News

Casual Vacancy

Do you care about your community and are keen to serve the members of the public? Have you lived within the Miserden Parish (The Camp, Miserden, Sudgrove, Whiteway and Wishanger) for the last 12 consecutive months? Are you available the last Wednesday of the month to attend council meetings in Miserden or Whiteway at least six months of the year?
If you answered yes to the above, there is currently a casual vacancy on the council, and you may just be the person for the role.
If you are keen to serve the people of this parish, are on the Electoral Roll, have no criminal convictions in the past five years, and are not currently involved in a bankruptcy case, you are eligible to sit for the Parish Council.1

All interested parties for this post should submit a letter2 addressed to
the Parish Clerk, Arreton Cottage, Miserden, as soon as possible.

If more than one qualified person puts their name forward, the candidates will be discussed at the next full council meeting on May 25th and a vote taken3.

The term of a parish councillor is 4 years; however, as this is a mid-term co-option to fill a casual vacancy, the term will last until the next general election in May 2025, where you are eligible to run for election, if you so wish.
This is a voluntary position, i.e., there is no monitory remuneration. You will, however, receive professional training, and have the full support of the GAPTC, Miserden Parish Council and the clerk to the council to assist you. Click here to read more about what we are looking for in a councillor: https://miserdenparishcouncil.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/17/2022/05/Councillor-person-description.pdf

1see https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1972/70/part/V/crossheading/qualifications-and-disqualifications/2011-03-24?wrap=true&view=extent for a full list of qualifications and disqualifications.)
2(Local Elections (Parishes and Communities) (England and Wales) Rules 2006, r5/2(a)),
3The candidates are welcome to attend this council meeting as a member of the public, and have the right to be present during the discussion and vote, but do not have the right to participate in the discussion.
(Local Elections (Parishes and Communities) (England and Wales) Rules 2006, SI 2006/3305 r 5(5).

Community Bunting Project

What’s better than a summer party with bunting? And what’s better than a HUGE party, such as the Platinum Jubilee, with heaps of bunting? How about a community getting together to MAKE a bunting?!

No sewing or artistic skills required! What we need is for you, your family or just your kids to design a flag for our Community Bunting project.
What do you put on it? Anything that marks this Platinum Jubilee for you. Could be a family portrait, or a modern design, a poem, a family crest, a child’s rendering of the Queen… The sky is the limit!

Submit your paper entry to one of the collection boxes in the pub or the shop, or email your design to with the subject heading ‘bunting entry’.

We’ll get it on fabric and sew it into keepsake community bunting for everyone to see over the Jubilee long weekend.

After the Jubilee, we’ll hang the Miserden and hamlets bunting in the village hall, the Whiteway bunting in the Colony Hall, and the bunting that the Miserden C of E Primary students make will be in the school hall for all to admire.
(By the way, do you have a sewing machine? Can you sew a straight line? Fantastic! Would you like to play a bigger part of this project and help SEW the bunting? Volunteers needed! Even if you can just help cut triangles, many hands make lighter work.
Email Gwen at with the subject line ‘I’ll help!’ and we can make plans.)

Don’t delay, entry deadline is May 10th! Happy creating 🙂
Download and print entry form here:
(No printer? Don’t worry–forms also available in Miserden Stores from April 19 and The Carpenter’s Arms next to collection box from April 17th).

Community-Bunting-ProjectDownload

Last Parish Council Meeting of 2021

Agenda November 2021
It’s our last meeting of the year, and the last meeting on our usual Tuesday evening!
From January 2022, we will be meeting the LAST WEDNESDAY of the month unless otherwise posted.  All are welcome to attend the meeting; however, members of the community are asked to contact the clerk a minimum of five days prior to the meeting to add an item to the agenda.
All attendees must abide by our Standing Orders.

Following the UK government guidelines on COVID, and in light of the newly discovered Omicron variant, we will kindly ask all attendees to wear protective face coverings and remain at a social distance.

Meeting agenda:
Agenda November 2021

Holiday Activities and Food (HAF) Programme

Registration for the winter Holiday Activities and Food (HAF) programme, funded with £1.39m from the Department for Education for children eligible for benefits-related free school meals, is now open.
Using grant funding, the council is also once again able to offer local holiday activities which are available to all children and young people across the county.
The winter programme will run for 4 days between 20 and 23 December 2021.
Families who registered in the summer will be automatically enrolled and do not need to sign up again.
Gloucestershire’s summer Holiday Activity and Food programme was a great success, reaching 57 per cent of children and young people eligible for Free Schools Meals.
Funding of £1.3m from the COVID-19 Contain Outbreak Management Fund (COMF) meant the council was able to extend a wide range of enriching activities to all children and young people.
The council worked with district councils and partners to deliver 16 days of activity to:
9,069 children and young people eligible for Free School Meals
546 children and young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities
18,500 activity sessions were enjoyed, with over 150 providers
18,581 meals delivered and 3,622 food boxes distributed
Feedback from families has been used to improve the winter programme and build upon the success of the summer.

You will be able to sign up to our Children Activities Booking System (CABS) from November.

Bookings for the free activities and food provision will be available to book from 1 December.

May 2021 Parish Council Meeting

Our first in-person meeting since early 2020 was held on May 19th in Miserden Village Hall with a full council present, as well as Julie Job from Stroud District Council and our new County Councillor, Sue Williams.
All government-mandated COVID guidelines were observed, including sign-in for COVID tracing,  facility sanitation and risk assessment, and chairs at 2m apart or greater.
This was our first meeting since the election, where our Parish Council Chair, Martin Ractliffe, accepted his nomination, as well as our Vice-Chair, Russ Coles-Jones accepting his nomination.  Other Parish Councillors accepting their elected positions were Kevin Allin, Gideon Duberley and Richard Dangerfield.
As Clerk of the Parish Council, I have to say this is the nicest group of people I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with, and I look forward to my first year as clerk under more relaxed pandemic circumstances!
Our Annual Assembly followed on the 27th outside the village hall. We were gifted with a lovely spring evening, and had a very nice time socialising in the evening sunshine with the parishioners and Council members who were able to attend.
We hope the Annual Assembly for 2022 can be our usual well-planned event
in the Colony Hall at Whiteway, with music and food along with our other Council matters.

Our next meeting is scheduled for June 29th at 7:30 pm in Miserden Village Hall.  Our meeting will be open to the public, but we ask you observe social distancing measures and wear a mask.  If you have any questions about the COVID restrictions for local council meetings, please see the following guidelines which we are following:
https://www.nalc.gov.uk/coronavirus#preparing-for-the-return-to-face-to-face-meetings

Gwen Pearshouse,
Parish Council Clerk

Parish Council Meeting

The next Parish Council meeting will be held on Tuesday 23rd February, 2021,
via Zoom conferencing.
Please contact the parish clerk for sign in details if you wish to attend.