Up to 30 young people from our village benefit from being a member of “Banter”, socialising and having fun on Friday evenings.

Two years ago Banter was created to provide a venue and an opportunity for some of our youngsters to get together in a relaxed atmosphere. With 35 members on the books it has proved popular and is clearly meeting a need amongst our 11 to 18 year olds.

Its success is entirely down to the enthusiasm, hard work and commitment of the adult team behind it. Sadly, with a number of people having to give it up, that team is at crisis point and, unless more helpers are recruited in the next few weeks, Banter will be forced to close permanently.

Members, please note that it is already closing for the next 2 or 3 weeks because the adult rota cannot be filled.

To enable a 1 in 6 week rota Banter needs to share out the supervision to a team of about 20 adults. 7 or 8 of the present team are very happy to continue if more adults volunteer to share the work. New committee members will need to be appointed too, to bring fresh thinking and enthusiasm.

Thirty or more of our young people really need Banter to continue.

This is the challenge: are there 10 or 12 adults out there who will sign up to a one in six week rota, and perhaps give a little more time as a committee member too? The deadline is Sunday 10th May when the Banter Committee will meet to make a final decision to close or to continue.

PLEASE VOLUNTEER. IT’S ONLY 3 HOURS EVERY 6 WEEKS.

To volunteer, or for more information, contact Hannah Mills on hannahlouisemills30@gmail.com 07865 083896, or Kate Morris, 13 Stanbarrow Close BH20 7BE, 01929 472787 or 07881 823139, kate.morris@ymail.com

VACANCY FOR A PARISH COUNCILLOR

If you live or work in the parish, are over 18 years old and would like to make a difference to your community, then why not think about becoming a Parish Councillor.

We meet once a month at the Drax Hall on the second Thursday, commencing 7pm.

For further details and to submit your name for consideration, please contact the Clerk, Mrs Amanda Crocker on 01929 472327 or by e-mail: clerk@bereregisparishcouncil.gov.uk

Souls Moor is designated Common Land although there are no commoners and no-one with common rights. However, because of the designation, the land should be open and accessible to the public. If some of the land were to be used for something such as the access road to the new school, it must be replaced.

Everyone affected will by now have received a letter setting out the proposal to de-register part of Souls Moor for the road and register an area of land to the north of the Bere Stream as Common Land in its place.

The official application has now been submitted to the Planning Inspectorate and is available for viewing at Rye Hill Farm, Rye Hill, Bere Regis from Monday to Saturday between the hours of 9am to 5pm. Please telephone 01929 472327 to arrange an appointment.

The documents are also available for viewing online by following the link:

Application to Deregister and Exchange Common Land

Continuing our commemorations of WWI, there will be a talk on the Battle of Coronel on 1st November 2014, at the Drax Hall, commencing 7pm.

The battle took place 100 years ago to the day. Petty Officer William Cox, the first local man to die in the war, was killed seven thousand miles away off the coast of Chile. Rod Arnold of the Western Front Association has made a special study of the Royal Navy in WWI and will explain how and why PO Cox, along with hundreds of his shipmates came to die so far from home.

Tickets are £2.50 each – under 16s go free – and can be obtained from Amanda Crocker at Rye Hill Farm 01929 472327 or clerk@bereregisparishcouncil.gov.uk

At 5pm on Sunday 31st August, the fire service was called to a fire at Trigonhill, landfill site, near Wareham. The incident commander quickly requested the attendance of 6 pumps, 2 water carriers, 2 LandRover’s and the Unimog appliance. Due to the water supplies in the area, the High volume pump (HVP) was requested in order to pump the on-site water supplies to the fireground. On Monday morning a further HVP was requested from Hampshire.

The fire involved approximately 10,000 cubic meters of household waste which involves a significant amount of the landfill’s contents. The waste is approximately 25 meters deep, the face of the fire extended to this depth and is approximately 150 meters across. The fire service is working closely with the site operators, Viridor, and the Environment Agency to ensure the fire is extinguished effectively, and that all environmental considerations are taken to minimise the effect of the fire to the area.

