The next walk organised by the Footpaths Group will be on Saturday 26 June, starting at 10 am at the layby on the B6350 west of Wark. The walk will cover four miles of riverside and farmland around Carham and Shidlaw. Everyone is welcome, but no dogs at landowners’ request. Please be prepared for some overgrown vegetation and uneven terrain. Car transfers will be provided for the short distance from the layby to the start of the walk, to avoid walking on the busy road. If you would like to come along, please contact the walks organiser, Janet Chubb, for more information including Covid-19 guidelines.
Gigabit Broadband Survey
Northumberland will be one of the first counties in England to benefit from a UK Government project to provide next-generation gigabit broadband to hard-to-reach homes and businesses by 2025. Gigabit broadband is ten times faster than superfast broadband, at 1,000 Mb per second. Northumberland County Council is working with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and telecoms providers to thoroughly research and map the county for its existing and future broadband infrastructure, to help it identify hard-to-reach premises. To ensure that Carham parish’s connectivity needs are included and not overlooked, please complete the DCMS survey, and please encourage others to do so, too – particularly those who live in outlying farms and communities. The survey deadline is 11 June.
Annual Assembly 2021
Carham parish’s Annual Assembly was held on 18 May. The meeting agreed the minutes of the previous year’s Annual Assembly, reviewed the Parish Council’s internal audit, and approved its financial accounting and governance statements and its certificate of exemption. All of these documents can be found on the Meetings and Standards pages of this website or can be requested from the Parish Clerk.
Parish Council Meeting and Annual Assembly
The next meeting of the Parish Council will be on Tuesday 18 May 2021 at 6.30 pm, in St Cuthbert’s Church, Carham. The meeting will be followed by the Annual Assembly. You can find the agenda for both meetings on our Meetings page.
Representatives of iNorthumberland (Northumberland County Council) and broadband service provider Borderlink have been invited to the ordinary meeting to talk about the Superfast Broadband rollout and to answer any questions residents and businesses in the parish may have about their service. Both meetings are open to members of the public, so please pass the word on to anyone you know who may be interested in attending.
Covid-19 guidelines will be in place (masks, sanitiser and distance).
Road Works
We have been advised of a Temporary Traffic Regulation Order as follows: 121981176 C33 County Boundary to Kilham Kennels Junction.
Details of the disruption can be viewed here
Notice of Election
Elections for all of Northumberland’s parish councils take place on 6 May 2021. If you would like to stand as a candidate for Carham Parish Council, please see the official Notice of Election, which explains how nomination papers can be obtained, how they must be returned, and exactly when they must be returned by. You can obtain a nomination pack from the Parish Clerk on 01890 850 336, but if you have a query about the process, please contact Northumberland County Council’s Elections Office on 01670 624 811.
100 Years of Parish Council Records
Carham Parish Council holds records of its meetings from 1921 to the present day, in the form of two minute books. The first of these books, covering the years 1921 to 1984, is now on our website.
The Parish Council Records page explains what the Parish Council was concerned with in each decade and tells something of the history of the parish, as well as giving access to scans of the original pages of the minute book.
The first meeting recorded in the minute book was on 18 March 1921 – one hundred years ago today.
Local Elections Jobs
Northumberland County Council’s Elections Office is recruiting for the elections that take place on 6 May. Available roles, which are paid, include polling station staff and safety marshalls across Northumberland, including in the north of the county. There are also roles for postal vote opening staff and verification and count staff at Blyth.
Job descriptions for most of these roles are on the Northumberland County Council Elections page – click on 2021 Police and Crime Commissioner, County and Parish elections and go to General information to find them. To request further information about the safety marshall role, please email the Elections Office. To apply for a post, or posts, complete the online application form which is underneath the job descriptions.
The Elections Office advises that Public Health for England guidance on Covid-19 will be adhered to at this election and you may be required to use appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE) which will be provided where it is deemed necessary.
Census 2021
The census is carried out by the Office for National Statistics and takes place every ten years. Census day is Sunday 21 March, and census forms need to be completed on that day or as soon as possible afterwards. You must complete the census by law. If you do not, or if you supply false information, you could be fined up to £1,000.
You can complete the census online or you can complete a paper census questionnaire.
To complete the census online, you need a unique access code. This will be sent to you by post. If it does not arrive, or if you mislay it, you can request a new access code by going to https://census.gov.uk and scrolling down the page to If you don’t have an access code. There is other useful information about the census on that page.
You do not have to complete the census online. You can request a paper census questionnaire by phoning the free helpline 0800 141 2021 or by going to https://census.gov.uk and scrolling down to If you want to fill out a paper census. Alternatively, you can ask someone you trust to order a paper questionnaire for you.
It is all right for someone you trust, like a family member or friend, to help you to complete the census, either online or on paper.
Parish Council Meeting
The next meeting of the Parish Council will be on Tuesday 9 March 2021 at 6.30 pm. You can find the agenda on our Meetings page.
This meeting is being held online, via Zoom. If you would like to attend, please contact the Parish Clerk for log-in details.
