Public Meeting October 17 Katherine Warington School
The first public meeting of the Autumn will focus on mental health support for our young people and how our local NHS services are working together on this important subject.
The Society have invited Dr. Alison Cowan, the
GP Lead 'Thrive Young Person's Clinic' St Albans & Harpenden Locality; CYPMHS GP Clinical Lead: Hertfordshire & West Essex ICS
Alison Cowan is a GP, founder and clinical lead for the Thrive Young Person’s Service in Hertfordshire. As Hertfordshire CYPMHS GP Clinical Lead, she works closely with local CYP organisations to support younger patients with their mental health and help GPs navigate their services through training and development of resources. This includes the recent development and delivery of a training programme for Primary Care clinicians.
The meeting will take place at Katherine Warington School on Oct 17. 7.30pm where there is FREE parking.
Please click here to book a (free) place.
Society's Response to SADC's new parking proposals
The Harpenden Society’s has submitted the following response to SADC’s parking proposals for central Harpenden.
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Fundamentally, the Society believe that the current proposals are not fit for purpose.
Local retailers argue that the imposition of the proposed charges “will be damaging to the local economy and will directly and adversely affect the residents and their decision to shop locally” where trading conditions are already challenging as a result of changes in consumer behaviour and the cost of living crisis. We fully recognise this is a significant risk.
Furthermore, the provision of 20 minutes free parking meets no one’s needs as the enforcement will prove to be extremely difficult. The consequence is that residents will ignore the time limits, much as they do now.
The result is likely to be more chaos and potential damage to the Town Council’s strategic objective of supporting a vibrant High Street, an objective we fully support.
Nevertheless, we do accept that there are legitimate issues to be addressed, both in terms of the need for SADC to secure additional income to fund its budget deficit, a real need for standardisation of parking time limits and charges, and the dire need for a substantial improvement to central Harpenden’s chronic traffic and parking problems.
As regards SADC’s income requirements, we believe there needs to be more transparency. From our analysis, the parking proposals (which include changes other than the imposition of on-street parking charges) appear, at face value, to raise far more than that needed to cover the costs of the district’s parking services.
If this is the case, there is a legal obligation firstly to apply any such surpluses to improving such services, before funds are available to meet the Council’s budget deficit.
HTC’s own view is that no permanent changes should be made until a thorough review of parking has been undertaken. We support this but also recognise that SADC may well have to press ahead with some parking charge changes to meet their budget deficit for 2024/25.
If SADC do press ahead, we believe that for a limited time only (to end March 2025 - by which time a proper review of parking in Harpenden should have been undertaken), the following changes should be considered:-
Our hope is that, even at this stage, SADC recognise that parking is a complex matter with a host of issues yet to be resolved, and will defer any permanent changes until a full review has taken place.
As members of HTC’s transport forum, the Society is more than happy to be involved with both SADC and HTC in this review.
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The Society also encourages all members to make their own views on the new parking proposals known to SADC.
You can email your response to parking.development@stalbans.gov.uk
The consultation document can be found online at https://consultation.appyway.com/
The closing date for responses is Aug 14 2024
Jeff Phillips
Chairman, The Harpenden Society
3rd August 2024
Category One. Urban
May include any aspect of the built environment such as: Shops, Public buildings, Schools, Churches, Monuments
Category Two. Transport
May include, but is not limited to: Walking, Train travel
Motoring / parking, Cycling, Flying
Category Three. Recreation
May include, but is not limited to: Parks, Fields, Sports facilities, Runners, Dog walkers
2024 Photography Competition
The Harpenden Society, in collaboration with the Harpenden Photographic Society (HPS), is proud to announce the launch of a unique photography competition aimed at capturing images of the key aspects of life in Harpenden that are important to you.
The aim is to create a bank of compelling images reflecting awareness and engagement with the local community on topics such as urban development, transportation, and recreation.
These photographs will form an image bank the Harpenden Society could use in it’s future campaigns to illustrate important issues in their newsletter, website and local media.
