Chairman's Reports

We seemed to have crammed in a lot over the past 12 months with the highlight being the celebration of Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee on 5th June.  The Parish Council was able to contribute towards the building of a beacon and a party in the park to mark the occassion.We then had the sad news on 8th September that the Queen had passed away at the age of 96 and we have just celebrated the coronation of her heir, Charles III, at the beginning of May.

The Parish Council has seen some changes over this period with both Mrs C. Farley and Mr N. Eaves being co-opted into the Parish Council in July bringing up the number for Councilors to the full quota of 7.  This unfortunately this was short lived with Mrs. Farley having to stand down in November.

I want to thank Cllr. Patrick for her first year as Finance Officer, Cllr. Campion for making and installing a mini book library for the village and a special thank you to our long standing Clerk Mrs S.McIntyre who tirelessly guides the council on its legal duties, governance and administrative paperwork.

I also want to thank Cllr.Penketh for her successful application to the Sleaford REP Community Power Fund which was awarded at the end of 2022.  This fund was used to purchase seating for smaller children in the form of a caterpillar and three new picnic tables, two of which have access for wheelchairs. These were installed in early May with help from a volunteer workforce from the village.  A massive thank you to all those who helped over that weekend.  We have made good use of the artificial grass, that was kindly donated by Smiths Construction, under the new equipment and also to cover over the muddy patch in front of the football goals.

After several years of campaigning, Joff Parsons, myself and Cllr. G Frizzell from Helpringham Parish Council, managed to secure sufficient commitment from residents both in Swaton and Helpringham to sign up to the Government’s Gigabit scheme to secure full  Fiber To The Premises from BT which should be installed by this November.

Swaton also hosted, on 14th November, one of the public consultation sessions with Anglia Water covering the new Lincolnshire reservoir proposal, which was well supported.

This year, the Parish Council reluctantly took the decision to increase the annual precept as, despite careful control and limiting of spending, it is currently running at a deficit which needs to be addressed.

On the 4th May we had local elections which did not include voting for our Parish Council as there were only 4 of the existing councilors that put themselves forward to stand again. Cllr Richardson has taken the decision to step down after 21 years on the Parish Council making him the longest ever serving councilor. I want to thank him for his contribution over this time and I hope he will attend the occasional council meeting to provide us with an update on the reservoir.

And finally, I wanted to thank Robert Brown for his continuation in the roll of our village litter picker.