The chairman of a newly formed parish council has pledged to ensure the committee is at the heart of village life.For years the village of Walcott, near Bacton, has had to share its parish council with nearby Happisburgh.

The chairman of a newly formed parish council has pledged to ensure the committee is at the heart of village life.

For years the village of Walcott, near Bacton, has had to share its parish council with nearby Happisburgh.

But with the communities often facing a different set of problems, and Happisburgh sometimes dominating the agenda, many in Walcott felt the situation did not work well.

Now the parishes have been split with each getting their own council.

And Walcott's new parish council chairman, Thomas Love, has said he wants to put the council back at the centre of the close knit community.

Mr Love said he was very pleased to see more than 20 residents attend the council's first meeting at which the five already elected members elected him chairman and co-opted four others councillors to create a new nine strong team.

The farmer, who has lived in Walcott all his life and used to sit on the joint council, said: “I hope we are going to be able to get the parish council closer to the heart of Walcott.

“I think the council has been too big to look after Walcott and Walcott people have not felt part of the parish council.

“Hopefully we will be able to look after everyone's wishes.”

Mr Love said that while the council's first few meetings would be focused on establishing procedures, issues already on the agenda included dealing with the remaining debris from November's flood and sorting out the problem of dog fouling.

He said the council would meet monthly at first but meetings could be scaled back if that proved to be unnecessarily frequent.