Councillors heard a brief history of the Mill Stream diverter and weir at their recent meeting.

This was given by Mr Neil Watson from the Environment Agency who gave a run down on the work recently completed in a joint project with Dorset County Council and Highways.

A year’s maintenance programme is in place and during this period the water levels and flow will be monitored.

The Environment Agency feels that any ongoing matters should be dealt directly with the riparian owners.

The meeting went on to discuss to nasty odour that had pervaded the village this Autumn.

A reply about this has been received from Environmental Health and as it is a recurring problem a log should be kept.

Villagers are asked to ring Cllr Pat Burns should there be another occurrence.

A report on the road gullies had been circulated and the regular cleaning , checks and monitoring seem to be working well.

The Aco drain at the bottom of the track is cleaned regularly.

Cllr Jan Wilson reported that the handover of responsibility for the Amenity Fields had gone well and that there was an extra volunteer for the weekly play equipment checks.

They were in the process of changing bank signatories and the fence netting and hedging were being dealt with.

Since the resignations of Cllrs June Fisher and Mark Stevenson the posts had been advertised in the village.

Two villagers had been in contact and volunteered their services.

Of these Sylvia Denning was present and was asked to join the Council and was given the necessary papers.

The other volunteer, David Barrows, was unable to attend on this occasion.

Mr David Ackerman also volunteered to join the Council, so he will replace Cllr Bob Clark who has kindly stayed on until a replacement could be found.

Cllr Dr Andrew Buck revealed that the coping stones on the Muckleford Bridge still had not been replaced but the drain clearance at the crossroads had alleviated the flooding problem.

Cllr Neil Howard reported that he had chased up the Village Maintenance Unit as some of the requested jobs had not been done.

Various payments were authorised and the budget forecast had been circulated.

It was agreed to keep the precept at its present level of £4500.

The next meeting is on Thursday January 8th 2009