Minutes
Page last updated on Thursday, May 5, 2011
ASHURST AND COLBURY PARISH COUNCIL
MINUTES OF THE PARISH COUNCIL MEETING HELD ON 15 MARCH 2011
AT THE CHURCH ROOMS COLBURY
Present:
Cllrs S Arnold (in the Chair), D. Bryant, P. Frost, C. Hubbard, K. Kershaw and A. Sturgess
In Attendance:
Parish Clerk L. Griggs, County Cllr K. Mans, District Cllr D. Tipp and 5 members of the public
Apologies
District Cllr Puttock, Cllrs Coaker and Sopowski
The Chairman said that Cllr Keith Mans will not be able to stay for the full meeting of this council as he has other meetings to attend this evening, so he will give his report and then leave. She thanked him for making the effort to attend.
1. DISCLOSURE OF INTEREST IN AN AGENDA ITEM
The Chairman reminded Councillors that if there was any item on the agenda which would warrant a Councillor submitting a Form C they should do so now.
The Chairman also reminded Councillors that if any item arose during Public Participation which warranted a Form C they should declare it immediately.
2. MINUTES
The minutes of the last Meeting, which had been circulated to all Councillors, were approved and signed.
3. PUBLIC PARTICIPATION
A resident asked if there was any local plan to deal with any major emergency in the village.
During discussion it was noted that:-
· NFDC have a Committee for such local emergencies
· an exercise had been held some years ago dealing with a mock emergency
· some years ago all parishes had an emergency plan linked to NFDC
Cllr Tipp said HCC were the lead for such issues and they have all the contacts.
It was agreed to refer this matter to the new Council following the May elections
4. HIGHWAYS MATTERS
a) Cllr Kershaw said some 139 residents attended the Public Meeting on the changes to bus routings through the village. A number of questions had been raised, some he had been able to answer and some he had referred to HCC.
The full report of the meeting will be published in the Newsletter and is also on the Council's web site.
The Chairman thanked Cllr Kershaw for all his hard work in preparing an excellent presentation for the meeting and for all his time in dealing with this issue.
b) The question of the now redundant bus shelters was discussed. It was agreed to put an appropriate notice on the shelters and to leave the question of moving them till after the elections in May.
5. RECREATION GROUND
a) Cllr Bryant reported that:-
- work continued on the trees in accordance with the NFDC survey results.
- A grant had been received from Cllr Mans for a play bus to replace the damaged see-saw. He thanked Cllr Mans for his help and financial support
In response to a query on replacing trees he said that the Friends of the Park project included funding for shrubs and trees and he intended to wait until that had been dealt with before deciding on any further planting requirements.
b) The Clerk reported that he had placed an order for the Notice Board in the Recreation Ground.
.
6. PLANNING
a) In the absence of Cllr Sopowski the Chairman read the report on planning activities since the last meeting.
b) The Chairman referred to the block paving installed outside 10 Wood Road and added
· There was no mention in the plans of changing a green space to block paving.
· Highways commented – " they had no consent to work on the highway and block paving is not acceptable, it may take a while to sort out but at the end of the day they will have to reinstate or we will and charge them the cost of doing so."
· It is a pity that the NPA enforcement people are not so enthusiastic about losing grass verges as they are on other matters.
Yesterday morning the applicant was seen removing the block paving but also had brought a cement mixer to the site. On contacting Highways they were going to visit the site immediately as concrete is not to be used.
7. ACCOUNTS
a) The cheques issued since the last meeting were approved.
b) The Chairman announced that after consulting all members of the Council it had been decided to increase the mileage allowance for the Clerk to 50ppm from 1st April in view of the significant increase in petrol costs since the 40ppm was agreed many years ago. The Clerk thanked the Council for the increase.
8. GRANTS
None
9. REPORTS FROM REPRESENTATIVES ON OTHER BODIES
Cllr Bryant reported on the New Forest Consultative Panel meeting. A presentation by the Deputy Surveyor on the Forestry Commission indicated a possible back door approach to redundancies. An SR10 review suggested 14 possible posts to be removed but with enlarged areas to be covered. Natural England could lose 600 jobs nation wide with 60 going in the South East.
A Group of disabled people had been formed to give advice to shops, restaurants and similar places regarding disabled access. Courses were also being run for motorised vehicles used by senior citizens in view of the increased number of accidents involving pedestrians.
Cllr Kershaw had chaired the Bus Changes public meeting.
Cllr Arnold had attended the following:-
Regulations on new planning policies
Mainly dealing with NFDC policies but they do combine with NPA
The construction of Neighbourhood Plans
Public meeting with regards to the Bus service in Ashurst, Councillor Kershaw has reported on this meeting.
