Please note that these Minutes have not yet been approved at a full PC Meeting

Minutes of the Meeting of Freshford Parish Council

held on Monday April 12th 2010

Present; Hugh Delap, Chairman

Stuart Campbell, Claudia Towner, John Adler, Mary Stanhope, Guy Ritchie, Nick Stevens, Mandy Knowles and Stephanie Jenkins, Clerk.

Present for the first part of the meeting was Neil Butters, District Councillor and, for item 6, Planning Application 10/00674/FUL, Nigel Whitehead, Planning Agent for Mr and Mrs P Cobham.

1. Apologies for Absence; Rowena Wood

2. Declarations of Interest; Item 6b, Village Green; SC, NS and JA all declared an interest. Item 9g, Green Matters, NS declared an interest.

3. Minutes ; the minutes of the meeting of March 1st 2010 were agreed to be an accurate record and were signed by the Chairman.

4, Finance

Payments approved

Ian Croker, Street Cleaning, £213.27 (payments have been “uplifted” by 2.18% from April 1^st and this figure represents two weeks at old amount and two at new)

Southern Electric. Supply for Quarter 4, £346.74

James Lock, payments for supplying and installing bollards on the Tyning, £240.60

ALCA, annual subscription, £95.86

Wessex Water, cemetery water rate, £119

Retrospective approval

SEC, routine maintenance for fourth quarter, £181.35

Richard Smith, expenses incurred with supply and fitting of new notice boards, £50

Stephanie Jenkins, Clerk’s half-year expenses, £110.83

Receipts

No payment yet received from YRD for Bulletin costs.

Moore Stephens £180 for the June edition of the Bulletin

Cemetery fees from James Long, Masons, £120

Cemetery fees from M Gould, £180

B&NES Finance, Half Precept payment, £6842.50

B&NES Finance, two Street Cleaning payments for February and March, both £303.49.

Audit Dates; Mazars, the appointed auditors, have set June 30^th as the date by which the PC should have approved the Annual Return. Documents have to be with them by July 14^th and electors can inspect the accounts between July 1^st and 28th

Internal Auditor; Chloe Alexander had agreed to undertake this role for the PC. Councillors formally agreed this arrangement and authorised a payment of £100 on completion.

5. Correspondence

ALCA, newsletter, notices of courses to be held, Legal Briefings.

Avon and Somerset Constabulary; notice of changes to CCV policing

CPRE, entry for Village of the Year competition, Fieldwork Newsletter

B&NES Children’s Services, review of secondary schools in Bath, consultation document

Wiltshire Council, notice of consultation process on Gypsy and Traveller Issues.

B&NES, Council Connect Newsletter

B&NES Adult Social Services, Directory of Services for Older People, Information for Carers leaflet.

Candy Harrison, query about allotment provision. It was noted that, without a landlord willing to provide land, the Parish Council was not in a position to act on this. Despite the publicity given to the Bath Area Garden Scheme in last year’s Bulletins no one with a large garden has come forward to offer to share it.

6. Planning Matters

Decisions: none

New Applications;

Sharpstone House, (10/00674/FUL), Change of use of existing detached summer house to ancillary residential accommodation; having discussed a report on this application, prepared by the Planning Committee, and listened to representations made by the owners’ agent, Mr Whitehead, Councillors voted on two motions.

“For reasons outlined in its Planning Committee’s report Freshford Parish Council objects in principle to this application”; 6 in favour, 1 against, 1 abstention.
“Freshford Parish Council objects to the new driveway and access shown on the drawings and request that the Planning Officer makes specific reference to this in any recommendation. A separate application should be made by the applicant for any new access, roadway, fencing and gates adjacent to Sharpstone House”; all 8 Councillors present voted in favour of this motion.

On-going Items

Consultation on Discharge of Planning Conditions; Lisa Bartlett had stated that Parish Councils did not have the right to be consulted over the discharge of conditions attached to planning applications.

Cross-parishes border consultation; the topic is to be taken up by Peter Duppa Miller with Officers in the joint working party set up to review the operation of the Parish Charter – as agreed at the last Parish Liaison meeting with B&NES.

Enforcement Issues

The Inn/ internal alterations; Ian Lund (Heritage Dept.) has taken the enforcement case over after John Dando’s departure from B&NES. He has yet to respond to RW’s request for information.

10/00093/UNDEV – Hermitage Cottage; the property owner had told the enforcement officer that work on the foundations and retaining walls had been started within the timescale of the planning permission. The Clerk was asked to look out the original application papers.

Tennis Club Lighting (Hinton Charterhouse Parish); RW told Councillors that the planning department had accepted the new Leylandii planting as a discharge of the condition attached to the lighting.

General Items

Guide to Councillors on background and system for Planning Applications; ongoing.

Solar Panels; ongoing.

Village Green

SC presented Councillors with a report on the Village Green, its uses and restrictions. The purpose of this was to ensure that Councillors were all fully aware of the regulatory position of the land. He stated that the School/LA Authority was about to submit a Planning Application for change of use of part of the Green, but until formal notice of the application had been received the Parish Council could not comment on the issue.

7. Annual Parish Meeting arrangements

The following format was agreed for the meeting on Tuesday April 28^th (8pm).

