A voluntary Electoral Review Babergh has requested a review to be carried out alongside a compulsory review for Mid Suffolk.  Some council wards now have more electors than average, whilst some have fewer, usually because of housing developments over time. This means that votes don’t carry equal weight across the District, so occasionally the ward […]

New joint Chief Executive for Babergh and Mid Suffolk I am pleased to be one of the group leaders who will be part of the process to recruit a new chief executive, as I was for the appointment of Charlie Adan some six years ago.  At that point the two Districts were still to hold […]

New Joint Local Planning framework: Local Development Scheme (LDS) The council has to prepare (yet another) Local Plan, with a publicly available program and timetable of the planning documents they intend to prepare. This LDS will replace all LDS/Local Plan programmes previously produced, and be supplemented or updated with real-time progress information. During the summer […]

Planning Development Management will be introducing extra mornings to its non-appointment pre-application advice service from Monday 16th May. Residents and developers will be able to drop in on Monday, Thursday and Friday mornings at both the Needham and Hadleigh offices.  Appointments for application advice can still be made for Monday-Thursday afternoons.  There will shortly be […]

Micro-chipping of dogs Most dog owners should be aware of the legislation which makes it compulsory for all dogs to be microchipped – this became mandatory on the 6th April.  A notice can be served requiring a chip to be implanted. Failure to do this, or to keep details updated, can result in a fine […]

“Safe Partnership” Working with Babergh and Mid Suffolk, the Safe Partnership charity has secured a one-off grant from the Suffolk Community Fund that could help enable victims of domestic abuse and their families to remain in their homes by providing free, and immediate, home security measures.  This national charity has been assisting victims of domestic […]

Major planning developments in Babergh In the new Local Plan, adopted by Babergh in 2014 which covers the period up to 2031, some 2500 new homes are planned.  60% of these are destined for the urban centres with 40% going to the rural areas. Whilst there are policies in place to “protect” existing settlements from […]

Early warning on Council Tax It seems very likely that there will be a 3.5% hike in Babergh’s portion of the council tax from April, after four years of “freeze”.  Whilst this increase sounds dramatic, the actual impact will be £5for the whole year, or less than 10p a week for a Band D property.  […]

District Cllr: Sue Carpendale sue.carpendale@babergh.gov.uk Responsibilities: Strategy Committee; Licensing and Regulatory Committee; Babergh-Mid Suffolk rep on Raising the Bar reference group; Group leader Lib Dems. The shape and nature of the new council changed radically after the May 2015 elections.  A large Conservative majority formed the first ever political administration, but for the time being […]