Allotment committee meeting
Village Design Statement committee meeting
A successful and constructive meeting. We have now put together the draft design of the statement, but more work has still to be carried out. Councillor Hubbard will give a full report at agenda item12
Association of local Councils
I am not quite sure how to report this meeting. The paper work that was prepared by the Focus Group for the representatives onto the National Park was not presented to the Parishes. The coordinators had put forward their own version and this was approved by those parishes present. The Association voted to use HALC to arrange the elections of parish councillors to the National Park.
Quadrants, job specification, election papers put forward by the coordinators were accepted by those parishes present.
Cllr Mans reported that as residents will notice from their Council Tax bills the charge has been frozen at last years level and the HCC budget had been set to accommodate that.
The reports that all Children's Centres were to be closed were not true. Closures were only taking place where other facilities were available. Managements were being merged elsewhere to achieve greater efficiency.
Although Government had reversed its proposal to sell off the New Forest it was still necessary to decide the best way forward with the need to provide greater local involvement in the decision making process.
Cllr Tipp reported that the NFDC new Planning Policies had been approved and was now in place.
A proposal to build houses on a parking area by the precinct in Totton was being opposed with over 2000 residents having signed a petition against the proposal.
Thermal imaging had been carried out on some 39,000 premises and over 25,000 showed they needed better insulation. He reminded residents that grants were available for cavity wall and loft insulation.
10. CORRESPONDENCE
The list of correspondence had been circulated and items were available for anyone to see. The Clerk requested that this item be removed from the agenda now that so much was being distributed by email or available on web sites. The Council agreed this request.
11. COMMUNITY PLAN
In the absence of Cllr Coaker this item was deferred.
The Chairman reported that a request had been received from Bryan Pass for free advertisements in the Newsletter for the Community Group. The Newsletter Committee decided it would be appropriate to offer one free quarter page advertisement for each of the events listed at their February meeting.
However in the letter to Mr Pass it was made clear that this did not cover reports of their meetings or other long articles. Also to bear in mind that there are other charitable and non profit making activities in the village who pay for all their advertisements.
12. VILLAGE DESIGN AND CHARACTER APPRAISAL
Cllr Hubbard reported that the recent Committee Meeting had been very positive. They had read the first draft and discussed layout and format plus additional material.
13. ALLOTMENTS
The Clerk reported that although the Planning Application had been granted several conditions had been attached, one of which was that a site survey for possible contamination was needed before any work could be started.
That meant there would be a delay of some three to four weeks while quotations were obtained and the work carried out. In addition to the extra unfunded cost, possibly £3,000, it meant that applicants would not get access to their plots until well into the growing period.
The Allotment Committee had therefore decided there would be no rent charge for 2011 and a letter to that effect had been delivered to all applicants.
He added that no indication of this requirement had been made in discussions with NPA before the application had been submitted.
14. ANNUAL PARISH FETE
Cllr Sturgess said all was going well with sponsors coming forward. Foxhills School was again interested in supporting the event. The Newsletter contained more information and so far everyone was content with the prices for stalls.
15. LOCAL COUNCIL ELECTIONS
The Chairman advised that local council elections were to take place on 5th May and the polling booth would be at Colbury Memorial Hall. The Clerk will put all details in the Notice Boards and on the Parish Council website. Notices will also be printed in the Parish Council Newsletter.
16. NE QUADRANT MEETING
The Chairman reminded Councillors that the next meeting was on 29th March at Copythorne Parish Hall and said she hoped all Councillors would try to attend at least one of the quarterly meetings.
She added the decision regarding an election for the North East Quadrant is to be left until 2013 after the Wiltshire elections. This means that Councillor Bob Morris will continue to represent the north east quadrant. If another Councillor from Landford is put forward in 2013 the same problem will occur again.
17. OTHER ITEMS WHICH THE CHAIRMAN DEEMS IMPORTANT
None
18. ITEMS FOR DISCUSSION AT THE NEXT MEETING
a) The Chairman said she had been asked by Totton Museum to loan them some of the photographs and papers that belong to the History Archives for an exhibition they were holding. This will be a one day only exhibition as they could not guarantee insurance cover or safety of the documents for a longer period of time. Because these are Parish Council archives she requested approval to loan out these documents.
The Council agreed to that request.
19. ITEMS FOR DISCUSSION AT THE NEXT MEETING
The Chairman reminded everyone that it was the Annual Parish Meeting first and that started at 7pm. The usual monthly meeting followed.
There being no further business the Chairman closed the meeting at 8.40pm
Signed S. R. Arnold - Chairman Dated 19th April 2011
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