Chairman’s welcome and refreshments; Guest Speaker (Sara Grimes, B&NES Corporate Sustainability Officer on Community Approaches to Energy Generation and Efficiency); Chairman and Clerk’s/RFO’s reports (brief).

8. Valley Parishes Alliance

Councillors voted, unanimously, to accept the final draft of the VPA’s constitution, subject to a formal review of its working, within twelve months.

9 Updatesa. Freshford Mill; nothing new to report.

b. Roads and Traffic;

Freshford Roads and Traffic Report; NS to meet Adrian Clarke (B&NES Highways) on April 14th, with Ray Benfield, Graham Jenkinson and Phil Affleck.

Some of the promised HGV signs are in place. Tasos Papaloucas (B&NES Highways) stated that the remaining signs would be installed “in due course”.

Proliferation of Signage; it was agreed that this be a discussion item at May’s meeting.

Park Corner Improvements; NS stated that he is still waiting to hear from Highways whether the work is to take place as part of the 09-10 budget.

c Communications and Funding ; April Bulletin; HD reported a change of sponsor; the owners of The Inn at Freshford had kindly agreed to support the issue. The Bulletin will be delivered before the Annual Parish Meeting. GR offered to approach Rentokil for future sponsorship.d. Footpaths, Walls and Trees; following inspection and report by MS, Councillors approved four tree applications. MS stated that the Cotswold Wardens would be prepared to reinstall the stone stile at the top of the steps (Sharpstone). Hedges; the Cotswold Wardens have offered to do some further hedge-laying at the station. This would be done in the Autumn; the PC to contact them nearer the time. A resident had questioned the disappearance of a large section of hedge on Crabtree field. MS stated that B&NES Footpath Officer felt that there was no jurisdiction over this.

e. Street Cleaning , Dog Issues, The Pound; MK reported that B&NES had still not managed to install three of the new waste bins (by the phone box on the High Street, on Ashe’s Lane and at the High Street end of The Tyning). The Clerk had received a quote from James Lock of £70 to install the two bins ordered for the Memorial Hall area. Councillors agreed to accept this. Grit Bins; MK had had no further contact with B&NES and it was agreed to wait until the May meeting to discuss the options for providing three additional bins (The Memorial Hall, Staples Hill and Pipehouse)

f. Public Transport. RW to approach previous sponsors of the Welcome to Freshford poster map for a check that the information is up to date and possible additional sponsorship money. In her written report to Councillors she referred to a meeting with the Station Manager; funding to replace the shelter on the Bath-bound platform is no longer available, so it will probably be refurbished instead.

g. Green Energy; all initiatives are active. In addition to the “10:10” campaign, an initiative called “Greener Together” has been launched by Loulou Brouard with backing from The Galleries Shop. Gitte Dawson and Philip Challinor spoke to Councillors about FLiSCA’s plan to install solar panels along the top of the Galleries field. This would generate approximately half of the shop’s electricity requirements. Using a “Haha” approach, the panels would be concealed within a ditch, minimising adverse visual impact. Councillors found the idea very interesting, but the point was made that until a formal application came to the Council it could have no formal position.

h. Parish Online; having attended one of the progress meetings, JA’s considered view was that, at the moment, the OS MasterMap service, free to use from April 1^st, would provide a more effective route. Should B&NES be persuaded to provide property and planning links through Parish Online it would be a different matter. JA and CT to keep an eye on future progress.

i. Memorial Hall Development; the PC and Hall Committee having turned down English Rural Housing’s proposed development of the Memorial Hall site, Wiltshire’s Community First representative, Carol Southwell, has offered her expertise in searching for funds to finance a proper study of a redeveloped Memorial Hall, without affordable housing, but with the possibility of apartments for the elderly, wishing to downsize within the village.

j. Affordable Housing; NS reported that, at the recent meeting, the list of potential sites had been whittled down to those where the planners would be likely to give serious thought to feasibility and potential. By the May meeting it is hoped that an appraisal of these sites will have been carried out. NS made the point that, to date, no landowner approached has shown any willingness to sell land for such a scheme.

k. Emergency Planning; ongoing.

11 AOB

a. Brown Signs; Councillors confirmed that the signs recently appearing on the A36 directing passers-by to “Shop and Café” should have been the subject of a Planning Application. HD to apprise Gitte Dawson of this view.

b. Replacement Councillor/ Clerk; HD reported on a candidate for the vacant Councillor position following Mary Stanhope’s retirement as from May 1^st. Jonelle Daniels has expressed an interest and Councillors agreed that, subject to there being no other declarations of interest over the statutory notification period, she should be co-opted to the post. Councillors registered their thanks to Mary Stanhope for her long years of service to the Parish Council. She will be greatly missed.

Andrea Griffiths, Clerk to Limpley Stoke PC, has expressed an interest in taking on the role of Clerk later in the year. It was agreed that, before considering this possibility, the post should be advertised in the coming Bulletin. The Clerk to write a brief job description and ask anyone interested in applying for the post to contact her for more information.

c. Ramble; Alan Dodge has offered to lead another “Village Ramble” along the lines of the very successful one last year. GR to liaise again with Alan and Candy Harrison.

d. Mine Visits; Councillors agreed that a formal letter of thanks should be written to Elaine Marson and Matthew Hawker for organising a series of fascinating visits.

12 .Date of next meeting; MONDAY MAY 17th 2010

Freshford Village Website (PC Minutes 12th April 2010)