2022 – 2023 Parish Council Chairmans Report

If​ I look back over the 10 years that I have been Chairman of the Parish Council, I feel proud of the great team of Councillors we have, what they have achieved and the sense of Community Spirit they bring to the role. This is my last year that I will be reporting back to you.

As always it has been a busy year for the village. The highlights of the year have been :
The appointment of Katherine Moore into the new role of Brightwalton Village Co-ordinator. Having raised the funding for a 2 year project as part of the ASPIRE programme, we were delighted to welcome Katherine into this new role. Within her first three months she has launched a Youth Club drawing in 18 primary school aged children. The Church Mouse Soup Kitchen is live and being run by Diane Widborne and Sue Sayers. So far 3 Soup lunches have been hosted. There is lots more being planned including several concerts, craft activities and sales, most of which are making good use of the new kitchen and area at the back of the church.
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We had a wonderful turnout for the Jubilee picnic on the playing field and the Coronation picnic more recently.

his picture of the pre-fete party sums up the strength of the community in Brightwalton. This was a lovely informal evening that marked the start of another very successful village fete – all run by volunteers from the village.

The fabric of the village has been well maintained this year with updates to the playground, highway improvements on Common Lane, and new Cricket nets in place.
The one project that is proving challenging, which we feel is a vital asset for the village longer term is to continue to push forward on extending the reach of higher-speed Broadband coverage. At the time of writing the project is on hold whilst we wait to find out if we are included in the next phase of central government funding. We hope for more progress next year.

Finally in terms of finances for the year. Against a total income of £11,900 which included grants for the play equipment, we have managed to stay within £20 of our budget thanks to the excellent stewardship of Sarah our Parish Clerk.  We were also able to make good use of the £1,700 of Community Infrastructure Levy funds carried over from last year to help complete the projects and avoid using further Parish Council savings.

Invariably costs are expected to rise again in the coming year, however we have managed to keep the precept increase to 4%.

As we look forward, I am delighted to hand over the reins of the Chairman’s post to Tim Wyatt. Tim has been an active member of the Parish Council  since 2017 and for the last 6 months has been Vice Chair. A significant feather in the cap of Brightwalton is that West Berkshire Council Community Team have already been in touch with us to use the Village Co-ordinator model as best practice to potentially be rolled out to other parishes. This together with a review of the Parish Plan is a good place for Tim to take over and start a new phase.

Shaun Orpen