CHAIRMAN'S REVIEW 2004

• The Association has been able during the year to financially support a number of Broadstone organisations, thanks to the increased membership fee. We have been able to donate a total of £700. The most significant funding was to both the Methodist and United Reformed Churches. Both of these churches have been rebuilding or modifying their premises to provide both larger space for worship or for enlarged community facilities. Both churches felt the need to provide significantly better catering since they both run day centres for the aged and Play groups for the young. I was invited to both churches for their dedication and opening services on behalf of the Association.
• This Executive made a visit to the Landfill Waste facility at Whites Tip on Canford Heath. We were able to see not only the Waste pit but also a revolutionary experimental large scale composting processor, which takes all waste and turns it into inert compost suitable for agricultural use. Similar facilities to this are likely to become common place as local authorities minimise the waste going to landfill. The Waste tip, which until recently was like most similar tips around the world, infested by scavenging flocks of seagulls. However, while we were visiting, there were no seagulls visible because the operators have employed a falconer with his bird, to successfully scare off the flocks of seagulls. We also saw the electrical generation plant, which generates 7MW of electricity from methane gas, which results from the decomposing waste, collected from the waste tip.
• Footpath 5 has been debated once again at a special Local Area Committee convened to try to find a solution to a "Footpath that goes Nowhere". The committee voted for the Borough to approach the Golf Club once again to ascertain whether there was any way that a route through to Ashington Cutting along the old railway track bed could be agreed. Negotiation appears to have failed; therefore the Borough is to proceed with a Section 26 order; that is a compulsion order to create a footpath, subject to Council agreement.
• Most of you will have noticed how beautiful the raised flowerbeds and all the other displays in Broadstone have been this summer. We have "Broadstone in Bloom" to thank for this and Denise Hill in particular. She and a band of volunteers are hard at work most of the summer, planting, dead heading and watering. However, you will also have noticed the severely damaged walls surrounding the flowerbeds and the damaged paving in front of the shops between the Alliance and Leicester and the cobblers shop. Councillor Mike Brooke, Denise Hill and ourselves have been trying to establish the owners of the raised flower beds (the Council are not the owners) and have written copious letters with little or no response. The Council's Legal department are currently handling this investigation since there could be accidents to pedestrians. Skate boarders and cyclists testing their skill on the tops of the retaining walls are doing the damage.
• Everyone in Broadstone should now have a blue wheelie bin in which to collect their recyclable material, in place of the black box which some had. Gradually the communal facilities will be withdrawn in the Somerfield car park thus releasing a number of car parking spaces. Although the cost of setting up the scheme was high, the cost savings in a reduction in landfill tax, will, it is hoped, reduce the magnitude of the tax paid by the Borough. Also there might be some financial gain from selling the recyclable materials? There also might be a consequent Council tax reduction??
• We are fortunate in Broadstone that mobile phone aerials have not been a particular problem. However, that is not to say that the situation will remain stable or that controversy will not arise in the future. Most folks have mobile phones these days and expect universal coverage but Broadstone still has some dead or almost dead spots where coverage is poor or very poor. Should the phone companies decide to eliminate those dead spots, one or more aerials will be needed and there will be an outcry from residents near the proposed aerial sites. The concern expressed by a large number of people is about the health affects of Mobile Telecommunication Aerials and ignores the health affects that could be present from Television and FM transmissions. The power introduced into the Television and FM aerials in the UK is more than ten times that which is introduced into mobile telephone masts. The reason is that the latter systems have by design, only limited coverage to avoid radio interference with other aerials only a few kilometres away, using common frequencies. TV and FM transmitters however are designed to maximise coverage and most are able to serve a radius of some 150 kilometres. Thus the field strength within the TV and FM transmitter coverage is considerably higher than that from a mobile telephone. It should also be remembered that the leakage from a microwave oven is not insignificant, therefore if one is a frequent user of such a device and continuously stand by the equipment while in operation, I would submit that there is an even higher health hazard.

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