Minutes 17 April 2019 - Annual Parish Meeting
DRAFT MINUTES OF THE ANNUAL PARISH MEETING HELD ON MONDAY 17 APRIL 2019 AT 7.00PM IN THE LARGE HALL, THE OLD SCHOOL, NETTLEHAM
The Chairman welcomed everyone to the meeting and advised that the Annual Parish meeting provided an opportunity to feedback about what the Council has been working on and how residents’ money has been spent, during the last year. He also welcomed Inspector Outen from Lincolnshire Police who had been invited to provide an update about Neighbourhood Policing and also to Officers in attendance from the County Council Emergency Planning Team to discuss development of a local Emergency Plan. The Chairman recalled that in 2007, Nettleham residents living in the centre of the village and along the beck, in particular, suffered some tremendous flooding issues and the Council’s aim was to put plans in place to help respond in the event of a similar emergency, in the future.
There followed the presentation of the 2019 Ray Sellars Community Award Shield, by Anita, on behalf of the Sellars family, to Mrs Marianne Dingley who had been nominated for her work coordinating the knitting and donation of the ‘Angels’. Mrs Dingley proceeded to convey her thanks for the award, on behalf of the 18 local ladies that knit and donate the ‘angels’ to members of the local community; she went on to advise that the original idea appears to have originated in the North East area that has now spread across the country and designed to spread a bit of happiness, particularly to those that received them, during the festive period.
The Chairman also introduced and welcomed the new Parish Clerk – Debbie Locker who took up her post in late August 2018.
01/19.To approve the minutes of the Annual Parish Meetng held on 23 April 2018
It was unanimously resolved to approve the Minutes of the 23 April 2018 Annual Parish Council meeting and be signed as a true record of the meeting.
02/19. Matters arising from these minutes. None.
03/19. To recieve Chairman's report on Parish Council Activities undertaken in the last year (1 April 2018 to 31 March 2019)
Cllr Evans’ Chairman’s Report was circulated at the meeting setting out the range of Council’s plans and activities, during the last year which will also be displayed on the Parish Council website. Cllr Evans advised that any resident could contact the Parish office with details of their concerns to see if these could be incorporated within Council’s existing or new plan. Also, if they wished to get involved as a volunteer and in doing so would be covered by the Council’s insurance. He discussed that the parish benefits from having around 60 clubs or organisations and wanted to take the opportunity to thank those involved and for giving their time - including those involved with the: Nettleham Festive Market, Chatterbox natter and the Christmas get together and Dementia Café.
Additionally his thanks were also given to Cllr John Hill who, over the last 40 years had given his time to the parish and been instrumental in the planting of 12,500 trees and which has made a huge difference to the village.
Tribute was also given to residents and the Council’s staff for their efforts as the Council had been awarded ‘runner up’ of the Best Kept Village award for 2018.
The Chairman advised that the Council’s Facilities Manager (Fred Stanford) had also taken the decision to retire and Council are currently in the process of recruiting to this post. Also that some long-standing Councillors had indicated that they would not be standing for a further four year term; he proceeded to wish them a happy retirement from Council and presented the following with a small token in recognition of their service, to the Parish Council and by way of a thank you.
- Cllr Malcolm Leaning – with 54 years’ service to the Parish Council and also 30 years as a District Councillor;
- Cllr John Hill – with 45 years’ service and also as Council’s Honorary Tree Adviser;
- Cllr Mike Spencer – with 35 years’ service and also as Council’s Honorary Building Adviser;
- Cllr Terry Williams – with 22 years’ service, including 10 years as Council Chairman and also for his service in the role of Honorary Legal Adviser;
- Cllr Joe Siddall – with 13 years’ service also having been instrumental, alongside the Chairman, in the development of the Parish Neighbourhood Plan. The Chairman also thanked Cllr Siddall for his support in his role as Vice-Chairman;
- Cllr Richard Porter – having served the Council during the last 6 years.
Cllr Evans advised that the first meeting of the new Council will be held on 8 May 2019 and whilst 6 existing Councillors would be leaving, 4 residents had put themselves forward for the new term, arrangements are in place for Co-option to the remaining two vacancies and encouraged attendees to give consideration to getting involved as a Councillor or as a volunteer on one of the Working Groups.
04/19. To receive the Responsible Financial Officers report for financial year - 2018/19
The Clerk/Responsible Financial Officer outlined the details as set out in their Financial Report for 2018/19. Cllr Hill gave his congratulation for the good order of the final accounts and for the financial management undertaken during the last year.
