Comment on the �Traffic Issues� meeting in the Village Hall, Maiden Newton in January 2007.

This was a dull affair.

There was little sense of common purpose and if more unanimity was displayed than during the last meeting it was because there were fewer attendees. The tiresome hum of bees in bonnets formed a background to more a few more sensible views but my main feeling was �what on earth are we all doing here?�.

1. The �concerns� about speeding had a hollow ring to them as, apart from the odd boy racer and the occasional middle age reprobate with hormonal problems, there really is very little of it.

2. The linking up of the two halves of the Dorchester Road pavement in Maiden Newton is definitely worthwhile though there has not been a great deal of progress since last year.

3. As for the White Elephant Mews Visitor�s Car Park, well I could write a long and extremely boring book about this saga.

Briefly:

About three and a half years ago the car park became full on a number of occasions. Maybe someone had his family to stay for the summer or something, I don�t know why it was full but, for a few days, it was. This was brought to the attention of the PC who wrote to WDDC asking to have it enlarged by removing the shrubbery.

Since then WDDC has put an imaginative series of obstacles in the way of the project and we are no further forward. Throughout all of this, however, one thing has become abundantly and increasingly clear � we don�t need it enlarged at all; it is perfectly adequate as it is.

Indeed the car park has remained obstinately �unfull� ever since the �problem� was first raised. Now before you shout me down yes of course it is sometimes full, just very, very seldom. I have visited the car park on maybe four or five hundred occasions in the last three or so years. My visits have been at all times of the day and (talk about bees in bonnets!) I always count the spaces. I have found it to be full twice. Most of the time there are around seven empty spaces, often more during the day, and at the moment it seems to have been forsaken by most drivers with nine to twelve spaces generally available. A couple of years ago I even did a little statistical survey which proved my contention (7 free spaces on average, dataset of 60 visits - email me if you want a copy).

The latest proposal from WDDC is to lease the car park to the PC with a �1000 annual subsidy for maintenance. The PC could then carry out any extension it wishes but would still need the approval of WDDC before doing so. Any extension would have to be to a certain standard set by WDDC and is likely to be very expensive. Why the PC pursues this ridiculous venture is quite beyond me.

4. The most substantive piece of news was bad. After a lot of relatively trivial stuff about Maiden Newton (the meeting was, after all, set up by and mostly for MN), Frome Vauchurch�s long awaited and much needed footpath along the Crewkerne Road was discussed. I, and just about everyone else had assumed that this project was well underway. However the proposed 2008/9 date for the project has unaccountably slipped to �at least five years� i.e. 2012. I know that Mr Denty, chairman of FV Parish Meeting, is appalled by the news; after the exhibition last year he too was confident that this project would at last come to fruition.

I do not know if the problem is practical or budgetary though Mr Green from DCC said that the project would proceed when funds had been �identified�. Whatever the hold up only a concerted effort by all interested parties is likely to speed up the project. My advice is to write to everyone you can think of and write often. Mr Letwin seems much more confident about the footpath�s prospects and I hope that he is right.

One final possibility to help get things moving is to rename Frome Vauchurch to Higher Frampton. DCC work teams will be there within the week.