COUNCIL MEETING 14TH APRIL

COUNCIL MEETING 14TH APRIL - IN SUMMARY 

Council approved a grant request for nearly £4,500 from the Rylands Road Park Renovation group towards installation of new play equipment. The group has consulted extensively around a number of choices of equipment (https://www.facebook.com/RylandsRoadPark/). The grant will be added together with the substantial funds the group has already raised. Ashford Borough Council, who own the park, will oversee the installation. The Council will encourage ABC to then fund further new equipment, as soon as there is budget available. 

Council has approved its first information plaque connected to an historic event in Kennington. At the suggestion of local historians, the plaque will be installed at the site on Spearpoint Playing Fields where a Heinkel bomber crash-landed on 11 May 1941. Local residents risked injury to dowse the fire and pull the crew from the plane, saving the lives of all but the pilot. Residents may want to suggest ideas for similar plaques in the future. 

Restoration of the War Memorial took another step forward with approval to apply for a grant from the War Memorials Trust to cover half of the cost of a detailed survey of damage to the memorial, which is situated opposite Kennington Academy and Downs View Infant School. 

The next Council meeting will be on 5th May. This is one week earlier than normal to allow the meeting to take place remotely. After that, the legislation that permits remote meetings will expire and Council will need to meet in person. We have begun the process of considering how those meetings can be made available to the public through a livestream in future and how to provide access to this for residents who do not have access to the internet. Council is also trialling the use of tablet computing to avoid the use of paper documents in meetings.