Annual Parish Meeting 5th May 2021 - Minutes
Brampford Speke Parish Council
Minutes of Annual Parish Meeting, Wednesday 5th May 2021
Present: 2 members of the parish including Cllr S Luxton, Cllr E Hollingsworth, Cllr A Birmingham, Cllr W Honan, Cllr N Vickers and Cllr R Tillett
In attendance: Mrs C Oliphant (Clerk)
Welcome by the Chair of the Parish Council Cllr A Birmingham who gave an explanation about the purpose of the Annual Parish Meeting. It was not a meeting of the Parish Council. Its formal purpose was a meeting of the registered electors of the parish, convened and chaired by the Parish Council, at which electors discussed parish affairs and, if they wish, pass resolutions.
Apologies: Cllr W Gallois
Minutes of the Annual Parish Meeting held on 24th April 2019 – Were agreed as a true record
Annual report from the Parish Council
Cllr Luxton (retiring Chairman):
The retiring Chairman stated that it had been an interesting 12 months and that the ZOOM meetings had gone well without too many major incidents. He thanked the Members and villagers for their help over the past 12 months during what was a very scary time for some. He praised the village for pulling together during the pandemic.
Cllr Birmingham (Chairman)
Firstly, I would like to express on behalf of the Council our thanks to Stuart Luxton for all his efforts in guiding us through the recent years as our past Chair. I would also like to thank all councillors for continuing to represent villagers and to Carole Oliphant for continuing to provide us with the support, advice and wisdom in her role as Clerk to the Council. Thanks also to Wynn Stait for his continued involvement as Footpath Warden.
Looking ahead, as well as the perennial issues that the Council sees itself involved with, I am mindful that there are likely to be some new items emerging on our agenda that will require attention e.g., the outcomes of the recent Housing Needs Survey, updating the Church path, the maintenance challenges around the Village Hall amongst others.
Hopefully, as the Covid impacts begin to diminish, we will soon be able to meet again as a group in the Village Hall, something which I am sure will be welcomed by many of us after the trials and tribulations of 'Zoom' working.
I look forward to the opportunity of chairing the Council during the next year, and with the active involvement and support of my fellow councillors in their lead roles, helping to ensure our village remains a place where we can all live and enjoy our local environment.
Cllr Richard Tillett:
Highways: BSPC Road and Snow Warden: involves liaison with DCC highways officer about roads and traffic. Isssues include: potholes, drains/flooding, verge trimming, gritting etc. A quiet year this year, with no major problems. The PC is indebted to Mark Short for acting as our volunteer gritter over the winter; he carried out six supplementary gritting runs in severe weather when Burridge Hill didn't have sufficient priority for DCC action (it's a “secondary” route, and only gritted by DCC in extreme conditions. Verge by bus stop planted with spring daffodils over winter 2020-21.
Village Hall (jointly with Will Honan): the hall has been closed during the pandemic as advised by EDDC. Some maintenance work has been carried out, but the trustees have met very infrequently. We were very sorry to lose our Hon Sec Penny Wiles who has resigned on moving out of the village.
Village communications (jointly with Nicola Vickers): community email list reaching over a hundred addresses established to replace previous (defunct) list, and to facilitate communications between the PC and our residents.
Community Land Trust: seconded to act as BSPC representative at request of CLT. Involved with circulation of Housing Needs survey to assess current need for affodable housing in the two parishes (BS, UP).
Speke Up: longstanding role drafting and sending monthly PC report to local parish magazine. Involved in negotiations when future of magazine in doubt during pandemic. Now chair of Speke Up committee, and responsible for advertising account (independent of PC council responsibilities).
Cllr W Gallois:
Having joined the PC part way through the year, I was keen to become the footpath lead, working with our excellent footpath warden to try to maintain and preserve our excellent network of paths. Working with other councillors, I am an enthusiastic proponent of the idea of linking Brampford into a network of cycle paths.
Cllr S Luxton:
The Spring cut had been completed on the verges by DCC and another cut would be organised by the Parish Council in late May. The daffodils planted by the Parish Council had been received very well and had enhanced the verge in the village.
