Author: FVCA

Invitation for landowners and farmers – Natural Flood Management in Bournheath and Fairfield

Wednesday 11th December 2024, 09:30—11:30, Bournheath Community Centre, Claypit Lane.

If you own land within the Elmbridge Brook catchment (Bournheath and Fairfield areas), please join us for a meeting to discuss how Natural Flood Management (NFM) techniques could be used locally to reduce flood risk.

Officers from Worcestershire County Council & North Worcestershire Water Management will share experiences of NFM projects elsewhere in the County, and will ask you to annotate maps with areas known to flood or where water often flows off land, and if you know of areas where you think water could be stored for short periods of time.

Also present will be Philippa, a Catchment Sensitive Farming Officer from Natural England. CSF offers free, confidential advice to help manage land productively and sustainably including measures to look after soils – a precious and valuable resource. Taking steps to increase sustainable management practises to prevent both soil erosion and nutrient losses from fields is also key in protecting natural ecosystems. CSF works with farmers and partners across England to produce food in a way that protects water, air and soil, using schemes such as Sustainable Farming Incentive and Countryside Stewardship.

We look forward to seeing you on Wednesday 11th December.

On behalf of:

– Bournheath Parish Council,

– Worcestershire County Council

– North Worcestershire Water Management

– Catchment Sensitive Farming

Changes to the makeup of Belbroughton & Fairfield Parish Council could further disadvantage the residents of our community. 

Please read this article and action accordingly by 31^st January 2025.

Currently we are a Ward within the Parish of Belbroughton & Fairfield, which currently is made up of 8 councillors elected to represent the Belbroughton Ward and 6 councillors elected to represent the Fairfield [Wildmoor & Stoneybridge] Ward.

But all this will soon change, due to a slight redrawing of our internal Parish boundary, and the forecasted electoral numbers in 5 years’ time.

From the Parish Council elections in 2027, the make up of the Council will be 9 Councillors elected to represent Belbroughton and 5 councillors elected to represent Fairfield [Wildmoor & Stoneybridge].

Some residents feel that the reduction in numbers of elected to represent Fairfield [Wildmoor & Stoneybridge] will further disadvantage our community and have asked if it is possible if we could become a Parish on our own, with local decisions being made by our community; there are other communities with similar or smaller populations to ours that are Parish Councils and operate effectively.

Residents have expressed concern that a future redrawing of the Parish or internal Ward boundaries could further disadvantage us, with the forecast population of Belbroughton increasing with future proposed development, and our community not increasing by the same rate due to no/minimal development.

The option for residents is to request a Community Governance Review, which needs to be requested by at least 200 electors living in the Parish.

If a Community Governance Review is requested, and agreed, Bromsgrove District Council will consider several options:

• Splitting the Parish and creating a new Parish of Fairfield (or whatever name is agreed).  Do we have a population that could sustain a Parish of Fairfield?  The Census 2021 population dataset at Parish level has yet to be made public by the ONS, so we can only go by 2011 census data; the population for Fairfield was 942, our neighbours in Bournheath had a population of 465 and Dodford with Grafton 758.  The nearby Parish of Frankley had a population of 122

Or

• A revised overall number of Parish Councillors, the overall number proposed could be less than at present (the current number is disproportionately high compared to other Councils).  The Ward allocation would be based – as present – on number of electors.  If the overall Council was reduced to, for example, 8, the allocation may be 5 for Belbroughton, 3 for Fairfield, the difference of 2 would be far better than the proposed difference of 4, or more.

Comparison with other Parish/Town Councils

Currently Belbroughton & Fairfield Parish Council is made up of 14 Councillors (if all seats are taken).  The Parish has 2,582 usual residents as at Census day 2011. 

In comparison, the number of councillors currently on (if all seats filled) and their respective populations for:

• Evesham Town Council is 24 councillors and 23,428 usual residents as at Census day 2011.

• Droitwich Spa Town Council is 18 councillors and 23,504 usual residents as at Census day 2011.

• Pershore Town Council is 15 and 7,065 usual residents as at Census day 2011.

• Malvern Town Council is 20 and 29,626 usual residents as at Census day 2011.

• Catshill and North Marlbrook Parish Council is 10 and 6,858 usual residents as at Census day 2011.

• Kidderminster Town Council is 18.  The population for the Kidderminster Built-up area (Census 2011) was 57,059.

It has been suggested that in comparison with other larger population Parish/Town Councils, the makeup of Belbroughton & Fairfield Parish Council is disproportionately high. Councils with populations similar to ours often have 6 to 8 Councillors.

What can YOU do?

If you would like Bromsgrove District Council to conduct a Community Governance Review, please complete the request, which can be download via the link at the bottom of this article or that will be published within our Winter Newsletter. 

The Community Association has agreed to collate the requests and forward them on to Bromsgrove District Council, you can hand in your Community Governance Review request at any of our events or pop it in the Village Hall post-box.  NOTE:  The Governance Review Request can only be signed by those people on the electoral register.

If the Association has received 200 signatures by the deadline of 31^st January 2025, we will forward all requests for a Community Governance Review to Bromsgrove District Council.  If the number of required signatures has not been achieved by the deadline date, request forms received will be shredded.

Thanks to the support of County Councillor Shirley Webb & Worcestershire County Council , the Community Association have been able to install a new bench in Wood Lane. Thanks also to volunteers Nick & Paul for their assistance.