Third time lucky for Stapley residents

IT was third time lucky for Stapley as the weather improved and I finally managed to canvass the hamlet, where, hopefully, I have covered every home - if not, please let me know.
Even so, it took two visits to walk from top to bottom and up and down all those long private driveways where homes are tucked away out of sight.
On the first evening, the rain was still threatening and I had only been to three or four properties when heavy drops started falling.
Nevertheless, I pressed on and the rain lifted, but eventually, as dusk settled in, it became too gloomy to continue. You cannot expect people to answer their doors to a stranger in the dark.
The following evening was a complete contrast with bright sunshine, and on this occasion I was joined on the campaign trail by my two-year-old son, George.
Without transport and without a babysitter, I had to resort to a lift from my elder daughter, which meant putting a child seat in her car and taking George with us.
They waited patiently while I met residents and heard of the local issues which concern them.
Stapley proved as interesting and varied a community as any other I have visited during this campaign, with again the level of Council Tax being a common concern.
It is even more notable in such an isolated community that while residents may be paying as much as those in an urban community, they are not receiving the same services.
In effect, they pay a premium for living in the countryside and being surrounded by some of the finest local environment.
Which, I believe, makes it even more important for the council to provide the best possible service to residents when it is called upon to do so.
Refuse and recycling collections, and the attention of planning officers from time to time were about the only services one could put a finger on as being directly delivered in Stapley.
And each of these topics provided cause for concern on the doorsteps. I won’t go into the planning issue, as it seems this is something that is going to need to be handled after my election. Residents of Stapley, though, will know what I am talking about.
The recycling concerns were again around the recycling of plastic, where I was again able to reassure people that, along with cardboard recycling, the Conservatives are bringing this in soon after the elections.
The refuse concern was similar to comments I have heard previously but with a slightly different twist.
As I mentioned above, there are quite a few long driveways and lanes to reach people’s homes, and few - actually, I cannot think of any – have a flat, Tarmac surface.
This makes it very difficult for some residents to wheel their wheelie bins to the roadside on bin day.
The concern came from a family deeply committed to doing their bit for the environment and very supportive of the council’s recycling programme.
Although they were the first to raise this specific point about the wheelie bins, I am sure there must be quite a lot of others who share the problematic experience every week. The couple also came up with a suggested solution, something which I will look into after the poll on May 3.
Elsewhere, another planning issue has raised its head again, this time involving gipsies – and, no, it is not in North Curry.
One of the difficulties for planning officers in dealing with gipsy matters is that the current Labour Government has a different and less rigid set of rules for gipsy-related applications than it does for ‘ordinary’ planning applications.
Yes, one law for them and another law for the rest of us. I’m not familiar enough with the subject to know if this is another of those situations manufactured by the unelected and unaccountable faceless bureaucrats of Brussels, but I strongly suspect so.
This particular case raises an interesting question: When is a gipsy not a gipsy?
I shall be working with residents in the area to find the answer and to try to resolve the situation as sympathetically as possible for all concerned.