July/ August Update

Up Hatherley Parish has a long history, dating back to a first record in 1018 indicating that it was then a manor in its own right. The Parish website (http://uphatherleyparish.co.uk/) includes a section on Local History, which is worth browsing through and covers the period from 1018 up to the 1990's. In the early years of the 20th Century folk would probably have travelled about on foot, horseback or carriage, on footpaths and bridleways. These pathways would have joined various Parish locations to the Church, which was usually the centre of village life.

The existing Public Right of Way footpaths are marked on Ordnance Survey maps in green and, typically, the OS Explorer Map 179 shows Cheltenham and our Parish in reasonable detail at a scale of 4cm to 1 km. It is also interesting to trace the history of some of the parish footpaths and the 'Know Your Place' website (http://maps.bristol.gov.uk/kyp/?edition=glos) allows comparison between modern OS maps and several historic issues. For example, by choosing the historic 1898-1939 OS 25" 3rd Edition one can see that the Parish Church of St Philip and St James is visible, as the present church building was constructed around 1885.

Following the extremely well attended meeting about the re-invigoration of Neighbourhood watch schemes within Up Hatherley we have now arranged a follow-up meeting on crime prevention. This is taking place on 3rd July and we are lucky enough to have Martin Surl, the Police and Crime Commissioner for Gloucestershire coming to address us along with other representatives from the Police. We have a comparatively low crime rate in Up Hatherley but anything that we can do to help reduce it even further is surely worthwhile. Here’s a chance to hear from the professionals how they think we can do just that.

The improvement work to the pavement along Up Hatherley Way is welcome but is currently causing much consternation. It has proceeded much more slowly than we had hoped and currently covers a much smaller section of pathways than we had anticipated from the plans we had been shown. On the positive side having expressed our concerns about the safety of the Poplars junction with Up Hatherley Way we hope that the work, that is nearing completion as I write might go some way to alleviating the problem. However, the new cycle signs in the road are in the view of the Parish Council confusing and unhelpful prompting cyclists to cycle in the main carriageway way and not the newly designated cycleway. We hope the problem is urgently addressed by the County

The next meeting of the Parish Council will be held on Tuesday July 10th 2018 at 7.30pm in the Village Hall, Cold Pool Lane

Adrian Bamford

Chairman