of local churches are missing the point as this just is not going to happen. The church hall is in urgent need of repair with bricks on the outside crumbling. It has or is becoming a millstone around its owners' necks and is fast becoming economically unviable.
Local people are quite right to point out that it would be a "crying shame" to get rid of the hall as a place that can be rented for public events and a place that was once one of two schools in the village (The British School). But who is likely to come forward to save it in its present incarnation? Let's just say the queue will be much shorter than that trying to get into Primark in Norwich on Saturday.
The photographs show the current state of the outside of the church hall. There's also a rather surreal photo around the village sign where the blossom looked a bit like falling snow. It was cold yesterday but not that cold.