CORONATION WEEKEND

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

SATURDAY – 6th MAY

10:15 – PRECESSION King leaves Buckingham Palace

11:00 – CORONATION at Westminster Abbey

15:00 – MANOR ARMS – BBQ and Live music with ONE FOOT IN THE GROOVE. Family entertainment, games, raffle and Royal Toast.

SUNDAY – 7th MAY

9:30 – CHURCH SERVICE at St.Michaels & All Angels, Haselbury. (No service at St.Michael’s)

12:00 – 16:00 – VILLAGE STREET PARTY. Bring your own picnic and drinks. Family games and Team Skittles in Church Lane..

CORONATION MUGS – Commemorative mugs will be presented to children who live in the village and are under the age of 16 on 7th May 2023.

If your child or children qualify, please make your presence known at the Street Party. (If you are away on the day, please ask in the farm shop on your return.)

Any photos or drawings that the children want to make of the day will be posted on the village website in the following week.

CHURCH SERVICES Sun 7th MAY

North Perrott Church

Regrettably, there will be no service to commemorate the Coronation of King Charles III at St. Martins Church on Sun 7th May.

Instead, the congregation is asked to support the service at St.Michaels and All Angels at Haselbury, starting at 9.30am.

Rev. Andrew Daynes will lead the service.

ANNUAL VILLAGE MEETING

The Annual Village Meeting will take place at 7pm on Tuesday 2nd May at the Hoskyns Memorial Hall.

Afterwards there will be the Annual Meeting of the Parish Council at 7.30pm and immediately afterwards, a normal Bi-Monthly meeting to cover regular council business.

The Annual Village Meeting does not have an agenda and is a opportunity for anyone to discuss topics perhaps not normally covered at Council meetings. It is also an opportunity for other village groups to report on their activities to a wider audience.

The Annual Meeting of the Parish Council starts with the Chairman’s report and then election and signing in of officers for the next 12 months. This is normally quite brief.

Then follows the normal Bi-monthly meeting for which the agenda was published on the Village website last week.

Eva Dilley RIP

Another sad loss for the village.

Eva was a loving Grandmother and long time resident of North Perrott and until recently an active member of the community. Often seen at Village Hall events chatting with friends new and old. She will be greatly missed by her family and friends.

Anyone who knew Eva is welcome to join her family at her funeral, which will be at 12 noon on Thu 27 April at Yeovil Crematorium

RIP

IN MEMORIUM

Losing any member of our community is a sad occaison and just lately, we have lost 3 characters that were perhaps, larger than life.

In January, Mike Back, a long time resident of the village and even longer time supporter of North Perrott Cricket Club, passed away after a long illness. His total commitment to the Cricket Club included designing and overseeing the construction of the Pavillion. While President, Mike devoted much of his time to ensureing a strong bond existed between the village and the club. Last year the Pavillion was named after him in permanent memory to his service to the club.

Allan Edwards also left us in January. Allan was a man who made his presence known and wanted to be a force for good in everything that he did, especially for the village. This was especially marked by his committment as a Parish Councillor where he excelled in raising money for capital projects. He and his wife Caroline renovated the Old Rectory to an extremely high standard, something that he strove to achieve in all aspects of his life.

Allan Jay died more recently, having spent the last three years in a nearby care home. Allan’s destiny with North Perrott started in 1948, when he first met Bill Hoskyns at a fencing competition and they became life long friends. Allan was an accomplished fencer and as well as two silver Olympic medals, his sporting career peaked in 1959, when he won the World Foil Championships and came second the same year in the Epee, losing a second Gold by the smallest of margins. An astonishing accomplishment. Allan retired to North Perrott after a successful career as a London Solicitor.

Everyone who knew them are invited to join their families in celebrating these remarkable lives at the following events in chronological order. The dates are also on the village website calendar.

Allan Jay – Funeral at Yeovil Crematorium on Monday 20th March at 1.20pm and afterwards at Haselbury Mill. (This funeral is also available online https://allan-jay.muchloved.com/)

Mike Back – A Celebration of His Life at Haselbury Mill on 14th April at 3pm.

