• a village green
• 10 leasehold affordable homes for first time buyers, with local connections, and 2 leasehold open market value houses.
• a refurbished old school building as a Community Centre.

• Sale of houses Old School Green: 1 OMV house has been sold; 7 shared equity houses have been sold. No 2 has been sold subject to contract. The sale of No. 1 (the Second OMV house) is under negotiation. Most of the snagging work on the properties has been completed. 2 houses are yet to be sold.

• Landscaping.
Some planting of shrubs in the beds close to the houses has been carried out. An avenue of Silver Birches have been planted along the gravel path in front of the houses.A low fence along the N side of the car park has been built and a hedge has been planted in front of it. Thanks to the generosity of the community plants have been provided for the bed along the roadside opposite the surgery and this was cleaned and planted by teams of volunteers headed by Jenny Gibbs last year. One of the residents has planted and maintains a flower bed next to the electricity substation.
The bed opposite the Post Office has been rotovated, raked and seeded to create a grassy bank. The village green was given its first cut in late summer last year, levelled and rolled by Ian Rodger using equipment loaned free of charge by John Gogle. It was cut regularly over the summer of last year by Ian Hudson and is now cut regularly by the contractors who cut and maintain All Saints Churchyard and Burgh Lane Cemetery for the Parish Council.
More levelling work on the village green needs to be carried out, but unlike last year we need rain before this can be done.
More trees are due to be planted on the village green and a hooped iron fence is to be put up on either side of the gravel path in front of the houses.

• The Old School Building.
Though this may not be obvious to the casual observer a huge amount of voluntary work was carried out on the site by Ian Rodger and Chris Futter. Rubble left from the demolition work was cleared, the shutters on the windows were made secure and painted, and essential work clearing and making safe areas inside the building was completed. The weeds and growth around the building was cleared, but needs clearing again now that late spring is here.
In November the Trustees organised a house to house village consultation to find out if it supported our efforts to get funding to turn the old school into a community centre. A Redeemable Bond Scheme was opened to raise money for it. More than 40 people from the village volunteered to distribute and collect responses. The weather was unrelentingly grim, with rain wind snow and ice but there was a 40% response from the village. More than 80% of respondees support the refurbishment plans, more than 20% of all households in the village bought Bonds and raised £4695. More than 100 families wrote to us to express their views about the project, mostly in favour, some against but all welcome because it defines the context in which we have to work. Since than a small team of Trustees has met with nearly all the main organizations in the village to discuss with them the details of plans for the use of the new centre and how what takes place there will complement not compete with what they do. We have identified a number of unmet needs in the village and are confident that with funding in place and refurbishment complete we will have a centre that will meet them and enhance everyone’s community experience.
We are close to finishing a redraft of the Business Plan for the project and will be applying for funds during the year.

• On the financial front, we have £12m at risk in Icelandic Banks and have suffered the impacts of reduced interest rates and falling income.

• The Local Government Review continues to be a serious prospect, however, we have had some wins (Court of Appeal).

• Against this challenging backdrop, the Authority enters the new financial year having largely delivered the ADP for 08/09 and achieved some notable uccesses on the way.

• The changes put in place have to date resulted in a high level 3 for our Use of Resources Assessment.

• Notwithstanding the Icelandic position the Council has a robust financial position.

• For the current year a change to the bus scheme should result in a credit to the authority of circa £500k. Moreover, this year’s pay settlement will be below the 2.5%, with the reduction in one director’s post saving circa £100k.

• The down turn in the economy has had an impact on our budget removing income and investment income. However, commercial property let remains at a high level. Overall whilst we have yet to close the accounts for FY 08/09 we will return a balanced budget. Moreover, despite challenging circumstances, we have a sound budget in the medium term.

• This year has seen the results of the restructure of the Communities Team. Activities from the launch of the Youth Council, the Pride Awards and Breckfest Programme of events to name a few.

• This work has been supported by a National Cohesion Pilot, working with CLG and the GO, gaining inward investment through the Healthy Towns Scheme (£900k match funded, one of only 9 nationally).

• Housing staff have secured significant investment to exceed all expectations with regards to affordable housing in the year, (256 against a target of 100) however, this creates a real challenge for the future targets given the current economic climate.

• As an authority we have been awarded the Member Charter Mark. This is ongoing work, if we are to ensure that all members are suitably supported and trained to meet the demands communities, changes in legislation and an assessment regime under the Comprehensive Area Assessment.

• With regards to the transformation agenda, there have been 2 key areas of activity. Planning and Buiilding Control will be decided very soon, subject to final contract negotiations and member approval.

• ARP/ARPT have secured a new authority (Welland & Hatfield).

• The Launch of Pride in Breckland has already resulted in environmental improvements at East Harling, Croxton, Swaffham, Mattishall and North Tuddenham to name a few. This project is funded and just needs you to come forward with your ideas.

• 2009/2010 will see the roll out of a market leader CCTV system, which has potential for delivering private CCTV to business or residential properties.

• Expansion of the Pride in Breckland scheme within existing budgets through the recruitment of a graduate under the National Graduate Scheme. While the Pride in Breckland project has started to deliver some community activity greater focus needs to be given to this project which the Pride Co-ordinator will provide.

• The Pride programme will focus greatly on community belonging using environmental issues as a form to promote community activity.

• Under the Housing agenda we will see the role out of the choice based letting scheme. Discussions with ARP have indicated that the early prototypes will have the potential to deliver a first class solution for the authority.

• Environmental delivery plan – a key aspect of the authority’s overall programme this financial year will be developing of our green credentials. To enable this we will explore the benefits of a wind turbine at Elizabeth House; investigate a glass recycling scheme; explore the opportunities with partners for commercial waste collection (which will provide the opportunity to trade). However, key to this will be our agreeing the deliverables under the Environmental Strategy and greater Member scrutiny of the delivery of this plan.

• The biggest single challenge remains delivery of the LDF and Thetford Growth Point. These key agenda items are well understood and require no further explanation, except to say proposals for the partnership with Capita require further consideration prior to a report being prepared to May Cabinet for a final decision.

• In terms of the People Agenda, in the current financial year we will plan to deliver Investors in People status. A report goes to General Purposes with regard to the pay settlement at 1% for the current financial year. You may also be aware of the recent Pride in People Awards which celebrated the success of our staff. Next year will see us engage two graduates under the National Graduate Scheme run by the IDeA. We are also looking into the recruitment of apprentices under the National Apprenticeship Scheme.

• Notwithstanding LGR, we currently have a number of multilaterial conversations with other authorities with a view to extending some of our existing contracts, in particular the Serco contract. We also plan to investigate whole service amalgamation with neighbouring authorities with a view to making financial gains based on economies of scale; whilst we may be prepared to take such steps we are not convinced that others will, but feel we must investigate the possibility.

• This year sees the introduction of the CAA and further work on the LAA refresh. As an authority we are mapping our deliverables against LAA targets and sharing this process both at a local and regional level. Our key concern here is that we only engage in partnership work where it adds real additional value to the outcomes for our communities.

• We will be looking to enhance the reception area of Elizabeth House. Additionally, we are currently looking at alternative methods to provide Voice and are in discussion with a commercial partner with a view to increased frequency and cost reduction.