Anticipating the Park

A beautiful sunny morning looking into the 'park' from Palmerston Road. Make sure you have the sound on when you watch it here.

A 'sortie' to some pocket parks.

Three members went on an exciting trip on Saturday to several pocket parks in the county. The weather was perfect and some photos can be viewed here

Here is a web-site that encourages local community action. Just what we need:-

It can be found here. The site is non-party political.

and starts---

Why Councils should use the Sustainable Communities Act

The Sustainable Communities Act presents a unique opportunity for councils.
Councils have a choice – they can use the Act’s new process or they can ignore it. The philosophy behind the Act is that there are too many centrally imposed duties on councils and so they it allows them to be free to choose whether or not to use this process and be accountable only to their electorate, not central government.
Here are some important reasons why choosing to use the Act will benefit councils:......

Here's an item that connects with our plans for our churchyard 'Park',

you can read the whole article here

Not seeing the city for the trees is good for us, suggests new research: vegetation density is more important than park size

Eric Jaffe, writing in www.theatlanticcities.com, describes a new piece of work from Finland.

Last month, he writes, we explained how parks can restore much of the mental fatigue imposed on our brains by the busy city. The psychological evidence for this concept, known as the "attention restoration theory," is quite clear. What would be great to know, as I noted at the end of that post, is precisely how many trees it takes to recover the cognitive strains of urban life.

Well sometimes the gods of semi-obscure-hybrid-behavior-nature-academic-publications listen to your calls. In an upcoming issue of the journal Landscape and Urban Planning, a group of Finnish researchers describe recent work that just so happens to address our exact curiosity.

They conclude that restoration reaches peak potential when every inch of the city — which they term the "urban matrix" — escapes our vision:

Our results showed that perceived restorativeness in urban forests was strongly affected by closure of view to the urban matrix through the forest vegetation. This means that perceived restorativeness was higher inside the forest with a closed (i.e. no) view to the urban matrix as compared to semi-closed and open views.

For the study, the researchers identified nine patches of boreal forest in greater Helsinki...

Development update at 2-4 Edith Street

Today a number of residents, along with Councillors Stone and Strachan and planning case Officer Mr Geoff Wyatt and applicant Mr Keith Howard had a meeting to discuss the development of 2-4 Edith Street.

The plans as originally submitted were for 10 Studio flats and most present felt it was a gross over-development of the site and taking none of the existing residents and their needs for both parking and privacy into account.

Following a discussion of his plans by Mr Keith Howard, the residents and councillors put in their objections and a crucial visit into the garden of a neighbouring property made it clear immediately to both the officer and applicant that there were issues regarding the increase in height of the property at the back with it overshadowing neighbouring gardens.

It was agreed therefore that these initial plans would be immediately be withdrawn and a further decision would be made for a future application by the applicant Mr Keith Howard.

I would like to thank all present for their assistance with this and this is an instant victory for the local residents. It is clear that the site will have development in the future and this is not the issue, but it has got to be a sensible development and not detriment to the surrounding area.

St Edmunds Residents Association Meeting.

Including speakers and a discussion on Housing and tenancy issues in St Edmunds.

Agenda for the fifth meeting of the Association,

7.00 to 8.00pm Monday 3^rd September 2012. Victoria Road Church Rooms, Cyril Street.

1. Apologies
2. Introduction of two speakers on housing. The question will be the rights and duties of tenants and landlords. This will be followed by questions and a discussion.
3. The churchyard, progress on the 'Park'.
4. The MUGA. (Multiple use games area.)
5. Minutes of the last meeting.
6. Matters arising.
7. Any other business.
8. Date of next meeting
9. 8.00pm, meeting closes.

If you know of anyone who might be interested in the Residents Association please let us know and let them know about the meeting. Email addresses (where possible) make it much easier to contact people and distribute agendas and minutes.
Suggestions are welcome for speaker or main subject for future meetings.
We have a group on Facebook called St Edmunds Residents Association

And a Blog at---   http://stedmundsra.blogspot.co.uk/

Jim Wishart, secretary
634417

17^th August, 2012.

St Edmunds Churchyard- project to convert this churchyard to a public park.

Our association has voted to try to open the churchyard to the public as a park. The list of 'things to do' is long and to a degree a bit indeterminate as there is more than one possible type of park that the area could become.
In the meantime we have made an application for design aid under a scheme promoted by the Design Council. There are limited resources available, in fact only ten projects will be helped across the whole country but we have worked on the basis of 'nothing ventured nothing gained'.

The Design Council web page can be found here

I have filled in the application form and sent it off, it includes the following:-
Part 3: About your project
1. What is the name of your project?
        St Edmunds Churchyard Park.
2. Please describe your project – why is it needed and what do you want to do?
        The cemetery is closed to the public at the present time. The St Edmunds Church was demolished in the early ‘70s. The land is a very tranquil spot behind a five foot high stone wall. There are not many gravestones so there is a large area of grassland and trees which would make an ideal place for relaxation or a pleasant diversion on a walk for the local people.
We need to open up the churchyard by the provision of new entrances, a reduction of the height of the wall, some attention to the existing gravestones, construction of paths maybe crossing the area, consideration of street lighting, litter bins and seats.
We need a landscape architect’s advice and work to design a scheme and to price it.
All we have to do now is wait for a result.