Our new full-time Clerk, Emily Ranahan, started work at the end of June and, after a series of acting and interim Clerks, we can now look forward to a more stable and productive period. We are very happy to have Emily on board. Emily, who lives just outside the Parish in High Wycombe, is the Parish’s first American Clerk – I wonder what Coningsby Disraeli, our founding Chair, would have made of that.  Nina Villa, our current Locum Clerk, will be staying with us until the end of August to support Emily.

Come September, Emily will have her feet firmly under the desk, and the Council will be turning to our goals for the rest of 2022 and 2023. For residents who aren’t aware of our scope of services, the Parish Council maintains the Burial Ground on Four Ashes Road, playgrounds at Templewood and Great Kingshill, provides allotments on eight sites across the parish, responds to Bucks Council on planning applications, looks after certain verges and hedges on behalf of Bucks Council and makes grants to various associations, clubs and projects. We are welcoming grant applications, and if you feel you have a good case, please ask Emily for an application form.

There remains a backlog of issues from previous years that we are committed to dealing with in the coming weeks.  These include our relationship with Hughenden Community Support Trust, the maintenance  of a number of streetlights in Widmer End, our future lease arrangements with the Great Kingshill Cricket Club and the re-establishment of vandalised traffic calming equipment.

During the Autumn and Winter, we anticipate that we will be able to start to address some important issues for the future. One of these will be to communicate the results of last autumn’s residents’ survey,  which will influence our future priorities. It will be no surprise to you that traffic calming and road safety were the issues of greatest concern. We will be considering the next phase in our efforts to discourage high speed driving through our lanes. We have a number of initiatives to consider around playgrounds. We wish to promote tree-planting as part of the Queen’s Green Canopy scheme. And we are considering the pros and cons of a possible Neighbourhood Plan for the parish, including consultations with Residents associations and other groups to get a sense of residents’ appetite for such a plan.

We have room for an additional Councillor for Naphill and Walters Ash. A full Council will help keep up the momentum we’ve been building. If you have the appetite to contribute to the local area as a Parish Councillor, now is a great time to join the Council, as we’re in a good place to welcome new forward-looking energy and ideas.