Allan Edwards – A Service of Remembrance at St.Martins Church, North Perrott and afterwards at the Old Rectory on 1st May at 2pm.

UPDATE – FAULT on the LINE

This is not good news!

The fault detialed on the last message is clearly more serious than was first thought. BT is currently sending this message to their customers reporting a fault in North Perrott.

BT here. Our reference is: IMP-111266963. Thank you so much for the response. I have checked that this line is impacting with major service outage in your area issue and that’s why this fault is associated with an incident: AF-IE-1898344969 currently affecting 309 services according to this I can see main issue is e/side breakdown and team already working on this and provided targeted fix date as on 17/02/2023. We are trying to get this fixed soon but it will take time. Also please know that as this is declared as a major service outage for 309 other servoces as well we will not be able to compensate with a rental rebate for the same. We regret for the inconvinience.

This is a similar message that was given out by TalkTalk earlier in the week except that the target fix date has been extended to 17th Feb!

This is clearly a major incident that will take time to fix but I’m making enquiries to see why service prividers are not obliged to pay compensation and if not, whether customers can persue OpenReach instead?

Please post any relevent information that might help other phone users with problems at the moment.

FAULT on the LINE

A number of homes and businesses have reported a fault on their landline (or broadband) over the last 7 days. While most seem to have been fixed after being reported, some have persisted and others have had difficulty in reporting their faults without access to either landline or internet.

A message from TalkTalk to one such customer today reads as follows:

This is the latest feedback from Openreach : this line is impacting with major service outage issue and that’s why this fault is associated with an incident AF-IE-1898344969. According to this I can see main issue is exchange E-side breakdown Barming PCP1 and 16 C vert and team already working on this and Target Fix Date as on 10/02/2023

Please note, the target fix date is often exagerrated to avoid customer dissapointment but it does sound as if they have a major problem that is effecting properties in North Perrott and perhaps a wider area.

Regarding the future for a more reliable telephone and internet service, Jurassic Fibre have started to prepare the ground for installing their fibre-optic cable in North Perrrott. Their staff are clearly not allowed to share specific information but it is clear that they have now prep’ed the telegraph poles from Haselbury to the junction box in North Perrott and over the last two weeks they have also prepared Willis Lane as well. This is mostly tree cutting and positioning blue nylon rope between poles that will be used to draw the cable from pole to pole. Installing infrastructure has not yet started and one member of staff said that they are still concentrating on local towns before spreading out into rurual areas. Another manager has explained that he currently has over 300 job sheets and that while he did not know when work would start in earnest for North Perrott, their operations work in quartlerly periods. The next quarter ends in March and he suggested that if connections were not started by the end of March, then it they probably would be complete by the end of June.

We have heard these targets before and most are now well gone and behind us. However, the blue rope is tangible evidence that a fibre connection is not very far away and everyone should bare this in mind if signing a new contract in the next few months.

For those not aware, the future of telphony is in a fibre connection (which is faster and more reliable) and in the near future, the governement intends all landlines to be replaced by fibre with traditional telephone calls being via the internet. In North Perrott, BT Openreach manage the infrastructure, but lease the lines to any company that you wish to pay for your landline. This means that your contract is with your telphony supplier and they are responsible for your leased line. In turn, they employ Openreach engineers to fix your line if it goes wrong. As customers of our chosen supplier, we are not able to speak with Openreach directly, unless their engineers call in person as part of their task of fixing a problem. Jurassic Fibre is slightly different. They are installing their own infrastructure (although they have an agreement with Openreach to share some of their infrastructure) which in the first instance, they will not be sharing with other service providers. That means to take advantage of the first connections to fibre in North Perrott, we will have to have a contact with Jurassic fibre, and they will also be responsible for the maintenance of the line. For those of us with contracts with BT, TalkTalk, Virgin, PlusNet or anyone else, we will either have to wait until our contracts run out to connect to the new fibre, or cancel our contracts (beware, there maybe a penalty) or simply sign up to Jurassic and let the your existing contract run out.

