Grants are available for young people from the Trust.

Applications are invited from young people in Melsonby for grants from the Cockin Trust. Small amounts of money are available for educational, training and recreational projects covering a wide range of activities. Further information is on the village notice board, and application forms are available from the secretary Gail Smith or at gailes@btinternet.com. The closing date for applications this year is September 20th 2022.

Further information and the application is avaialble to view and download on the William Cockin Trust area of the website. https://melsonbypc.com/useful-links/education/cockin-trust/

***POSTPONED – The application has been withdrawn from the planning committee meeting. New date to be confirmed***

**PLANNING COMMITTEE DATE CONFIRMED on 6th April at 3pm**

The meeting will be held at Mercury House, Station House, Richmond.

UPDATE – Full Planning Permission for proposed mixed use development for 44 Homes, Village Hall and a Village Green.

The full planning application is available to view on the RDC website:

Please find below a link to our A66 Northern Trans-Pennine project webpage:

https://nationalhighways.co.uk/our-work/a66-northern-trans-pennine/about-the-project/

On the webpage you can access the winter update brochure, which summarises the key changes to the scheme since our autumn 2021 consultation. There is also a consultation summary report, which gives you details of the consultation, how many people took part and the feedback we received on our developing designs. 

For those who do not have access to the internet, we have a number of deposit points where you can pick up a copy of the update and consultation summary report:

• Penrith Library, CA11 7YA
• St Michael’s Church, Kirkby Thore, CA10 1UR
• Appleby Tourist Information, CA16 6XE
• Kirkby Stephen Library, CA17 4QX
• Brough Memorial Hall, CA17 4AS
• Cross Lanes Organic Farm, DL12 9RT
• Barnard Castle Library, DL12 8JB
• Mainsgill Farm Shop, DL11 7PN
• Richmond Library, DL10 4AE
• Clayport Library, DH1 1WA

We have also sent an awareness raising leaflet to communities along the route.

If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to contact me on A66NTP@nationalhighways.co.uk and I would be happy to help.

Meeting with PowerGrid on 11th February 2022 in Melsonby.

Peter Griffen and Cllr Judith Stansfield, Melsonby Parish Council Chair met with Mike Hammond and his colleague from PowerGrid on Friday 11^th February 2022 to talk about the regular short power cuts that we have in Melsonby. It was a very interesting and instructive meeting and they have provided printed handouts to support their talk.

PowerGrid do not generate power but provide a historically complicated pattern of supply lines that feed 2000 households in our area. The controlling sub-station is near Newton Aycliffe and power is delivered to us by a mixture of overhead and underground cables, which are partly High Voltage (HV) that is converted to Low Voltage (LV) to go into our houses. Melsonby is at the end of this power line from Newton Aycliffe and any faults on this line will result in a power outage in Melsonby. The overhead parts of the network can trip out if hit by a goose, a big branch or very high winds, to protect the integrity of the network. There are automatic devices that can sometimes restart the flow, or a controller in Newton Aycliffe or Newcastle can redirect more serious outages remotely, or if there is a serious issue, send engineers out to fix it – eg the felled poles in Aldbrough during the last two storms. There are also some manual switches, e.g. on the poles near Harelands, that an engineer can manually switch to isolate a specific problem and that will let many people be reconnected relatively quickly.

In 2021 Melsonby had 18 separate interruptions, which is well above average:

Transient issues – at least 4 occasions

Overhead repairs – at least 3 occasions

Underground cable faults – at least 4 occasions

3rd Party interference – at least 2 occasions (e.g., farm machinery)

Bird strikes – at least 2 occasions

The present system is very complicated, but is being updated – the new substation on the Green in Melsonby has the latest state of the art equipment, but is still a hostage to fortune to faults on all of the links back to Newton Aycliffe.

PowerGrid are working on the problems with intermediate and long-term actions:

Intermediate Actions

1. GM automation to be installed at the local substation within Melsonby, to improve restoration times during a HV fault
2. Replacement of Overhead Circuit Breaker supplying Melsonby to provide better visibility when faults occur. This will let the control centre see accurate fault activity live, so they can switch on the network again without having to drive there, in some scenarios
3. Continuing to inspect network to identify remedial actions
4. Complete any necessary remedial works during foot patrols

And now for the GOOD news!

The long-term action includes the construction of a £1.2m reinforcement scheme (with funds approved and allocated) to install a new Primary Substation at Scotch Corner to improve local resilience – this has already started with the installation of a new powerline on the Skeeby Rd.

This will allow them to split the existing HV network to enable villages like Melsonby to be fed from the planned new primary substation.

This is obviously a lot shorter distance than from Newton Aycliffe, so we shall not be affected so much by outages to the North of us.

The funding of the new substation is related to the new Retail Park at Scotch Corner, so Powergrid can ride the cost of the improvements to us on that development. Work has already started on the road at Skeeby and it is expected the new features for us will be in place in 2023.

Judith Stansfield and Peter Griffen

Dated: 11^th February 2022.

Get a Voucher

The Government is providing up to £210m worth of voucher funding as immediate help for people experiencing slow broadband speeds in rural areas.

