'Tails'
A vehicle for Occold folk
to have their say or
to exchange their thoughts

I’m not sure how many people have noticed but, over the summer holiday, the roof on the Primary School was replaced. Regrettably, the contractors removed the original Victorian ridge tiles and substituted them with modern ‘rubbish’.

I raised a complaint with Suffolk County Council that they have vandalised our school with no planning permission - but they are claiming that they did not realise how damaged the old tiles were – and therefore there was insufficient time to replace.

But according to my calculations, they had at least 6 weeks to realise and even Tower Reclamations at Mendlesham could have replaced them at moderate cost within 1 hour!

Suffolk County Council have a 3-phase complaints procedure – and so far, I have been impressed with their speed of response – albeit not happy with their answers.

I have therefore escalated to Phase 2 of the Complaints Procedure – matter to be dealt with by a Senior Manager. Said manager (Bill Smith) is visiting Occold on 22nd November.

When raised at the Parish Council Meeting on 13th November, your Parish Council were in unanimous support.

Hence, Kevin Chittock (PC Chairman), Andy Andrews (Parish Councillor) and Sue Hubner (Parish Clerk) will be attending the above meeting to represent the village.

Said meeting was held and the minutes and conclusions are now available. Please note this was a 3-way meeting between myself, SCC and representatives of the Parish Council - it was NOT a Parish Council meeting.

The Parish Council now has to make a decision as to what they wish to do - meeting TBA.

PC meeting was held and result communicated as follows. As  far as I'm concerned, this complaint is now closed and I will follow progress with the Parish Council.

If you support this action, please convey your comments to:

Jeremy Clover, SCC Councillor at Jeremy.Clover@councillors.suffolkcc.gov.uk
or the Parish Clerk
or myself.

No longer required as matter is resolved - see below

You may also wish to comment on the recently submitted Planning Application - but which is not 'directly' connected to the above complaint.

I have submitted an individual objection. SCC are deciding on the outcome (Fox in charge of the Chicken Run??) - result will be updated as and when received.

The result has been received - it has been withdrawn and the old ridge tiles will be replaced. See the SCC response and the MSDC response (at least the latter got my name right!!).

Barry Woods
Rose Cottage, Occold
Tel: 01 379 678 844
Email: woodsbj@itgen.co.uk