Annual Parish and PC Meeting 14th May 2019
Minutes of the Annual Parish Meeting - Tuesday 14th May, 2019
PRESENT: Cllr A Deptford, (Chairman) and the Clerk, 8 members of the public, which included 5 parish councillors and D/Cllr R Jackson.
The Chairman opened the meeting and welcomed all present.
MINUTES OF MEETING, MAY 15th, 2018. Accepting Clerk’s Notes as Minutes. It was proposed by Cllr Penketh and seconded by Cllr Ropbinson that the Clerk’s Notes of May 15th, 2018 meeting, which had been circulated, be accepted as a true record. All who were present agreed, resolution passed, the chairman signed the Minutes.
CHAIRMAN’S REPORT FOR 2018/19.
Your Council has remained the same this year, but behind the scenes work has been going on to enable a change. From our May 2019 meeting there will be 7 Swaton Parish Councillors rather than 5.
This continues the effort to introduce a bit of ‘new blood’ and ideas on to the Council. During the 18/19 year, we invited Judy Patrick and Charles Campion to the Council as ‘Village Coordinators’. This has been a success and Judy & Charles were nominated to apply for election as Councillors. The existing 5 Councillors were also nominated and all 7 were elected unopposed and will become Councillors from the May 2019 meeting.
Judy and Charles have attended ‘New Councillor’ training sessions and they, along with other Councillors, will continue training as appropriate.
The Play Area has progressed further with Phase 3 and the Shelter being completed. The Fete in Summer ’18 raised around £900 which will enable the next Phase to be completed before this Summer. This includes new Goalposts and 3 metre high fencing around the ‘football area’ to avoid balls being kicked onto neighbouring properties. Planning Permission was required for this, which delayed the project a little. Other grant applications for future projects are ‘in the pipeline’.
A tremendous amount of work has gone into this Play Area, ably spearheaded by Councillors Elaine Penketh and Alan Wilson with a lot of help from villagers. You know who you are - Thank you !
Charles Campion continues to keep the grass in the field in pristine condition. What a difference a couple of years of TLC can make !
A village ‘drivearound’ with members of Lincs County Council Roadways Department and our Lincs County Councillor was organised in May last year. This drew attention to the massive number of potholes in the village and after further haranguing these were later repaired. However it has been noted and reported that the potholes at the entrance to the village on Swaton Lane have since deteriorated. A drive down Parson’s Drove (I bottomed my car) gave my passengers food for thought and some repairs are now imminent.
John & June Lukjaniec continue to keep the litter cleared within the village. Thank you both. Any help for them with this task would be appreciated.
The situation with overhanging branches and overgrown hedges again raised its head. It should be noted that it is the responsibility of the property owner or tenant to ensure that branches (and weeds like nettles) do not overhang or grow into a footpath.
The exciting issue of GDPR (Data Protection and Privacy) was dealt with during the year.
The Environment Agency, LCC and Black Sluice Drainage Board continue to consult consultants and talk about our flooding problems and work that should be happening to alleviate the problems. They are now in talks with farmers about providing ‘flood plains’ to the West of Swaton.
Traffic Calming along the High Street has also been discussed at length and a village meeting was held in October with about 20 residents present. Cllr Elaine Penketh is talking to the ‘Lincolnshire Road Safety Partnership’ (which we have become a member of). New 30 mph signs have now been sited and discussions continue about ‘Community Speedwatch’. John Lukjaniec continues to deploy our existing mobile speed signs for which we thank him.
In September a ‘Defibrillator and CPR refresher’ session was arranged with LIVES on a Saturday morning. This was well attended and most attendees ‘had a go’ between Bacon Butties.
In all, a busy and reasonably successful year for the Council. Loads of other formal and boring things went on which I didn’t feel were worth adding to this Report !
Thanks once again to our Parish Clerk, Shelagh, for doing her best to keep us on the straight and narrow during the year ! She steers us through the minefield of Governmental Bureaucracy - whilst hanging on to a (necessary) sense of humour.
It should be noted that our excellent NKDC District Councillor, Kate Cook, did not seek re-election at the May ’19 elections and you will all have had the chance to vote for her successor.
On this subject, after 14 or 15 years as Chairman of your Council, I am also standing down, but will remain a councillor. I feel that I am becoming ‘stale’ and that it is time for some new blood and new ideas.
Your new Chairman will be voted in at the May meeting. I thank you all for allowing me the honour of holding this ‘job’ for so long.
Please note that you can access details of forthcoming meetings, how to contact Councillors, rules and regulations, financial details etc. on the Council’s website at www.swaton.org.uk/ YOU are very welcome to attend all Parish Council Meetings.
Please contact any Councillor if you have concerns or feel that something needs to change. We will do our best to help (subject to many, many constraints !)
FINANCIAL REPORT. Financial Year 1st April 2018 to 31st March 2019
The Council started the year with £6464.17 in the Bank.
This is £4358.29 of Council Funds and £2105.88 ‘ring fenced’ Play Area Funds.
After Play Area Income (including £909.03 from the Summer Fete and a generous £250 donation from a resident) and Expenditure (Lights for Shelter, Rent to The Crown and materials for goalposts and fencing) the ‘ring fenced’ Play Area Funds are £1657.75 at the end of the year.