The fire may burn for a number of days and the fire service continues to extinguish the fire and the weather conditions but it is likely that smoke will be detected in the morning periods as far away as East Dorset. The smell and smoke is not considered to be a risk to public health.

Dorset County Council proposes to construct a new access drive to link Southbrook to the new Bere Regis Primary School site. The route of the drive is across Souls Moor to the north of Egdon Close on registered common land owned by the Parish Council. The new drive will be unfenced, unlit, will be used only by school staff, essential delivery  and service vehicles, and will include a designated footway which will be open for public pedestrian use.

Bere Regis Parish Council, as land owner, will be making an application to the Planning Inspectorate to deregister the area of common land directly affected by the drive and exchange it for another area owned by the Parish Council adjacent to Elder Road, which will be registered as common land. The areas affected are shown on the map which can be accessed by following the link: Bere Regis Common land exchange plan 14-41 (1)

Dorset County Council is carrying out this consultation exercise on behalf of the Parish Council and would welcome any comments you wish to make by 17th September 2014. Your correspondence will be treated as public information and may be forwarded to the Planning Inspectorate as part of the determination process.  Please address your comments to C Eversden, Senior Project Manager, Dorset Property, Dorset County Council, Princes House, Princes Street, Dorchester DT1 1TP.

As part of the Purbeck: Nature Improvement Area, Smallwood Association and the Dorset Wildlife Trust have created an exciting woodland training opportunity.

A one year part time work placement on the Isle of Purbeck is on offer to a hard working individual keen to learn the basic skills needed to begin working within the woodland sector.

For further information please follow this link:  Coppice Apprentice

The deadline for nominations for the 11 councillor positions ended on 24th April 2014. Only 9 names had been submitted so this means the election was uncontested and residents of the Parish will not need to vote for their parish councillors on the 22nd May. You will still need to vote for your European and District Government representative.

As from the 26th May the parish councillors will be:

Tony Bates; Tom Bennett; Arlene Duncanson; Laurie Fairhurst; Brenda House; Simon Munnings; Robin Pitcher; Ian Ventham and Peter Wharf.

This leaves us 2 councillors short and means we are able to co-opt on to the council. This is open to anyone who wishes to put their name forward. The qualifications for standing are:

1. You must be at least 18 years old on the day you submit your name

2. You must be a British citizen, an eligible Commonwealth citizen or a citizen of any other member state of the European Union.

3. You must must be registered as a local government elector for the parish OR you must have occupied as owner or tenant any land or other premises in the parish during the whole of the 12 months before the day of your submission OR your main or only place of work during the 12 months prior to the day of submission has been in the parish OR you have lived in the parish or within 3 miles of it during the whole of the 12 months prior to your submission.

If you would like to put your name forward, or have any queries regarding how you go about doing so, please contact the Clerk on 01929 472327 or e-mail clerk@bereregisparishcouncil.gov.uk

The time has finally arrived when you must now start to use all the new bins that were delivered in January.

From next Tuesday – 4th March – the new recycling scheme comes into effect. You will need to put out the slim black bin containing rubbish that can’t be recycled and the larger of the two brown bins containing food waste.

On Tuesday 11th March, you will need to put out your current large black bin, containing paper, cardboard, tins, cans, aerosols and plastics and your current green bin, containing glass bottles and jars.

Full details and a calendar can be found on www.dorsetforyou.com/recycle or you can call 01305 221040 for more information.

The consultation period for the plan ended on 13th February but the Parish Council was able to gain a one day extension in order to allow debate at the meeting held on the 13th.

The Parish Council’s response can be found by clicking “Mineral Sites Plan Response” or, for full information and all the comments sent on all the proposed sites, visit www.dorsetforyou.com/mineral-sites