Vouchers worth up to £1,500 for homes and £3,500 for businesses help to cover the costs of installing gigabit broadband to people’s doorsteps.

Check below if you’re eligible for a voucher at your address.

Get a Voucher

Dear Melsonby Parish Councillors,

Ref: Richmondshire Environment and Climate Action Partnership Group

We are writing to ensure that your Parish Council is aware of the formation of a new district-wide group that has been set up in response to the Environment and Climate Emergency declared by Richmondshire District Council in 2019.

Launched on 24th March 2021, the Partnership Group is formed largely of interested parties from the community; business, agriculture, local residents, and some technical experts. Although autonomous, it is supported by the District Council, and several councillors and officers have volunteered to be active participants.

The work of the Partnership Group is centred upon contributing to the objective of achieving net-zero carbon across Richmondshire by 2030, and its activities are initially divided into six workstreams;

• Domestic Decarbonisation
• Transport and Travel
• Business and Commercial Decarbonisation
• Rural Land Management, Farming and Carbon Sequestration
• Small Scale Community Projects
• Planning and Urban Land Management

The Partnership is actively seeking workstream volunteers to participate in developing and implementing initiatives, and is keen to embrace representation from as many communities across Richmondshire as possible. Indeed, we are also enthusiastic to connect with, support and share more widely any pre-existing environment, ecology and carbon management projects. No special skills are required, but the contribution of ideas, a bit of time and some collective work will be integral components to achieving our goals.

We would be welcome your council sharing details of this initiative with your community, but please feel free to contact us via info@richmondshireclimateaction.org for further information or to arrange a discussion.

Yours faithfully

Cllr. Philip Wicks, Chair                                   Mike Sparrow, Deputy Chair

The latest service update bulletin in the link below is to keep you up to date with their news, activities and contact information. Please do get in touch if there is anything more Citizen Advice can do to support our communities.

Feel free to contact me if you have any questions: ceo@northyorkslca.org.uk

CA Mid-North Yorkshire COVID-19 service update Aug 2020-2

MELSONBY PARISH COUNCIL

in conjunction with North Yorkshire County Council

ROAD SAFETY CAMPAIGN

KEEP MELSONBY SAFE

–it’s not just for the kids!

MELSONBY VILLAGE SPEED AWARENESS CAMPAIGN

Installation of a Vehicle Activated Sign (VAS)

You will know that we monitor the speeds of vehicles using our village roads. This is drawn to motorists’ attention with the recently installed “This is a Speedwatch Village” signs on all four approaches.

We now plan to go further and install a VAS, on the east side of Moor Road (opposite number 60), which can check speeds of vehicles arriving into and leaving the village and can be moved to other locations where practical. There is a similar installation near the bridge in Gilling West.

It will take some weeks for the Melsonby installation to take place but we thought we’d let you know what we are doing now to protect you and your family.

MELSONBY VILLAGE SPEED AWARENESS CAMPAIGN

Warning as North Yorkshire residents falling victim to ‘Courier Fraud’ scam

North Yorkshire police are warning residents to be extra vigilant after a number of reports have been received in the past week where the victim has been called on the telephone by someone claiming to be an officer from the Metropolitan Police in London. The victim is informed that someone has attempted to use their card to purchase a laptop or similar and as a result their bank account is under threat. The victim is instructed to attend their bank and withdraw all their money in order for a police officer to attend their home address (the courier) who will take their money for ‘safe keeping’.

The victim may be further convinced the call is genuine as the fraudsters will tell the victim to call 999 to check they are genuine but do not clear the line so the victim who thinks they have dialled 999 and speaking to the police when in reality they are in fact still speaking to the fraudsters.

The victim is told to attend the bank and withdraw their money. The victim is told they may be challenged at the bank as to why they are withdrawing their money and they are told what to say, for example paying for building work, buying a car etc. The fraudster will claim the bank are involved and there is an undercover police operation in the bank and to say anything will compromise the police operation. The victim is made to think that their cooperation is needed for this police operation. Often the victim will be called by the fraudster prior to attending the bank and be told to keep their phone on whilst they are in the bank. The victim withdraws their money, often tens of thousands of pound which they take home. The fraudster posing as a police officer will attend the home and take the money often using a password agreed between the fraudster and the victim.

Detective Inspector Jon Hodgeon Head of North Yorkshire Police Economic Crime Unit explained:

“This is a sophisticated fraud perpetrated by experienced criminals who convince the victim their bank account is under threat and they need to act quickly to safeguard their money and to assist a police operation to catch criminals.

A police officer will never get in touch and advise you to withdraw, transfer or pay money and neither will a bank or building society. If you receive a call out of the blue by someone claiming to be from the police asking you to withdraw or transfer your money, this is a scam and you must terminate the call immediately”

If the person you are talking to ever asks you to lie to the bank or the police, it is a scam

If you suspect you’ve been scammed, report it to the police by calling 101 and we will be able to support you as well as protecting others from falling victim to the same fraudsters.

Courier Fraud Scam