2017/01/12
Minutes of the Parish Council Meeting held on Wednesday 11th January 2017.
Minutes of the Meeting of the Parish Council
held on Wednesday 11th January 2017 in the Village Hall at 7.30 pm.
1. Apologies: Cllrs. Pat Lennard, Katrina Maxwell and Terry
Oxman. Cllr. David Hall (SCC)
2. Present: Cllrs. Martin Allen (Chairman), Martin Baker,
Brian Gale, and Ray Triggol.
Also: Cllr.
Derek Alder (SDC) and Matt Barrow (Connecting Devon and Somerset).
Members of the public: Lynne Allen, Peter Dodge, Maria Harwood and
Richard Woodward.
3. Minutes of the previous meeting of 6th
December 2016 were taken as read, approved and signed.
4. Matters arising from the minutes.
- Broadband Phase 2 Rollout. In the absence of David Hall
(unavoidably absent), Matt Barrow of the Connection Devon and Somerset
team outlined the outcome of the Phase 2 Rollout. Announced on
20/12/2016, contracts have been awarded with four going to GiggaClear
who are undertaking to lay out an entirely new network connecting each
property to fibre lines which should give broadband speeds of between
50 megabytes/sec to 1 gigabyte/sec. Chedzoy is scheduled for connection
in July 2018, and there may be some unavoidable slippage so
realistically we are looking at a 2 year “delay” from now.
Matt advised that 97 applications had been received for the £500
vouchers, all of which would be successful. Some will “go it alone” but
a joint approach involving the pooling of vouchers was possible.
Martin Allen (Chairman) thought there could be some difficulty in
organising a joint approach, but he said that if Matt could email the
numbers of unused vouchers he would organise another flyer to each
house in the village advising the up to date position and possibly
calling a meeting to coordinate the joint way forward.
- Sedgemoor Battlefield Display Case. The Clerk reported he
had been advised by Victoria Banham of SDC that Sedgemoor would
give consideration to meeting the cost of repairs. The Clerk is to
obtain an estimate from Messrs. Arien of Cheddar for the work and
submit it to SDC with a suitable request.
- Telephone Box Adoption. The Clerk reported the request
for the Parish Council to adopt the telephone box has been made by
Sedgemoor to BT, who will make contact direct to him in due course.
- Allotment Tap Frost Damage. Cllr. Martin Baker reported
that he was delaying repairs to the tap at the allotment site until the
spring.
5. Somerset County Council report. None
6. Sedgemoor District Council report.
- Cllr Derek Alder reported on further funding which
appeared to be available for housing development in the
district. In addition to the £44 million already advised by Central
Government, a further sum of close to £20.00 million could be made
available for development on non-LDF (Local Development Framework) land.
- EDF are looking to obtain consent for extending
the working hours for connection of the supply line to Hinkley
Point.
- The old British Cellophane site is being prepared for
development.
7. Planning.
The two recent applications at Fernside
Ward Lane (reference 18/16/00007/LP) and Stoneleigh Front Street
(reference 18/16/00008/DT) had both been granted permission, on a
delegated basis.
8. Correspondence.
- Avon and Somerset PCC – 4 year Policing Plan. The Clerk
has received a copy of this.
- Code of Conduct Training for Clerks and Councillors. These
sessions are to be held in March.
9. Matters arising from the correspondence. None.
10. Finance. Balances after allowing for all payments made:
Lloyds Bank current account |
£2724.56 |
Lloyds Bank Deposit account |
£2.48 |
Cambridge Building Society Easy Access
account |
£12252.99 |
One cheque was issued between meetings as
follows:
Number |
Payee |
Amount |
For |
537 |
Don Johnson |
£122.40 |
Repairs to the village notice board |
Three cheques issued, signed by 2
councillors as follows:
Number |
Payee |
Amount |
For |
538 |
C.N Fry |
£152.47 |
December net
salary |
539 |
C.N Fry |
£84.39 |
Expenses |
540 |
HMRC |
£ 114.40 |
PAYE
Oct/Nov/Dec |
10. Any Other Business including the date of
the next meeting.
- Buzzard shooting. Jo Smolden of Ward Lane had reported
the shooting of three buzzards in Somerset. These birds of prey are a
protected species and although two survived, a third one was shot dead
in Chedzoy. The Councillors were disappointed and it is hoped that no
repeat incident of this kind occurs in the future.
- New External Auditors. The Clerk reported new Auditors
had been appointed for the 5 year period 2017/22.
- Police attendance at Parish Council meetings. The Clerk
read extracts from an email received by a parish clerk in Somerset from
the police which stated that the production of police reports and
attendance at parish council meetings took scarce resources away from
front line policing. If a specific problem arose, then attendance of
the police would be afforded, but not as a matter of course.
- SID location. The Clerk read an email from Dave Grabham
of SCC apologising for the incorrect siting of the SID outside the
Village Hall rather than outside Fisher’s Cottages and saying it would
be correctly sited on the 30 mph repeater sign outside Fishers Cottages
in future.
- South West Local Council Association Regional Conference on
16/03/2017 in Taunton. The Clerk read an email giving advance
notification of this with further details to follow.
Date of next meeting: Monday 13th February
2017.
There being no other business the Chairman
declared the meeting closed at 8.35 pm