Char Valley Parish Council: Welcome to the CVPC website

Char Valley Parish Council
Whitchurch Canonicorum, Wootton Fitzpaine and Stanton St. Gabriel Parishes

Latest updates:

17th May: April Finance Meeting Minutes
17th May: Planning Application
4th May: April Meeting Minutes
4th May: Mays Meeting Agenda
18th March: March issue of Char Chat
12th March: Results of Broadband Survey (see below)
24th February: Proposed Affordable Housing Leaflet (PDF)

Photo of Whitchurch Canonicorum by Guy Edwardes

Whitchurch Canonicorum by Guy Edwardes
(more photos)

welcome to the CVPC website

If you live within the group of parishes; Whitchurch Canonicorum, Wootton Fitzpaine and Stanton St. Gabriel, this is your community website. The CVPC has statutory responsibilities and an important role within the auspices of local government. The CVPC is the official 'grass roots'. We would like to develop these official roles and encourage residents to become more involved in what's happening in our locality.

This website and our newsletter will, we hope, help to keep our isolated communities in touch, and give residents a vehicle for expressing their views or raising issues of general interest. If you have any suggestions, criticisms, observations or queries about this website or our locality, this is a very good place to voice them. Please click Feedback where you can fill in a form which will be sent to Katherine Johnston-Hyde, the Parish Clerk. See Councillors/Officers to find a list of CVPC contacts.

Results of Super Fast Broadband Survey

Below are links to the compiled results of the questionnaire about super fast broadband. PDF files, if you can't open them get the free Adobe Reader here.

Proposed Affordable Housing Plans for Whitchurch Canonicorum, pre Planning Application (26th Oct 2011)

Whitchurch Affordable Housing Plans can now be accessed via the Dorset For You website. Search for application number 1/D/12/000428.

The Planning Application is under Agenda item 13, at CVPC meeting on the 14th May 2012 at 7.30pm at Whitchurch Canonicorum Village Hall.

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What is the Char Valley Parish Council?
Char Valley Parish Council was formed in 1975 with the 'grouping' of Whitchurch Canonicorum, Wootton Fitzpaine and Stanton St. Gabriel Parish Meetings.

What do Parish Councils do?
Parish Councils are local authorities and have a number of duties and powers. To find out what the duties and powers of Parish Councils are see www.dorset-aptc.gov.uk/daptc2.htm. A Parish Council is the lowest level of local authority, not to be confused with the Parochial Church Councils (PCCs). The twelve Char Valley Parish Councillors are elected to serve all the residents of our three parishes.
Our Parish Council tries to maintain a close relationship with the local community. Any member of the public can attend our Council Meetings as observers, and at each meeting there is time set aside for local electors to raise issues of concern - The Public Discussion Period. Council Meetings take place in our three village halls in rotation: Whitchurch Canonicorum Village Hall, The James Hargreaves Hall, Morcombelake and Wootton Fitzpaine Village Hall. There are ten meetings a year - monthly apart from August and December. The AGM at which the Chairman is elected is in May.
Our two (soon to be three) West Dorset District Councillors and our Dorset County Councillor usually come to our Parish Council Meetings and report back to those authorities.

Char Valley Parish Council Community Survey 2002
In 2002 the group parish council undertook a major community survey. If you would like a printable copy of the survey responses, click 'Response To Questionnaire' to download the MS Word Document (835kb).

Elections
Local Authority elections are held every four years. Our parishes are divided into four wards as follows:

Whitchurch Canonicorum North (Whitchurch Canonicorum, Fishpond, Abbotts Wootton and the Vale) elect four councillors.
Whitchurch Canonicorum South (Morcombelake, Ryall and the community around the slopes of Hardown Hill) elect four councillors.
Wootton Fitzpaine (WoottonFitzpaine, Monkton Wyld and Fern Hill) elect three councillors.
Stanton St Gabriel (Stanton St Gabriel, part Morcombelake and Stonebarrow Lane) elect one councillor.
To find out which Councillors currently represent you click Councillors/Officers. To find out who can become a Parish Councillor and what it involves go to www.dorset-aptc.gov.uk/councillorquals.htm

The Char Valley Village Communities
Action Plans 2003
The CVPC has now published the Action Plans 2003 for our grouped and individual parishes. The Action Plans have been put together by Community Groups, Clubs and Societies, Church Councils, Youth Groups, interested individuals and the Parish Councillors. Funded by a grant from The Countryside Agency, with the help of Dorset Community Action and Dorset County Council the 44 page Action Plans have been delivered to every household within the three parishes. They are also on this website (here) and can be downloaded, without photographs, as MS Word (69kb) or Acrobat PDF (117kb) documents.

The local authorities, all with different responsibilities for our area are:
Char Valley Parish Council
West Dorset District Council
Dorset County Council
SW England Regional Assembly

Our Parish is served by the Parish Clerk
Katherine Johnston-Hyde
Hyde Cottage,
Blackdown,
Nr. Beaminster,
Dorset,
DT8 3LE
Tel. 01308 868556

All matters such as fallen trees, pollution, damaged signs, blocked/closed footpaths, over-grown verges etc. can be reported to the Clerk, who will pass the report on to the relevant authority. All road repairs potholes in lanes, blocked road drains, should be notified to the District Council on (Freephone) 0800 23 23 23

'Char Chat' the CVPC Newsletter
The CVPC newsletter will be delivered to every household in our group of parishes 3 or 4 times a year. In the interests of saving money (35p per newsletter), we encourage those who can, to receive the email version instead. Please complete this request form.
Char Chats On-line
You can read all of the Char Chat newsletters published since 2003 on this website. Click here to see the list.

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