Before the school summer holidays, residents in Ashdown Close had been suffering a large number of ASB incidents.

These were all related to secondary school children from the Oakwood Campus and ranged from general nuisance and litter dropping incidents up to criminal damage.

Cllr’s Dan Daley, Peter Hooper, David Pickett along with myself have had met with heads from all the secondary schools on the site and discussed the problems with the PCSO for the area.

Nearly a month has passed since this meeting and local neighbours to the school have happily reported a massive reduction in problems. This is to such an extent that we can now mark this issue “Case Closed”.

All of us, will of course, continue to monitor the situation and we have a follow up meeting arranged at the end of November to discuss how matters are continuing.

Coriander Drive 

• Case opened 18th Sep ‘07 - Lamp posts have been placed around the shops on the Oakwood Hospital estate without proper consultation with neighbours. I am investigating the possiblitiy of having them moved.
• Update - 25th Sep ‘07 - Have confirmed that these are not Kent County Council lamp posts and have been placed by the developer as this land on which they’re placed will not become ‘adopted’ by the Council. Am now investigating whether planning permission was sought and gained, or whether it wasn’t necessary prior to placement. Will then approach developer to discuss.
• Update - 4th Oct 07 - These lamp posts were not part of the conditions of building or included in the original developments permission. Therefore the lamp posts must come down and planning permission applied for. Developers have been informed and have agreed to meet with Cllr Hooper to discuss proposed new siting.

If you have any views on this siting of these lamp posts, please contact Cllr Peter Hooper on 729302 or by email here.