Who can enter
It will be open to all residents, as well as members of the sponsoring organisations.
What to photograph
The competition has three distinct categories: urban, transport, and recreation. Entries should adhere to specific guidelines, including obtaining express written permission for the use of recognisable facial images and compliance with copyright provisions.
How to supply your photographs
All images should have been taken in or around Harpenden and fit into one of the three category themes. Complete the online submission form with your contact details and a brief statement, up to 30 words, describing the image and its significance (please note there is a maximum of one entry per category per person).
Images should be submitted in jpeg format, and should be no larger than 10Mb. After completing the online submission form email the image(s) to:
socialmedia@harpendensociety.org
Judging
A panel of judges, comprising representatives from both the Harpenden Society and the Harpenden Photographic Society, will evaluate the submissions based on creativity, relevance to the specified themes, and overall artistic merit.
Winners will be selected in each category and awarded prizes to recognise their contribution to the campaign.
Prizes
Each of the 3 categories will have up to 3 finalists. Every finalist wins a mounted print of their winning image.
The winner of each category additionally receives a £25 voucher from Harpenden Books.
The winner of the best image from an entrant under the age of 18 will receive a £100 voucher.
The winner of the overall best image as chosen by the judges will win the following package:
Timings
The competition entry deadline is midnight 30th November 2024. No entries accepted after this date. Finalists and Winners will be announced via email by no later than 31st December 2024.Finalists will have their winning entry displayed at the Harpenden Photographic Society annual exhibition in April 2025.
The Terms & Conditions relating to the competition can be downloaded by clicking here.
The online entry form can be accessed by clicking here.
Silver Palate
Darlish
Darlish
Silver Palate Deli Award from the Harpenden Society
Harpenden’s Silver Palate group extended their Delicatessen with a creatively designed new store last year. Offering a huge range of Deli products with fresh breads, cheeses vegetables and an extensive selection of Deli products not available anywhere else in Harpenden. PLUS a trendy coffee bar.
All uniquely designed. This statement of intent from a local business was worthy of a Harpenden Society Certificate of Merit.
Presented by Awards Secretary, Ron Taylor, to business partner Georgina Loizou with long serving staff member Alicia.
The Deli is located almost next door to the famous Silver Palate restaurant in Vaughan Rd.
Darlish Award from the Harpenden Society
Harpenden’s only ICE CREAM parlour - DARLISH was awarded a Harpenden Society Certificate of Merit thanks to their creative introduction of a large children’s play area upstairs.
A demonstration of their support for the Harpenden High Street.
Presented by Awards Secretary Ron Taylor to Aurelia Chilvers on August 23. Located in Leyton Road they have established a reputation for top quality ice creams of all sizes and flavours PLUS a variety of drinks including coffee.
Our Newsletter
Harpenden Society members regularly tell my colleagues and me how much they look forward to the quarterly arrival of our newsletter. Many say it has become their primary source of news of what’s happening in our town.
Over the last eight years or so, under Alan Bunting’s editorship, it has broadened its coverage to include not only hard (often exclusive) news but also in-depth features about local enterprises – their history as well as their vital place in Harpenden’s commercial life. As a result of Alan’s stewardship, the size of the newsletter has increased accordingly, from six to eight and then to twelve pages.
However, Alan acknowledges his advancing age and in consequence, his wish to ease the workload involved where, it should be added, the main challenge is not the writing but gathering the ‘source material’ that is identifying and researching potential stories.
What we have agreed is that we need find someone to provide what might be termed ‘editorial support’ for Alan. This could be someone, possibly with a journalistic background or with journalistic aspirations, who would like to help maintain the newsletter’s role as the ‘flagship’ of the Harpenden Society.
Interested, but want to know more about the ‘job description’? If so please contact Alan on editor@harpendensociety.org or myself on chairman@harpendensociety.org
Jeff Phillips
Chairman, Harpenden Society