Mayor’s Notes March 2024

 “The Civic Awards Ceremony and Service was a wonderful celebration of our compassionate community. The award winners demonstrated it beautifully.  The Deputy Lord Lieutenant, Polly Marsh and High Sheriff, Rob Beckley, were both really impressed with our strong sense of community and all that we are doing to support our residents.  Our charities and community groups have really stepped up to fill the service gap for the NHS and emergency services.  The response has been amazing and we can be very proud of all those concerned.

The Council has now launched a Dog Fouling Prevention Campaign.  This comes up at every Annual Meeting and we are pleased to be using the Keep Britain Tidy Campaign materials to support our endeavours.  We will be completing surveys for 1 week every quarter rather than a month during the year.  This way we hope to continue to spread the message that dog fouling is a health risk to our children and presents a bad impression on our visitors.  We would welcome more involvement and so please contact the Deputy Clerk if you would like to help.  It is not onerous and you do not have to clear up the mess.  We spray it and count how many we find at different locations.  We will then put posters up in the most effective place and inform the dog warden.

I attended the LCN meeting.  I made a very useful contact and have arranged a meeting with Sunita Mills who is the Head of Transportation at Somerset Council.  This should help to inform the Climate and Ecology Working Group and Highbridge Regeneration work.  Councillor Hendry has kindly agreed to represent the Council on a Focus Group looking at employing a Highways Steward within the LCN.

I continue to attend the LCN Focus Group on Young People.  We are auditing provision across all parishes and then we will engage with the young people themselves.  It is a useful group with professionals, volunteers and councillors working together.

Subsequent to the meeting at the Bay Centre, we have arranged for the Police and 3 of the residents to join us to discuss Police strategies and how we can make people feel more confident in their personal safety.

I was very pleased to open the Highbridge Arts Festival this year.  I was also invited to close the festival after the last music class.  This year I also had the added dimension of volunteering during the weeks of the festival. It was good to hear volunteers explain how much they enjoyed watching children grow and develop as they attend each year.  We are very lucky to have such an amazing event that draws people from as far afield as Cardiff and Frome.  My thanks to all those involved in such a great community event.

Over this last month I have met the local Lions Group, the Moose International and watched’ Into the Woods’ at the Princess Theatre.  I have been pleased to hear many compliments about the Princess Theatre both during the Arts festival and talking to the theatre groups who now use the Princess for their performances.  They are impressed with the professional support that they receive and the effective organisation of the theatre.  My thanks go to the theatre staff who work so hard to provide that service”.