Welcome to the Town Council's website.
The Council hope that the website will improve communication with the parishioners and enable the community to keep up to date with what the Council is currently involved with.
You can now easily access the Agenda for forthcoming Council Meetings and download the Minutes too. Take a look at the CALENDAR which gives details of forthcoming Council and Committee Meetings and any major events that are coming up in the town.
Keep an eye on the LATEST ITEMS section which indicates when any new information has been put on the site. This could be Minutes of Meetings or any important information received from the other local authorities like the Cotswold District Council or Gloucestershire County Council, indeed any organisation that has information or news which the Council think would be of interest to the community.
The Council hope that you will find the website useful. If you have any suggestions for additional information that could be included on this site please do get in touch
Horsepool (Duck Pond) Refurbishment starting October 7th
For more details please click on the pdf Horsepool letter to residents.pdf
Road Closure Notice
Temporary Traffic Order to close A429, High Street for carraigeway resurfacing. For more details please click on pdf Road Closure 30Oct-4Nov - A429 High St Resident Letter.pdf
Remembrance Parade & Service
This year's annual Remembrance Parade and Service will be held on Sunday 10th November. The parade will begin from the Fire station in Parkers Lane and the service will take place around the War Memorial just before 11am. The Order of Service is available by clicking on the link: Remembrance Order of Service 2019.docx
Biodiversity Work is starting in Blenheim Meadow
Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust’s ERDF Wild Towns, in partnership with Moreton-in-Marsh Town Council are working to improve Moreton in Marsh’s greenspaces for both wildlife and people. Interventions will take place in two parks in the town, Queen Victoria Gardens and Blenheim Meadow, along with two of the town’s cemeteries and one of the allotment sites. Work is planned to take place over a 3 year period with activities starting now.
Blenheim Meadow has a variety of wet meadows, balancing ponds and streams within it. These habitats will be enhanced through management and creation of new features to create better structure within the existing features.
Meadow areas will be supplemented with plug plants and wildflower seeding to diversify the species found within them.
The neighbouring balancing ponds will have the scrub within them rotationally managed (through regular work parties with local volunteers) to provide a more diverse age structure, along with marginal planting to provide habitat for birds, mammals and amphibians which reside there.
Along the stream that flows through the park, two ponds will be dug. These will provide another habitat dimension to benefit amphibians, aquatic invertebrates and others such as dragonflies and damselflies.
- Blenheim Park will be enhanced for wildlife through the establishment of two wet meadows towards to southern end of the site.
- Balancing ponds on site will be brought back into a 4-year rotational coppice cycle in order to promote better age-structure of regenerating willow and alder.
- Marginal planting at the edge of these ponds will encourage greater biodiversity still.
- Two junction ponds will be excavated where streams converge in Blenheim Park, to provide extra pond habitats for wildlife.
- Tree planting and provision of roosting opportunities for bats will also be installed at Blenheim Park.
The Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust is asking for volunteers to help with scrub cutting on 19th October and 30th October, meeting at the bridge in Blenheim Meadow at 10am.
For more information on the project visit www.gloucestershirewildlifetrust.co.uk/erdf-wild-towns or contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Painting benches
The benches along the High Street, Stow Road and Queen Victoria Park are being removed for repainting. The benches will be repaired if necessary, have old paintwork removed then hot dip galvanised and repainted with an acrylic paint system which should last 20 years. The project will take several months to complete as only a few will be taken at any one time.
Emergency Plan
Community Emergency Plan for Moreton in Marsh Public Version.pdf
Places of safetyand defibrillators map
Flooding - Contact numbers and information
Please follow the link:
http://www.cotswold.gov.uk/residents/environment/flooding/
Trash Screen Procedure March 2019.pdf
Proposed new Traffic Speed Restrictions in Moreton – Consultation
Gloucestershire County Council have asked the statutory consulties for comments by Wednesday 25th September and will be consulting the public when the plans have been updated.
The consultation document will be uploaded onto this website when it is available.
Gloucestershire Recycling
Winter opening hours will operate from the sites from the 27th October (when British Summer Time ends). These are 10 am – 4pm. Full details of midweek closure days and seasonal opening hours are available at
www.recyleforgloucestershire.com/household-recycling-centes-hrcs/
Election Results
Please click on link below for the Town Council election results.
Snow – Gloucestershire County Council will clear snow from the roads.
The Town Council have grit bins located at the Cider Press (Fosseway Ave), Church St (Manor House), Church Street (St David's Church), East Street (steps to embankment), Wellington Rd and Hospital Road. The Council also have bags of salt that can be collected from the Council Office. The grit and salt is provided by GCC and is for use, by the public, on public roads and footpaths.
