Great Gransden is a parish in Cambridgeshire, in the Huntingdonshire District. This web site includes information about the Parish Council, the village facilities it manages, the date and agenda for the next meetings, the minutes of previous meetings and the policies under which it operates - please see the links below, in the menu bar above, and in the sidebar on the left. (Note: the sidebar might be hidden if you are viewing this device on a mobile device.)
Great Gransden has 9 Parish Councillors
- Andrew Pett, Giles Scott, Jeff Gorton, Nick Ginn, Michael Capps,
Nigel Day and Peter King, who were returned following an uncontested
election in 2018; James Catmur, who was co-opted later that year; and Lisbeth Ricciardi, who was co-opted in 2019.
Your Parish Council always welcomes your questions, comments and suggestions. See our contact page for how to get in touch
The Parish Council takes care to safeguard the privacy of personal data supplied to us, in whatever form. A copy of our current privacy notice can be viewed on our privacy page. Apart from formatting changes (to improve accessibility) and a change to the contact details in December 2019, the current version was last edited in May 2018, to ensure conformance with the newly-introduced GDPR legislation.
In order to improve accessibility, the site appearance was changed in December 2019, and several pages revamped. A new Accessibility Policy is being developed, and will be announced here when it has been adopted by the Parish Council.
Parish Council meetings
Meetings are normally held in the Reading Rooms. However, to comply with the rules on social distancing - and to allow those who are self-isolating to participate - we are now holding our meetings online. (Previously, meeting had to be held in person, but new Government regulations now permit online meetings.) We are using Zoom (https://zoom.us/), which allows the Councillors and the Parish Clerk to be online together, and also allows interested parties to watch and listen in. During open forum sessions, members of the public will be able to participate: signal your intention to speak, and your microphone will be enabled. If you are unable to join us via Zoom but want to contribute to the open forum, please email your comments to the Parish Clerk in advance of the
meeting. (We recommend you sign up with Zoom and experiment before attending your first Parish Council meeting online. You can join a test meeting by visiting https://zoom.us/test.) Use this link to attend the June 1st meeting, or use the meeting ID 313 378 5045 and password: 941083. The agenda for a PC meeting is published at least 3 clear days in advance; here is the one for the June meeting. For the regular monthly meetings, the clerk's report is also available to view before the meeting. Meetings are normally the 1st Monday of each month (unless that is a bank holiday, in which case the meeting is on the 2nd Monday); extra meetings are sometimes held to allow the parish Council to discuss an urgent matter, such as a planning application where we have to give our input before our next scheduled meeting.
Audit of the Accounts for 2018/19The audit of accounts for Great Gransden Parish Council for the year ended 31st March 2019 has been completed and the accounts have been published. You can download a copy of the Notice of conclusion of audit, along with sections 1, 2 and 3 of the Annual Governance and Accountability Return 2018/19.
Gransden 2020 VisionGreat Gransden is in the process of establishing a Neighbourhood Development Plan, which is an opportunity for the community to have more say in the way the village develops over the next year. The Parish Council has delegated authority to a Steering Group to oversee this work, and there is a separate website giving information about progress, and details of steering group and other meetings - see 2020vision.gransdens.org/
What follows is a number of posts containing information that might be of interests to parishioners, along with announcements by the Parish Council. If there are a lot of posts, they may continue onto other pages, with a link to them at the bottom of this page. Old posts will be moved to the old posts archive before being eventually deleted - though if they are very temporary notices, for example about road closures, they may be just deleted once they are no longer of relevance.
(Some posts may contain links to other sites, but the Parish Council has no control over the contents of the referenced sites, nor their privacy and accessibility policies; please exercise reasonable caution when visiting them. Indeed, the owners of those sites may make changes that invalidate the links we have supplied, so please let us know of any problems! Likewise, any attachments to or images or quoted texts (indicated by colour and indentation) within the posts are as supplied to us and are provided here for your convenience, but the Parish Council cannot speak for the accuracy and accessibility of this information.)
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MUGA partly reopening... but not the playground
The Government is easing lockdown restrictions, so with effect
from Wednesday 13th May the Great Gransden MUGA (Multi-use games area) in Fox Street is now open... but with
restrictions. Basically, only one household can use it at a time
- but you can be joined by at most one other person, provided
all the rules about social distancing are followed. Also, you must not use it if you have Covid-19 symptoms, or if anyone in your household is (or should be) shielding or self-isolating. (In practice,
it's best to restrict your MUGA time to , as the 2-meter social distancing guideline is
for when you're all standing still: if you're exercising
together, the safe distance is much further than that!) The children's play equipment remains out of
bounds, as the Covid-19 virus can survive on hard surfaces for
some time. As described in an earlier post, during the first phase of the Covid-19 lockdown the govenment order all outdoor facilities such as our MUGA and the children's playground. As announced in a FAQ on the 11th of MAY (see www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-outbreak-faqs-what-you-can-and-cant-do/coronavirus-outbreak-faqs-what-you-can-and-cant-do#public-spaces--outdoor-activities--exercise), the restrictions have been eased with effect from the 13th of May: 1.3 Are you reopening tennis courts / golf courses / basketball courts etcYes. Sports courts can re-open, but you should only partake in such activities alone, with members of your household, or with one other person from outside your household, while practising social distancing. You should take particular care if you need to use any indoor facilities next to these outdoor courts, such as toilets. You should not use these facilities if you are showing coronavirus symptoms, or if you or any of your household are self-isolating. Another document, entitled 'Staying safe outside your home' (also published on the 11th of May) talked about the 2-metre rule: 1. Keep your distance from people outside your householdWhilst recognising this will not always be possible, it is important to be aware that the risk of infection increases the closer you are to another person with the virus, and the amount of time you spend in close contact with them. Therefore, you are unlikely to be infected if you walk past another person in the street. Public Health England recommends trying to keep two metres away from people as a precaution. However, this is not a rule and the science is complex. The key thing is to not be too close to people for more than a short period of time, as much as you can. ... 4. Avoid being face-to-face with people if they are outside your householdYou are at higher risk of being directly exposed to respiratory droplets (released by talking or coughing) when you are within two metres of someone and have face-to-face contact with them. You can lower the risk of infection if you stay side-to-side rather than facing someone.
