This morning, on a cooler but fine day with still no sign of frost I was still thinking of Dad at Addenbrookes and hearing no news on his intended treatment, when I received planning papers on the proposed extended use of the Little Paxton gravel pit road and so started a campaign to inform my residents of its implications, printing out details and cycling around the village to deliver them to affected parties.
To Bury for an SLD campaign meeting with Percy and then back to Pathfinder House to overturn a blatant Amenities Committee petty and partisan move by the Tory leadership to turn down a modest £200 Little Paxton grant. There has been a US backed move to topple Gen Noreiga of Panama
An unsettled day as I was not going to see Dad at Addenbrookes and yet I was still worrying about the results of his brain scan and doctors consultations. This morning, on a cooler but fine day with still no sign of frost, I set down to work at my desk but soon the mail arrived and, within it, a thick wodge of planning papers on the proposed extension to Paxton Pits.
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Di had gone off to Bedford and taken a host of paperwork transactions and postings to do for me. The problem with the plans was to extend the gravel extraction further into Diddington which would increase and prolong the use of the ‘gravel pit road’ so as to cause noise and inconvenience to the residents of adjoining properties. This point seemed to be lost on the Parish Chairman and the Planning Chairman and Council Vice Chairman, whose remarks on the circulation paper were along the lines of ‘okay could not see a problem or any planning responses to object’. Action was called for and so I composed and typed a letter to all the adjacent householders, built up a database of their addresses from the residents meeting I chaired in August 1988, and then printed off copies for each of them. A quick self-prepared salad lunch and then I got out my bicycle and delivered the letters personally; stopping and talking to several village people on the way. One accosted me on the question of the contractors enlarging the car park by the village hall. They had evidently uprooted some of the brambles and the parish clerk and stop them.
Then I saw old Polly Hall and stopped to have a chat with him. He seems okay and was tottering along to post a letter. Once home, I made a couple of phone calls about Dad but found no news and so decided to go out and get Debbie after school and take her to her horse riding. After tea, I collected Percy and we went to Bury for a local meeting of the SLD activists who are keen to fight the District Council seat when it comes up next May. Only three of them with there, which was a pity, but they seem keen enough. On to Pathfinder House to hear the end of the Amenities Committee. I had actually taken Percy to hear of the results of the local authority grants but they had become bogged down earlier and were only halfway through the agenda.
It was 11pm before they finished. On the way, the Tory leader and Vice Leader (Holly and Robinson) tried to get my £300 for Little Paxton blocked but, apart from the Buckden’s District Councillor Terry Hayward (who is Vice Chairman of the committee), the rest supported me and it was approved, overturning a patently partisan and unfair move. Home late and, after a relaxing drink, to bed later still. The big news story was of the coup attempt on Gen Noreiga of Panama. The US have been backing attempts to topple him, believing that he was supporting the drug barons.