Cllr E Hollingsworth:
The trees planted to commemorate the 100th anniversary of WW1 are growing well and beginning to look like a tiny patch of woodland. Well meaning people have added a few extra trees which I may need remove/transplant as they are not species approved by Natural England or The Environment Agency. A few of these trees are Aspens which could potentially swamp the other trees.
The Tree-in-Railings is looking good - thanks to Greg Dawe who organised it, the generous benefactor who paid for it - and Cllr Ray Bloxham who was so supportive. Plus, the Tree Officers at EDDC and DCC Highways.
Sadly, 'ash dieback' has started to have an impact in our parish. We are likely to lose most - if not all - of our magnificent ash trees which are, along with oaks, icons of our countryside. Our landscape is likely to look very different in a few years’ time, a reminder of when we lost our huge, ancient elms to Dutch Elm Disease (some of these trees remain in a much-diminished form in our hedgerows).
Finally, it would be great to look to the future and plant more trees to replace those we are losing. If anyone has any thoughts on where we could plant more trees - please get in touch.
Cllr A Birmingham:
As the lead councillor for Finance, I oversee the sterling work our Clerk undertakes to keep our finances in order - thank you Carole!
I am pleased to report that there are no significant Finance matters to highlight to the meeting. Our budget was prepared at the start of the year and progress has been reported on at our regular Council meetings throughout the year.
The annual audit review, undertaken by an independent auditor, has reported a clean bill of health. Regular monitoring and reporting of bank account activity is also completed and overseen.
The Council's income for the year amounted to £10575 with outgoings of £11848, partly reflecting the additional and valuable support the Council receives from the Clerk. This year, the Council received on behalf of the Agricultural Inn a Covid 19 related grant of £3195, which as a one off amount is reflected in the accounts.
Earmarked and general reserves are considered adequate for the present time.
Our budget for 2021-22 has now been approved by Council.
Cllr W Honan:
East Devon planning department processed an average of around two planning applications per month from the Brampford Speke Parish during the period from January 2020 to March 2021. Around half of the applications related to trees.
The other half, property applications, was also divided almost equally between residential property and agriculture.
The residential property applications ranged in scale from greenhouse to complete house build. During this time period, no property applications were rejected.
The agriculture property applications were a mixture: new buildings for agricultural purposes and changing use of an agricultural building to dwellings or other business / leisure. Again, no property applications were rejected.
The coronavirus pandemic has significantly impacted the Parish Council’s role, in that site meetings have been very restricted during this time. Hopefully the next twelve months will continue to see pandemic restrictions being eased.
Cllr N Vickers:
I joined the Parish Council six months ago and since then I’ve been involved with other councillors in setting up an email distribution list of residents in our parish to enable the flow of communication between the PC and parishioners. It has 111 people currently listed and has already proved useful. We hope to add others as they get in touch. I will also be producing a bi-annual newsletter of PC achievements which will be distributed around the village. The new website, recently designed and produced by our Parish Clerk is another excellent form of communication for anyone wanting to know what the Parish Council is doing. I believe strongly that good communication is at the heart of an effective PC and am keen to support the PC to achieve this.
Created the PC Privacy Policy which was adopted by council on 6th January 2021.
Parish Clerk:
On 26th March 2020 the Government introduced the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) Regulations 2020 which put the country into lockdown with a strict stay at home order. Part of this legislation gave Councils the ability to continue to operate by temporarily allowing meetings and decisions to be made remotely. The temporary legislation was due to expire on 6th May 2021.
The legislation also postponed the need for local councils to hold an Annual Parish Council Meeting and an Annual Parish Meeting until May 2021. This meant that the Chairman continued in his role without the need for an election in 2020 and no Annual Parish Meeting was held.
As Clerk I attended remote meetings held by DALC and SLCC in which Clerks from all over the region discussed how this new legislation would work in practice. As part of this it was advised that Parish Councils should have in place a scheme of delegation so that the Clerk, Chairman and Vice Chairman could make urgent decisions without the need to call a special meeting in order that the business of the Council could continue.