Please help us all get though the Covid-19 safely, and help avoid further spikes in the pandemic, by following the rules and guidelines! |
The effect of the Covid-19 pandemic on Parish Council meetings
The current COVID-19 pandemic has forced the Parish Council to take a number of precautionary steps: No physical meetingsTo protect Councillors, the Parish Clerk and attendees, there will be no physical meetings of the Parish Council until further notice; instead, meeting will be held online, via the Zoom app. The meeting ID and password will be announced in the agenda, and on our home page. Those who cannot view the meeting online but wish to comment on any item on the agenda of a meeting are welcome to write to, or email the Parish Council via the Parish Clerk. These comments will be passed on to Councillors before decisions are made. (Councillors will not be making decisions about items not on the agenda.) Any personal information given will be dealt with in line with the Parish Council's General Privacy Notice, full details of which can be found on the website. As announced in a separate post, the playground and the MUGA are both closed, in line with government instructions. We apologise for the necessity for these actions, and hope that we are able to go back to normal at an early date. In the meantime, we urge all residents and local businesses to follow Government Guidelines for coping during the pandemic, including those on closures, self-isolation and social separation. The following resources may be of use: |
MUGA and Playground Closed due to Covid-19 pandemic
following a government instruction dated 23 March 2020 which says playgrounds, sports courts and pitches, and outdoor gyms or similar must remain closed, Great Gransden Parish Council ask that you: KEEP OUT of the MUGA and KEEP AWAY from the playground until further notice |
2020 meeting dates
At the December 2019 meeting, the Parish Council agreed that the
2020 meetings would folllow the normal pattern of the 1st Monday of the
month (except when this is a bank holiday, when the meeting will be
delayed one week). This means the next meeting will be on the 6th of
January, with subsequent meetings on February 3, March 2, April 6, May
4, June 1, July 6, August 3, September 7, October 5, November 2 and
December 7. The Annual Parish Meeting was put down for the 23rd of
April. |
2019 12 - Part of Waresley Woods closed
(This article has been updated to have a direct link to the map of the closures as of 10 Dec, as the Wildlife Trust BCN have now added this to the Waresley Wood page of their website.) The Wildlife Trust BCN have had to temporarily close some of the paths through Waresley Woods to avoid damage. (A copy of their press release is attached below for your convenience.) According to their map, it's just the southern part of the Waresley & Gransden Woods reserve that's affected at present, but they may need to close the whole reserve if the temporary closure is ignored. The press release says: Due to the heavy clay soil, during periods of poor weather excessive footfall can cause damage to the paths within the nature reserve. This adversely impacts upon ground flora and also creates conditions that are unsafe for some visitors. Some paths are closed off to the public to prevent issues getting worse. Please respect the temporary closures - if closed paths continue to be used we may have to close the whole site to the public. We apologise for any inconvenience. Please note – there are no public rights of way within the woodland. All access to the nature reserve is by kind permission of the landowner (The Wildlife Trust BCN) and may be withdrawn at any time. Please refer back to this webpage for updates on permissive access to this site: www.wildlifebcn.org/waresley As I am sure you are aware, the condition of paths in the woods has deteriorated and all of Waresley and Gransden Woods will be closed to
the public from the start of next week, Monday 27 January |
| Attachments:
Waresley Wood path closures Dec 19.pdf
Get involved in the 'Big Conservation'
NHS CAMBRIDGESHIRE AND PETERBOROUGH CCG have sent us the following info re consultations to shape the NHS: Local residents are being encouraged to have their say on the future of local NHS services as part of The Big Conversation. Funding for healthcare across Cambridgeshire and Peterborough is under pressure. More people are using NHS services locally, and resources are limited. At the moment, the local NHS is buying more than it can afford which means that some difficult decisions need to be made about the services it can afford to provide in the future. The Big Conversation has been created to help Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), who buy the healthcare services in the local area, to understand what is most important to the local community. Feedback received will be used to create a set of principles that will inform our future plans and help shape our local NHS. Local residents can give their feedback by attending one of the events taking place across Cambridgeshire and Peterborough during October and November. Or, by completing a short survey online at https://bit.ly/NHSBigConversation Find out more about The Big Conversation and local events online: |
New Local Plan for HDC
Huntingdon District Council adopted a new Local Plan in May 2019, and consequently the principle of 'Tilted Balance' no longer applies when considering planning applications. For a copy of the local plan and accompanying statements, visit consult.huntingdonshire.gov.uk/portal/pp/hlp2036/adoption/adoption_of_hlp2036 |
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