The Spring Newsletter, announcing the forthcoming AGM was distributed, and a few of the street wardens remained for the main meeting.

Previous minutes were approved, and actions re-visited. Traffic calming in Creekmoor had been approved, and could involve speed humps in Beechbank Avenue.

The visit to White's Tip was now to be 6th May.

The Poole Partnership website was now linked into Broadstone.net, to give general access to the Residents' column.

The problem of 'excessive' maintenance work in the Recreation Ground was deferred to the next meeting of the Local Area Committee (LAC), where a speaker from Leisure Services would be describing the work carried out.

JN raised some 'new' rules for planning applications, which seemed to dictate that future building in the area would need to be at a density of 30 houses per hectare - nearly twice the current density.

He also raised the format of the current LACs, where the union of Broadstone and Merley/Bearwood seemed to have zero common ground. This was to be reconsidered in June, by Poole Executive.

The Chairman also raised the question of incursions by 'Travellers', who appeared to have the right to park anywhere that was not fenced off.

There was also discussion about the damage to coping stones round beds in the Broadway. Possibly the new owner of the shops could put in irregular stones and thus discourage skate boarders. The question of public liability might also have some relevance to the situation.

The treasurer gave a healthy report, despite the fact that apparently we had spent a lot more than our income. This really related to the change in financial year, which for this year only included an extra printing cost.

For the Magazine and Advertising report, the main talking point was whether we should increase the advertising rates, as these had been unchanged for five years. In the end, the meeting agreed to new rates for 2005.

The Chief Warden's report highlighted the difficulties in recruiting and retaining street wardens, and additionally one of our area wardens, Ken Slydel, was hoping to retire at the end of 2004.

Education reported steady but continuous improvement in both results and efficiency, but sadly the level of Government funding stayed very low. There would also be problems in the coming years due partly due to declining numbers of children and due to the stated intention of rationalising the transfer ages for all Poole Schools.

Broadstone Schools continued to do well, and there had been new Heads installed at Corfe Hills (Alan Hinchcliffe) and Broadstone Middle (Mrs Rhonda Moore), as well as the new BoP Policy Director, John Nash.

Dorset Federation had recently had a talk given by Adrian Toller about the use of MBTU plants for dealing with the problem of waste disposal. This was such an effective talk, that it was felt we should ask if it was possible to repeat the talk to BRA.

The question of the 'new' Broadstone History was raised, and likely date for the first draft was July/August, with publication some time towards theend of 2005.

We live in expectation!

Next Committee Meeting, July 1st

Broadstone Residents Association.

Prepared for Broadstone.net by dudley.hull

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