Parish Council
Parish Councillors & Parish Clerk
Contact details and responsibilities of Councillors can be found here.
Would You Like To Be Involved?
We still have two vacancies on the Parish Council and there is a chance to get involved with the Neighbourhood Plan. If you feel you would like to contribute to the community in either of these roles please give me a call or talk to one of the other councillors or a member of the NP team. Also, help is needed in Aldringham to work on the Parish Emergency plan. Are you interested?
Eric Atkinson, Chairman, Aldringham-cum-Thorpe Parish Council.
Parish Council Meetings
The Pavilion, Oglivie Sports Ground
The Parish Council meets 10 times a year. Meetings will take place in either the Tower Meeting Room, Thorpeness Almshouses or at the Pavilion, Ogilvie Sports Ground, Thorpeness. Meetings begin at 7.00pm and the location of each meeting will be shown below when the Agenda is published.
There is a 10 minute Open Forum at the beginning of each meeting during which parishioners can raise relevant subjects for discussion and consideration by the Council.
 Thorpeness Almshouses |
Dates of meetings for 2017Monday 9th January |
Agendas & Minutes
Agendas for Parish Council meetings will normally be published on the Saturday afternoon before the meeting, however, due to holiday it will not be possible to publish the Agenda for the Parish Council Meeting on Monday, 16 October 2017 or the Minutes for the Meeting on 4 September until some time after the meeting. The Agenda and Minutes will be published on the Parish Council Noticeboards. This meeting will be held in The Tower Room, Thorpeness Almshouses. Agendas for earlier meetings can be found here.
Minutes of Meetings can be seen from the lists on the left. We will endeavour to publish Unapproved Minutes of the last Parish Council Meeting on the website before the next meeting. When the Minutes of the latest Meeting are shown on the left prior to the date of the next Meeting they are not yet approved.
If you would like to see the Minutes or Agendas from earlier meetings than are published here please email the website at pc@aldringhamcumthorpe.suffolk.gov.uk.
N.B. The Minutes of the Annual Parish Meeting in 2016 are the latest to have been approved, one year later than the actual meeting. The Minutes for the Annual Parish Meeting in March 2017 will be published after approval at the Annual Parish Meeting in March 2018.
Parish Council Update August 2017
Neighbourhood Plan
In a move to address the problem of providing affordable houses in areas of where property value are high, a concern raised by a number Neighbourhood Plans, the government have allocated £60m (see link - https://www.gov.uk/government/news/60-million-boost-for-communities-affected-by-second-homeownership) to address this issue. SCDC has received £1.5m of this money. As a result, we and other East Suffolk coastal towns and parishes were approached by SCDC to see if we were interested in working with them to investigate the practicability of providing affordable housing within our parish, particularly in Thorpeness. Following this initial approach, we agreed to take part in a feasibility study on the assurance that it will not put any obligation on us to proceed with any plan if it does not align with our NP outcomes.
The study will start following an initial meeting with SCDC enabling us to understand how the study will be carried out and to outline our high-level expectations based on previous community consultations and discussions.
Read more about the Neighbourhood Plan, including what a Neighbourhood Plan is, how to get involved, documents relating to the formal process for developing the plan, a draft Vision & Objectives Statement and much more.
Planning
The parish council has dealt with 12 planning applications since the last newsletter two of which were not supported. Details of the current applications can be found on this page, with links to SCDC’s website for details. Following on from the publication of SCDC’s Site Allocation and Area Specific Policies, you may have seen that Site SSP4 - the area of land in Aldringham east of Aldeburgh Road and South of the driveway to Aldringham House is now up for sale, so we may see a planning application in the not too distant future.
Construction work has started on the land in Thorpeness west of Old Homes Road, and we have spoken to the developers about our concerns over the limited amount of long term residents’ parking and, in particular, the flooding problem along the road and at the site entrance. We hope it will not be too long before we see proposals of how improvements can be made
SCDC have now started the review of the Local Plan and its supporting documentation with a view to issuing a new plan in 2019. Three of us attended a workshop held in Melton to launch the review, and had the opportunity to raise concerns and issues we would like to see addressed by the revised plan.
Thorpeness Almshouses: Due to the concerns and opposition expressed by residents and parishioners, the Trustees and Orwell Housing are reviewing their proposal to build additional accommodation behind the existing building.
Traffic Matters
Suffolk Highways speed limit changes on the B1122 between Aldringham & Aldeburgh have now been implemented, with the limit now set at 40mph along the whole stretch or road between Aldringham and Aldeburgh.
Many of you will have seen that the long-awaited bus stops outside Aldringham Court have now materialized.
Eric Atkinson,
Chairman, Aldringham-cum-Thorpe Parish Council
Parish Council's Response to EDF's Sizewell C Stage 2 Consultation
A number of Councillors attended the numerous meetings and drop in events which were held during the Sizewell C Stage 2 consultation process before the Parish Council submitted its response to the consultation at the beginning of February 2017. The response gave a particular focus on legacy and benefit which seems to be largely absent from EDF’s current thinking. Suffolk Coastal District Council provided their own response, emphasising their disappointment at the lack of information EDF have provided.
Read the Parish Council's response here. Responses from other interested parties, including that of SCDC, can be read on the Sizewell C page.
Local Authorities
Details of District and County Councillors and Local Authorities can be found on the Useful Information page.
Have you seen the latest Parish Newsletter?
Parish Plan & Action Plan
Hedgerow Survey Group
Parish Emergency Plan - to be published at a later date.
Sadly, in August 2014, Val Allport died suddenly while holidaying in Australia. A Parish Councillor, and much more, she was a true Thorpeness Villager and is much missed. These words commemorate her life.