If you leave the house for work or essential activities, it is important to book regular symptom-free covid tests.

Protect yourself, your family & friends with regularly testing every 2 weeks. Don’t be the reason you are unknowingly spreading the virus in the community.

Book your test online – kent.gov.uk/symptomfreetest

Due to the pandemic, the team at CREATE will not be able to run the Winter Lantern Parade in the same way as we normally would. This year we’re going to light up your homes instead, so help us to share some light during lockdown.

The CREATE team want to help you share your creative displays with our community in a covid-19 safe way, allowing people to view the winter lanterns as they take their daily exercise within their households or bubbles or via sharing their photos on social media.

Using the themes set out below, we want you to think creatively and use your front gardens, cars, houses, windows, even the garden gate(!) to create a fabulous light display within the 2021 theme of Heroes and Villains!

1-7 February                      Heroes

8-14 February                    Villains

15-21 February                 Origin Stories

22-28 February                 The Final Showdown

We will be supporting you with ideas, demos and examples via our online workshops to be held on Saturday 16 January – please book via http://www.winterlanterns.org/workshops/

To find out more, please follow @winterlanterns_twells or @createtwells or on facebook https://m.facebook.com/WinterLanternParade/

To make a donation to support CREATE in delivering this project and future creative activities for our community, please feel free to donate via https://www.gofundme.com/winter-lanterns or please email hellocreatetwells@gmail.com for further information.

The first of these steps is a formal six week public consultation (Regulation 15)  which will be organised by Tunbridge Wells Borough Council.  This will begin on the 11^th January 2021. The consultation is open for anyone to make a comment on our plan. The comments received during the consultation, along with the plan documents, are then subject to a formal inspection. 

Our plan will only move to referendum once it has passed this formal inspection. We hope the referendum will be held in mid-year as it has not been possible to hold referenda over the past year. 

Even though the plan has not yet completed its journey, our policies have some weight and can be considered in planning applications. The Parish Council Planning Committee will now begin to review applications against the policies contained in the neighbourhood plan. This is documented in a summary document which describes how the Parish Council will use the plan and what we would expect from anyone submitting planning applications. 

Do we still need a Neighbourhood Plan?

Tunbridge Wells receive thousands of planning applications each year. Our Neighbourhood Plan contains land use policies that are specifically designed to manage development in our Parish. This means planning applications are assessed against community rather than generic needs and objectives and local knowledge can be used to ensure development delivers a positive contribution for our Parish. 

What should I do?

If you are a resident then our plan represents the rules that will govern development in our Parish. If you are planning a development then the policies in the plan will give guidance that should help facilitate your application. 

We urge as many of you as possible to read the document and make comments as part of the TWBC consultation. The document is quite large so If you are unable to read it in  full then the summary document and a companion planning guidance will help you understand the scope and objectives of our Neighbourhood Plan. 

Owing to the ‘Covid restrictions’ imposed upon us , we and TWBC are unable to make hard copies of the documents available, nor advertise widely  and so have to rely on online access only. We would be grateful if you could pass the word around that this exercise is taking place and encourage the minority in our Parish who are not IT savvy to seek help from friends and family. 

Links:

Neighbourhood Plan documents: 

NDP Plan Documents

Tunbridge Wells Consultation portal:

https://consult.tunbridgewells.gov.uk/kse

Take a look at the first edition of our new e-newsletter which was distributed by email this week

Sign up to receive your copy of the Parish & Parish Council News e-newsletter straight to your inbox.

Complete the Annual Policing Survey

The Goudhurst Demand Led ‘Fibre to premises’ has finally been approved by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport.

This project will bring fibre broadband to more than 800 properties in Goudhurst and Curtisden Green with no installation cost.

There is no cost for homes or businesses as a government voucher is available which will cover the cost.

Once installed, you will be able to contract with any broadband supplier or change your contract with your existing supplier.

To make this a reality we do need a majority of homes homes and businesses in the Parish to commit their voucher to Openreach.

Are You eligible?

To see if you are eligible and to pledge your voucher to this scheme, please follow this link – https://www.openreach.com/connect-my-community and complete their questionnaire.

More information can be found about this and other schemes at https://www.david-knight.org/…/goudhurst-fibre-fully…

The Friends of St. Mary’s has launched a Virtual Christmas Fair allowing you to buy safely from the comfort of your home

• We will have up to 30 different sellers offering Christmas gifts, decorations, stationery and produce including sweets, food and drinks. We are pleased to welcome back many of your favourite “stallholders” and some new ones with different products and ideas.
• Our sellers have all generously agreed to donate 10% of the value of their sales to us. Please use the code supplied to ensure this donation reaches us so we can continue to help maintain the beautiful Church building for future generations.
• We will give you exciting ideas for Halloween and Christmas including recipes, activities and competitions.
• The Fair will run from mid-October until mid-December but please check individual entries for last order dates.

Please Support us by:

• Buying from the comfort of your home in this safe space we’ve created for buyers and sellers
• Linking to the seller or contacting them for orders or queries
• Quoting the specific code on individual seller’s posts when ordering to ensure 10% of the sales value will be donated to Friends. This does not affect the price you pay.
• Understanding that Friends is not party to the buying/selling/delivery arrangements
• Helping friends and family and others in our community to access our Virtual Fair
• Sharing this page to friends and family
• Being kind and respectful to everyone

On average over the last 5 years we have raised £2,750 at the Fair. Please help us match that!