The Council received £2500.00 Precept from NKDC and other Income of £1768.49 (Play Area Income as above, Grass Cutting and Litter picking grants and Bank Interest). A total Income of £4268.49.
The Council’s Expenditure for the year (which includes Play Area expenses, employing our underpaid Clerk, paying her expenses and things like Repairs & Renewals, Auditor, Insurance and Training costs) was £4550.75, so we ended up with £282.26 less than we started with, finishing the year with £4524.16 in the Parish Council kitty.
The fact that we consistently spend less than we earn and have built up a ‘kitty’ of over £4500 in the Council’s account is much to do with the Council’s wish to get the best value for money for the village. We run a tight ship !
Unfortunately we need this amount as we are obliged by Governmental Regulations to Budget certain sums for such things as Council Elections (which could cost up to £1000) and ‘Reserves and Contingencies’.
The Budget for this year (2019/2020) is the same as previous years with a Precept of £2500. Unlike most things, this shows a slight decrease on your Council Tax bills, due to having a slightly larger amount of Council Tax payers in the village.
As the Council’s 2018/2019 year’s turnover was below £25000, the latest Government Audit Regulations make us exempt from a full (chargeable) Audit (even though the identical figures have to be produced on an identical form). We still need to have these Accounts independently audited by our Internal Auditor. In the past Chris Kerby has performed this task admirably. However due to Chris’s sad death, the Internal Auditor’s position has now been taken on by Bill Marshall.
Please note the Council's full Income and Expenditure accounts (unaudited at date of writing) can be viewed on the Council's website : http://www.swaton.org.uk/
REPORTS FROM VISITING REPRESENTATIVES – Police/County/District Council
C/Cllr B Young reported - I am very sorry that I cannot be with you this evening.
Lincolnshire County Council's greatest challenge over the past few years has been (and continues to be) balancing the books while trying as far as possible to provide decent overall levels of service. In common with other councils across the country, our main Government grant (the so called Revenue Support Grant or "RSG") has been reduced significantly as part of its austerity measures and the Council has had to adapt accordingly. In our case, we have seen a drop of around 90% in RSG which has fallen from £211m to just £20m in just eight years. During the period, we have achieved £310m of savings, absorbed cost pressures including growing social care demands and wage increases (altogether adding up to £276m) and have done all this without huge Council Tax rises, maintaining our position as one of the lowest charging English shires.
The challenge has been particularly acute for shire counties such as Lincolnshire which in grant terms have lost out to urban areas for far too long. In our discussions with central Government about this, we have consistently argued that Lincolnshire authorities would be £116m better off every single year if we received the average level of funding for all local councils. We have also made the case, and continue to do so, that services are much more expensive to deliver in rural and sparsely populated areas. Against this background, we now await the outcome of the Government's Fairer Funding Review which is still in train. In the meantime, it has given us one off extra money for rural services, road repairs and social care. Welcome though this is, I stress that this is one off money and cannot be relied upon for future years. We have already drawn extensively on reserves over the past eight years and although we will balance the books for 2019, we still face uncertainty for future years pending the outcome of the Fairer Funding Review. Current projections suggest a budget deficit of around £30m within the next three years.
I am acutely aware of the state of some of our local roads. As you know, some work has already been undertaken but there is still a lot more to be done. I have already mentioned one off money which the Government has provided for assistance with pothole repairs but given the length of the county's road network (approximately 5,500 miles) this is not going to solve all the problems and certainly not overnight. With its limited resources, it is the Council's policy to prioritise potholes on the potential risk they pose to the public and we tackle the most serious defects on the busiest routes with the greatest urgency. This inevitably means that it can take longer for repairs to be made on some of our less well used rural roads. Given the financial circumstances in which we find ourselves, we consider that this is the most sensible and the fairest approach to take. This has been acknowledged nationally with Lincolnshire being recognised as one of the country's top performing highways authorities.
I will continue to the best of my ability to represent the interests of the people of Swaton at Lincolnshire County Council. If any of you has a particular County Council problem with which I might be able to help please contact me in the first instance by email on cllrb.young@lincolnshire.gov.uk
D/Cllr Jackson introduced himself, he had a hand over from Mrs K Cook and is starting NKDC induction. There is a digital Hub in Osbournby every Wednesday 11-12.30 in the village hall. There is internet connections, own laptop/phone/tablet required. He will bring flyers for distribution in the village.
PUBLIC DISCUSSION AND QUESTIONING. Members of the public may comment on any Parish issues and direct their comments to the Parish Council or any of the visiting representatives.
Members of the public reported tractors at excessive speed for the roads along Peppers Lane and West End, not stopping at the junction. The Clerk to write to the farmer.
Parish Newsletter. Someone is needed to run it, possible liaison with the Hut and Church. Agenda PC meeting in July.
Seat at the Triangle – this is underused – possibility of moving it to play area or churchyard?
CLOSE THE MEETING – all relevant issues will be taken forward to a future Parish Council Meeting. The chairman thanked everyone for their input and closed the meeting at 7.50pm