Annual General Meeting
About 30 people attended the Annual General Meeting of the Billericay District Residents’ Association held on Friday May 18 at 8pm in the Canon Roche Hall. The meeting began with a talk by Mr Steve Prewer, Open Spaces Manager of Basildon District Council about the new developments at Wat Tyler Country Park. More than £5,000,000 will be spent to convert the Park, situated in Pitsea, into a major centre for education, heritage and nature conservation. At the heart of the scheme are plans to restore part of a former explosives factory into a £2,700,000 heritage interpretation centre powered by renewable energy.
There are also plans to create a regional headquarters for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) and examine ways of returning hundreds of acres of surrounding brown field land back to public use. As a consequence new footways will be created across a former council landfill site that lies between the country park and an RSPB reserve on Vange Marshes.
In his report the chairman said that the West Area did not have an active committee and as a result some important issues were not being considered by the Association; even the maintenance of membership records and the distribution of The Resident were proving difficult. More Road Reps and people who were willing to collect subscriptions were needed so if anyone could offer to help in any way please make contact with the Association.
The Association was one of the organisations invited by the Town Council to be involved in producing a Town Design Statement and Ian Davie, the East & Burstead Area Secretary and Trevor Stansfield, the Vice Chairman had become members of the Steering Committee. Ian was delighted to be elected Chairman of the Committee.
Many people have expressed surprise that the membership subscription was still only £1 but this year at the AGM members voted unanimously to increase the fee to £2. The increase will take effect in the year 2008.
The elected officers for the year 2007 – 2008 are:
| Executive Committee | East Area Committee | (Incorporating Burstead Area) | |||
| Chairman | John Buchanan | 656715 | Chairman | Eve Oliver | 625736 |
| Vice Chairman | Trevor Stansfield | 623519 | Vice Chairman | Denis Alabaster | 631234 |
| Treasurer | Graham Goodeve | 653841 | Secretary | Ian Davie | 656139 |
| Secretary | Maureen Dann | 626147 |
Copy Dates for "Resident"
If readers wish to advertise an event or have an article printed in the newsletter the following gives dates by which copy should be received by the editor – Trevor Stansfield, 174 Perry Street CM12 0NX or e-mail Tremar@aol.com:
February issue copy by 15 January, March issue by 15 February, April issue by 15 March, May issue copy by 15 April, June issue by 15 May, July/August issue by 15 June, September issue by 15 August, October issue by 15 September, November issue by 15 October. December/January issue by 15 November, February issue by 15 January.
If an event is to be held before the 10th of the month then, to ensure circulation, the advertisement should be included in the previous month’s issue e.g. an event taking place on 3 May should be advertised in the April issue. Similarly if an event is scheduled for 3 September then the advertisement should appear in the July issue.