Minutes of Theale Parish Council

Minutes of Theale Parish Council January 2017

MINUTES OF THEALE PARISH COUNCIL

Minutes of an Extraordinary Parish Council Meeting held on Monday 23rd January 2017 at 7.30pm in the Peter Gooch Room, the Pavilion, Englefield Road, Theale.

Present: Councillors D. Wood, B. Williams (Chairman), S. Coker, A. Clark, P. Clifford, D. Lye, D. Baker & Z. Fenwick

In attendance: Clerk to the Council Jo Friend

Apologies for absence: Councillors A. Macro, J. Richardson & I. Hopcroft

Declarations of Interest: None

208/16/17 Open Forum for Members of the Public None present.

SECTION B

209/16/17 Theale Parish Council Budget and Precept for 2017 - 18

Prior to the meeting the Clerk had provided Members with financial reports and a budget report.

Cllr Williams asked Members if there was anything, not already mentioned in the budget, that they would like the council to consider.

Cllr Fenwick asked if it could consider providing grit bins in residential areas. WBC has withdrawn all of its grit bins and asked parish councils to agree to take over the funding and responsibility for them. There are no WBC grit bins in Theale so TPC has not taken any over. The Clerk will look into the costs involved in providing and refilling grit bins, and the legal/insurance implications, and will report back to council at a later date.

Cllr Clifford suggested the council could look to invest in document scanning management. He explained that this equipment could scan all documents and enable everything to be stored online thus reducing the need for paper copies and filing cabinets. Benefits could include less time spent on retrieval of documents, easier distribution and remote access and it may replace the photocopier. Cllr Clifford was not sure of the costs involved, this would depend on whether all existing parish council documents were scanned or if the system was used just going forward. Councillors said that it had already been agreed that the parish office IT was in need of upgrading and that this should be done in the first instance. Cllr Lye offered to assist the Clerk in determining what was required in terms of new and replacement hardware and software.

Cllr Fenwick asked if TPC could consider doing a Neighbourhood Development Plan. The council had previously decided not to do a NDP because of costs and work involved, and the fact that they could not be anti-development. Councillors had felt that there weren’t any other sites in Theale that residents would want to be developed as several sites had already been identified as such by WBC in the DPD. Cllr Fenwick said TPC had carried out a first step towards such a plan in that it had conducted a Housing Needs Survey and perhaps this could be useful. The Clerk suggested asking CCB if they could attend a parish council meeting and explain the requirements of, and the pros and cons of an NDP for Theale. Members welcomed this idea.

Members then discussed the budget proposal in detail. Councillors wished to retain within the budget the funding for all the previously agreed projects but adjusted some of the figures slightly. They were keen to continue working towards items including new play equipment, refurbished floodlights, refurbished pavilion, adult gym equipment and a replacement wardens’ scheme. Members were also keen to retain the public toilet project and agreed that information on possible

23 Minutes of Theale Parish Council February 2016 usage numbers and different costing options needed to be obtained before any decisions could be made on this. The development work at the Cumber Hall site has had a detrimental impact on hall income over the past couple of years and TPC has not been able to draw the full management fees (it was explained that the hall is owned by a Cumber family trust, the parish council just administers it). Councillors felt that the worst of the disruption was probably over and that hirers’ experience should improve. Members discussed the possibility of involving volunteers in some possible refurbishment/decorating work at the hall. It was agreed that the predicted income figure from management fees should be reduced in 2017-18 but all councillors felt it was important that TPC supported the hall as it was one of very few such venues in the village.

The workload in the parish office has been steadily increasing, some of it as a result of West Berkshire Council’s proposals and requests that services and responsibilities be transferred to parish councils. The type of work being undertaken is also changing and becoming more complex. Members agreed that staffing levels should be reviewed in the not too distant future and the staffing budget be increased to allow for this.

WBC is asking TPC for an annual contribution of £2,738 towards funding the WBC library service and has asked parishes to increase their precepts in order to fund these requests. This is in addition to wanting the parish council to become involved in some way in the running of the building and the service. TPC has the General Power of Competence and therefore can legally make such a payment if it so chooses. Members felt that the community supported having a library branch in its village and that the service did benefit residents. However, WBC had not, to date, given any details as to what form of library service it would be providing once it had considered the consultation responses in its latest round of budget cuts. In addition, it is unlikely that WBC will receive the full £150,000 they are asking parishes to provide (each year for 3 years) and any shortfall would mean a reduced service in some way. TPC had already met with WBC to discuss the future of Theale library and had not been provided with any concrete details. Members felt therefore, that although they would be willing, in principle, to pay the £2,738 to support the library service, they could not formally agree to do so until details of the service they would be paying for were provided by WBC and approved of by TPC. In addition, councillors felt that TPC could not agree to pay the contribution each year for 3 years as there was no information yet as to whether the service in year 1 would remain the same in years 2 & 3.

The government has not capped parish council precepts in 2017-18 but is likely to in future years. This could restrict a parish councils’ ability to raise funds in order to pay for future projects and services. WBC has reduced the Council Tax Support Grant it pays to parishes in 2017-18 to zero and this will not be paid at all in future (CTSG = monies provided by government to district councils to offset the loss of income incurred by parish councils following the re-evaluation of parish council taxbases, the government’s intention being that these funds were to be transferred to parishes).

Members RESOLVED to increase the 2017-18 precept to £96,476. This would mean that £88.92 of a Band D household’s total annual council tax bill would be received by the parish council. The increase equates to an extra £8.08 per year per band D household, the equivalent of an extra 67p per month per household. Proposed Cllr Clark; seconded Cllr Clifford. Approved nem con.

There being no further business the meeting closed at 10.30pm.

...... Chairman to the Council