PARISH COUNCIL: The parish council meeting last Wednesday was preceded by a specially-convened meeting at which councillors discussed in depth the resubmission of the planning application by EPHA for affordable housing in Leys Road. A report summarising the views of the councillors compiled by chairman Clive Allen was read, together with a letter from Wychavon which stated that, of 454 possible applicants for housing in Harvington, 27 had connections to the village but only three actually live here. The council had already resolved to object strongly to EPHA's application.

Several other matters were dealt with during the meeting, one of which was the announcement that the village had a new beat bobby - PC Annie Hamer, who had been invited to the June council meeting.

Councillors were sorry to hear of the resignation from the editorship of the Harvington News of Gordon Whittemore because of ill-health. Mr Whittemore's many admirable qualities were spoken of, as was the difficulty of finding someone of equal calibre to replace him; the council would be looking for a new editor, someone independent of the parish council, and everybody was asked to put forward the names of any likely candidates as soon as possible.

HALL'S FUTURE: On Thursday the annual meeting of the management committee of the village hall was held. In response to the inquiry into the need for a new, or improved, village hall, there had been 272 returned opinion slips out of the 600 distributed. With John Redman in the chair, the minutes of last year's meeting were read by secretary John Langley, who began by saying that this was his last appearance as secretary. He gave a brief resume of his time in this post and spoke of the tremendous surge of energy shown by the present chairman and committee. The chairman thanked all his committee members after which the meeting elected the four members of the public who are required by the constitution to represent the village on the committee for the coming year, all the other members being drawn from the various village organisations. These are: Richard Baugh, Brian Egan, John Langley and Andrew Tooth (who was co-opted some months ago and will continue to serve as treasurer). After referring to the presentation meeting of the previous week, on plans for the hall's future Mr Redman spoke of the big task which faces the village if it is to have a hall. Chris Haynes announced the results: a new hall on a new site was requested by 146 people, a new hall on the present site by 96 people, with 30 in total requesting a refurbishment of the present building. The next stage will be the instruction to the district valuer to set to work to find a site. When he presents his findings, the matter will then be put to the village and, a vote will be taken.

DIARY DATES: Saturday, spring fair in aid of hall appeal from noon to 3pm.

Saturday, April 9, beetle drive in aid of church funds, 7pm.