05/19. Presentation by Inspector Simon Outen, from Lincolnshire Police to discuss local policing, followed by Q&A session
During his introduction, Inspector Outen set out that it had been a difficult time for Lincolnshire Police during the last year:
- With the loss of around 30 Police Community Support Officers in the county although PCSO Jackie Parker and PC Martin Dougherty covered the Nettleham areas;
- The number of Officer numbers had reduced across the County – currently 1100 and going down to 1070;
- The Lincolnshire Police forces is the lowest funded in the country, per head of population but despite the difficulties he held the belief that Lincolnshire is one of the best forces in the country with all doing their best. The Police and Fire Services also work very well together as they also do with the Ambulance service.
He advised that Nettleham, although not crime free does have a very low number of incidents recorded.
- The parish also has a strong community that looks out for each other and reports incidents;
- There have been reports of Anti-social behaviour at Mulsanne but this was largely found to be associated with groups of young people, not generally living in the parish, who move around from area to area, some of whom have had their vehicles confiscated from them;
- Speeding appears to be a local issue with Lincolnshire having one of the worst accident rates, highlighted recently at Welton and the headline figures appear to be going up;
- Whilst Lincolnshire has seen big reductions in accidents over previous years by having use of a range of interventions e.g. safer vehicles and more technology. However, the challenges are maintaining these by enforcement of legislation including enforcement action against those who use vehicles for ASB, those with no insurance or road tax as well as addressing the issue of speeding vehicles.
Some more challenges identified included:
- Recording of incidents - Nettleham village is linked to a large beat code and some incidences may be logged to the Police HQ that sits within the parish, so it may appear that more incidents arise around Nettleham than actually do;
- The move from use of air waves to new technology by the Police;
- The move from windows to 365 has been imposed from the national level;
- Crime recording/ intelligence is shared but not all forces are on the same systems.
Inspector Outen concluded that in a few words the Police are about: ‘Service to the Public and keeping people safe’.
There followed a question and answer session with Inspector Outen:
Q1 – Can Parish Councils get grants or funding to purchase speed indicator devices?
Answer – these are generally paid for by local Parish & Town Councils.
Q2 – A resident stated that had noted some inappropriate parking e.g. on Greetwell Lane and that the local PCSO had put notices on car windows to help get the message across, although not seen to have been in place, recently.
Answer – there followed some discussion that some parking on roads can help to reduce speeding & traffic.
The Chairman thanked Inspector Outen for his attendance and insight into local policing issues and for his feedback to questions raised.
06/19. Presentation by Lincolnshire County Council Emergency Planning Team to discuss creating a local community based emergency plan, followed by Q&A session
The LCC Officers thanked the Chairman for the opportunity to attend the Annual meeting of the Parish. They set out that:
- Lincolnshire is the 4th largest Council in England with approximately 476,000 residents – and which had increased significantly in recent years and which also increases to over 1million during summer months;
- Lincs has a poor roads network consisting largely of rural roads which can prove difficult, in emergencies;
- There are 554 Parishes/Town boundaries but only 360 have a Parish or Town Council in place;
- Community resilience, as it is today, started in Lincolnshire in 2008 following the release by the Government, of the ‘Pit Review’ report into the 2007 flood which set out a number of recommendations aimed at local authorities, emergency services and other responders to implement lessons learned;
- In 2008, only 5 communities were working with LCC to develop the programme but today there are 188 Town/Parish councils working on it with around 168 individuals signed up to receive emergency text alerts on behalf of their community.
There followed an insight into the stages a community would take in development of an Emergency Plan to include:
Stage 1 – form a core emergency group e.g. a community planning team to develop an action plan for the community. A template, training and support is available from the LCC team with this and the others stages in development of an Emergency plan;
Stage 2 - the group identify community resources including community incident rooms and places of safety that could be used in the event of an emergency. LCC can assist in provision of plans, maps and other template documents to develop the parish responses;
Stage 3 – Develop and identify other community resources and populate the information within the plan e.g. determine how and who will be contacted to activate a local response
Stage 4 – Create a contacts list of local volunteers with local knowledge and ability to get involved, along with those in the organised voluntary sector
Stage 5 – looks to bring all of these areas together and to test the Emergency plan to ensure it is fit for the job.
There are 11 Emergency Planning team members that can provide assistance to Parish/Town councils. This includes offering help in identifying skills already in place and in coordinating the development of a local Emergency plan that would help Nettleham recover quickly from an emergency. LCC could also assist with introducing a text alerting service to the Parish should there be a local emergency arise.
The Chairman thanked the LCC Officers in attendance for their valuable insight into the development of local Emergency Plan and for their offer of support, available from the team.
07/19. To consider any points which any parishioner may wish to raise. None raised.
The Chairman closed the meeting by thanking everyone for attending and the guest speakers for giving informative presentations.
Meeting closed at 8.05pm