Brampford Speke Parish Council were quick off the blocks and signed up to the free version of ZOOM which allowed us to set up remote meetings, which the public could attend but limited a meeting time to 30 minutes. A Scheme of Delegation was agreed at our first ZOOM meeting held on 22nd April 2020. To date the Scheme has not had to be used and all decisions have been resolved by full council at remote meetings.
It became obvious that 30 minutes was not long enough for a meeting and therefore the Council decided to use the full version of ZOOM, which also allowed Councillors and the public to telephone into a virtual meeting. This made the meetings more accessible for all.
Council business has continued throughout the pandemic, the audit was agreed in May 2020 and again in April 2021 and these was filed on time without any issues.
The Government legislation on remote meetings expires on 6th May, which means in theory that future Council meetings will be back in the village hall. The Local Government Act 1972 is clear that Council meetings must be held with all councillors summoned to the same ‘place’. At a court hearing on 27th April 2021 NALC challenged the Act’s interpretation of a ‘place’ with the courts. The court ruled that the 1972 Act interpretation of a ‘place’ was a physical one and not remote. This effectively means that future meetings will be held face to face unless the Government decides to legislate on the future locations that Council meetings can be held.
Whatever the Government decides and legislation dictates Brampford Speke Parish Council will continue to hold regular meetings which are accessible to Councillors and the public.
Wynn Stait – Footpath Warden:
Good news is that we have received £1800 from DCC for this year's programme of works.
£900 of this is earmarked for replacing 4 stiles on FP8b with three self-closing gates (one is on the bridge so we don't need a new gate at both ends).
The gates can be collected FOC from DCC. I believe Stuart Luxton has already given landowner's approval so unless anyone has any objection, we can give James the go-ahead to complete this work. I understand James is just about to start this year's cutting for many parishes so this might not be completed until the Autumn.
On the FP map is our cutting schedule marked in red and pink. Alan, James's predecessor gave me the map last year. The footpaths are not anywhere near as overgrown as this time last year due to the April weather so hopefully this will not be as big a job as it usually is. I will continue to mow FP 10 and trim FP 7 as these are close to where I live and relatively simple to do.
The remaining £900 was requested to allow more regular upkeep of Station Hill path. However, Brad, the new owner of Cariad appears to be the polar opposite of the previous owner. He is definitely boundary proud and as you can see from the picture attached the hedge on the left as you go down the hill has been significantly cut back from what we are used to. I suspect he will continue to maintain this standard in the future. As you can also see from the picture the main issue now is the nettles in the field along the fence line. These grow rapidly and normally need cutting back 2 or 3 times a year. I am wondering whether a more judicious use of our limited funds would be to try and remove these nettles? Strimming seems to make the problem worse and the nettles obviously love it. If they could be sprayed or dug out then there is a good chance that the cattle would naturally maintain the fence line for us!
I have no idea about what chemicals can be used, impact on livestock etc but thought it might be worth a discussion if it is going to cost £900 a year to keep the path clear. Obviously digging them out would be the best solution for the environment.
Part of this funding was also for keeping the path clear of leaves and detritus which create a slip hazard. However, Richard very kindly said he was happy to nip out with a blower last year if Elaine gave fair warning when the leaves were building up. I've also heard a rumour that the PCC might possess its own leaf blower. If that is the case, and it can be found, I am more than happy to take charge of that particular chore, if not we might want to consider buying one.
Any other ‘parish affairs’ matters
A Member of the public raised an issue of the poor state of repair of the village hall roof. The general maintenance and upkeep of the hall was the responsibility of the Village Hall Trust but major structural repairs were the responsibility of the Parish Council, as owners of the village hall. A survey on the hall had been completed and circulated Councillors and trustees in March 2020 but due to the pandemic no further action had been taken. It was agreed that quotations for the costs for repair would be obtained and a dialogue with the Village Hall Trust would begin to establish a solution.