Looking to the future, there are several possible developments. BT might run a fibre cable between Haslebury and North Perrott. This will greatly increase the quality of both telephone calls, broadband and reliablility but it will not give superfast broadband until they connect every property directly with a fibre cable (this won’t be possible until they upgrade the connection between the two villages). Wessex Internet is also promising to connect NP with an exclusive fibre cable. This may now not be viable for them, as Jurassic has (almost) got here first. Finally, assuming Jurassic do arrive in the next 5 months, they will require a period of exclusivity, where only they can provide a connection through their cable. There maybe a time in the future where they agree a deal with other internet suppliers so that we can have more of a choice about who supplies our internet service. It rather depends on who and how many other suppliers decide to upgrade or install their own infrastructure in the village. Bearing in mind how small a community we are, it may not be worth holding your breath for a wider choice.

More news when Jurassic start laying cables, in the meantime, more info at www.jurassic-fibre.com

REPAIRS TO MANOR DRIVE PILLARS

As previously posted here in November, one of the listed pillars at the entrance of the old Manor Drive was hit and seriously damaged by a lorry.

The repairs to the pillar are scheduled to start on Monday 16th January.

While repairs are in progress, the drive will be closed to pedestrians for reasons of safety.

Please read and comply with the instructions from the builders and any signs that are on display in their absence.

The Manor Drive is private and not a public right of way but is is normally available to villagers as a permissive footpath with the generous permission of Mr and Mrs Hall.

When work has been completed, it will be reported here.

Thank you in anticipation.

JURASSIC FIBRE UPDATE

IT’S ON THE DOORSTEP!

(See Edit below 11th Jan 2023)

A clever bit of investigation by Robson James has established that Jurassic Fibre are on our doorstep and it is they who are responsible for the traffic lights between Haselbury and North Perrott. At the moment they are in the process of laying a new Superfast fibre connection to our village.

Jurassic Fibre offer a true fibre service that can include “dedicated telephone”Homephone” if required. It is unlikely to improve your existing telephone or broadband performance, as they will fit a new fibre connection directly to your property. To benefit you will either have to wait until you can cancel your existing agreement (without penalty) or run two contracts until your existing one runs out.

You can see the different contracts on offer by clicking here and it would be a good idea to register your interest by filling in their online form. At some point soon, I assume that we will be included in their coverage and new customers will be able to sign up online?

As soon as the first properties are connected, it will be reported here so that everyone can fully understand what service is on offer and the true costs.

EDIT 11/01/2023 – The response from Jurassic Fibre currently is that “full fibre” in North Perrott is only months away. Probaby a bit soon to be standing by our beds?

Thank you for registering your interest with Jurassic Fibre 
Thank you for registering your interest with Jurassic Fibre and taking your first step to joining the South-West’s full-fibre evolution. We’re revolutionising the home online experience by routing ultrafast fibre broadband directly into your home, and we are only a few months away from your property.

MEETING of the PARISH COUNCIL

Wishing everyone a Happy New Year

This message is a reminder that the Bi-Monthly meeting of North Perrott Parish Council will take place in the Hoskyns Memorial Hall at 7.30pm on Tuesday 3rd January 2023

The agenda and past minutes are available to vew on the Parish Website.

Please remember to sign up for email alerts on the website if you have not already done so.

N.B.

It would appear that the levels of Corona Virus are particularly high this week and so we will be taking a few extra precautions at the meeting.

  1. Please do no attend if you have any cold or flu-like symptoms
  2. If possible, please take a covid test before attending
  3. Do not attend if you are testing positive!
  4. Pease feel free to wear a mask when indoors
  5. We will spread out chairs to maintain safer social distances.
  6. IF THE MEETING HAS TO BE CANCELLED because we cannot form a quarum of 3 Councillors, it will be announced here and on face book, so please check before setting out.

Fingers crossed

Jonathan Hoskyns

Chairman