Statement read at the Extra Ordinary Council Meeting 25th April 2019 at 6.30pm.
We appreciate that tonight's agenda could have been worded more accurately and we could definitely improve in this respect and do better in the future. This statement is intended to clarify the situation, which I hope will quell the anxiety and concern that has been clearly expressed online and around the town.
Item 4 on the agenda relates to an offer by the house builder Crest Nicholson to transfer ownership of Blenheim Meadow to the Council for the sum of one pound, plus legal fees. These fees have been estimated to be in the region of £1200 pounds. There is no additional or other arrangement between the Council and Crest Nicholson beyond the transfer of ownership.
It was Crest Nicholson who preferred to transfer the land with no restrictions. As Crest Nicholson would not have had access to the land for some 250 years, the length of the Council’s lease, it is not unreasonable for them to transfer the ownership. Crest Nicholson has asked for completion 'as soon as possible'. The Council therefore believes it prudent to act now to have the opportunity to secure this vital green space for the future wellbeing of the town. From the first discussions with the developers and Crest Nicholson the Council was clear that there was no intention to put a car park on the meadow.
Item 5 on the agenda relates to allowing a developer to conduct feasibility work to assess whether a car park on the unkempt land between the train station and Blenheim Meadow might be viable. The developer needs permission to cross Blenheim Meadow with equipment to undertake relevant investigations.
To be clear, we are not considering the development of a car park this evening, only whether to allow a developer the means to determine if a car park next to the station might be possible. This could result in the town having options for additional car parking, which would reduce nuisance parking on residential roads and free up parking space on the High Street to support businesses.
As Councillors our role is always to seek the best options for the Town. It is part of the Governments planning process for the Council to meet with developers when approached, and the Council is encouraged to assist developers in their feasibility work, as part of the pre planning application engagement process.
For both the Glebe and Station sites, it is for the developers of those sites to come forward with the technical and supporting details to prove to the Council, and to the town, that their proposals are viable and that any potential harm caused by the development can be adequately mitigated. Aspects of any proposal must also align with the Council’s published Parking Strategy to make a Traffic Regulation Order (TRO) relevant. Once a project is deemed to be viable, the developer should formally consult with the town and the Council on its proposal prior to a formal planning application. To date, neither developer has approached the Council to discuss the outcome of any technical or supporting work needed for car park development.
The considerations before the Council this evening will cause no material change, the items on this evening's agenda are merely part of the ongoing work of the Council.
2019-20 Budget Statement
'Good news budget’ secures full funding for the town despite tax cut for average households
Moreton-in-Marsh Town Council is delighted to reveal that its budget for the 2019/20 period not only secures full funding for all the assets, events and services in the town, but does so with a drop in the Band D precept. Council Chairman, Cllr Eileen Viviani, remarked, "This prudent budget delivers everything the town needs while the reducing the tax burden on the average household - it really is a good news budget."
Councillors have spent many hours reviewing the maintenance requirements of the town, and discovered many items had not previously been accounted for. The St David's Church wall is maintained by the Town Council, for example, but no funding was being raised for its upkeep. The wall is now in such a state of disrepair that approximately £25,000 is needed in the new year to make the wall safe and restore its character.
"We have earmarked the funding for the church wall from reserves," Cllr Viviani explained, "as it would have been unfair to put such a hike into the precept. We have put in 'trickle funds' to fund other maintenance items." These trickle funds build up over time so when assets need maintenance funds are available. The practice follows expert advice from the Gloucestershire Association of Parish and Town Councils (GAPTC), ensuring that community assets are sensibly managed without large increases in the precept from one year to the next.
Despite these new trickle funds, the Band D household precept will actually fall in the 2019/20 period. "The tax cut for the average household may only be 10p," Cllr Viviani continued, "but it shows a commitment by the Town Council to manage the town properly without placing extra burden on our parishioners."
The balance of funding improvements and tax cut has not been achieved by running down the Council's reserves, either. All of the ongoing costs are accounted for in the budget, as the extra housing built in the town recently has provided additional income.
Despite the fall in average precept payment, the 2019/20 budget still secures our annual music festival, pays for the Youth Club, and adds extra activities for next year's Remembrance Day service. The budget for community grants has also been doubled.
Crime Prevention
The Police are selling Home and Personal safety equipment at cost price, if you would like to place an order through them, please click on the link below:
CRIME PREVENTION list of equipment for sale.
To sign up for Community Alerts please visit https://www.yourcommunityalerts.co.uk/pages/4198/1/Register.html
Report it – local problems on your street like graffitti, broken paving slabs, potholes or lighting.