Minutes, Council, 2020-12-18
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Sturton le Steeple Parish Council www.sturtonward.org.uk Draft Minutes of the Parish Council meeting held digitally on Wednesday 16th December 2020 at 7.00 pm Present: P Appleyard (Chair); A Frankish; A Bradley; D Moore; G Burgin and K Howard Also present: Clerk - S Stilliard Sturton Parish Residents: none present Guests: DCllr Naish; CCllr Ogle PUBLIC FORUM: none present District and County Councillors reports DCllr Naish gave a report to Council on a number of topics as follows:- 1. West Burton Power Station consultation finishes on Friday (18th) so if you haven’t already, please complete the survey at https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/westburton. I am promoting this on Facebook over the next few days. There were around 150 responses when I last checked, having leafleted all Sturton Ward plus South Leverton, Treswell and Rampton as the villages most impacted by future development of the power station. 2. Bassetlaw’s Draft Local Plan. This consultation is ongoing and everybody is encouraged to respond via https://www.bassetlaw.gov.uk/planning-and-building/the-draft-bassetlaw-local-plan/draft-bassetlaw-local-plan- november-2020/draft-bassetlaw-local-plan-november-2020/. Our feedback last time resulted in the target housing dwellings for villages like Sturton dropping significantly, so this is a worthwhile exercise. There is a consultation about the future of Worksop town centre happening at the same time. Bassetlaw has been advised to move forwards quickly with this version of the Plan, in advance of potential changes to planning legislation – so I expect this to be one of the last consultations on the Draft Local Plan. 3. Planning enforcement. Some rural councillors in Bassetlaw have been in touch with me to ask whether there are issues in our area with planning terms not being enforced. I am aware of the odd retrospective planning application but nothing more than this. 4. COVID-19. Cases in Nottinghamshire are now clearly in decline, with Matt Hancock recently noting this in a Downing Street press conference and in the House of Commons. However, to the week ending 10/12/20, Bassetlaw was still the district with the highest number of cases in Nottinghamshire, at 222.2 cases per 100,000 people (England’s average is 182.7 cases per 100,000 people). I expect we will remain in Tier 3 for some time yet. Locally, there were very few requests for support during the second lockdown. Some residents have asked about using the village halls to support the roll-out of the COVID-19 vaccines. At the moment, everything is being driven out of larger centres in towns and cities, but I will keep an eye on this and suggest local venues where possible. 5. Parking at North Leverton surgery. Unfortunately, we didn’t get any funding from Notts County Council for this project due to a lack of confirmed match-funding locally. I have let the surgery know and am arranging a meeting with staff in the New Year to discuss this further. I hope Notts County Council will support the project in the next application round, if the surgery confirms the size of its financial contribution. CCllr Ogle was asked about the development of the 2 local Power Stations and covenants which may have returned the sites to agricultural land when they are decommissioned. He said that he thought these would be superseded by the need for brown field sites for housing and commercial development and the need to create jobs in the area, however he urged councillors to comment during the consultation periods to make their views known. CCllr Ogle also told Council that he was meeting with Seven Trent to talk about the amounts of raw sewage going into streams and rivers in the county. The Chair told him that Sturton, as well as North Leverton, had suffered from this issue which becomes very apparent during periods of flooding. The responsibility of Water / Sewage companies to add capacity to their infrastructure, to accommodate new housing was also discussed and it was acknowledged that housing developers are often charged by water companies for this but then the upgrades needed are not carried out – often on the basis that the new housing numbers are insufficient to 722 justify a large upgrade. There is also an onus on planners to link planning permissions to infrastructure, however again this is often not taken sufficiently into consideration. CCllr Ogle wished Council a Happy Christmas at this point and left the meeting Police report – sent by PCSO Dave Airey PCSO Airey submitted his report and noted that there were no reported crimes in Sturton during November. The Chair noted that a caravan had been stolen from Wheatley on 15th December however This month there has been one reported crime of interest across the whole beat area. This compares with eight crimes reported throughout October 2020 and eight crimes in the same month last year. From 01/04/2020, there have been fifty crimes of interest reported across the beat area. This compares with sixty six reported in the same period last year. As such, at the conclusion of the eighth month in this tracking year, these figures equate to a decrease in reported crimes of interest of sixteen crimes. Please continue to report crime - and incidents - through to our control room on 101, or 999 as appropriate. Even in these most difficult of times, where possible, reported crimes will be dealt with in the same way as they have always been recorded, and dealt with. Please remain aware of any suspicious persons, vehicles and activity in the area and continue to report such instances through to our control room, as normal. Nottinghamshire Police recently started using a new system for recording incidents. As from February 2020, the Police report will include anti-social behaviour incidents only, negating other incident types from this category, such as hoax calls to the emergency services, found/ abandoned vehicles and wildlife/ animal issues. Again, these figures should, therefore, start to decrease but will be more accurate in relation to actual anti-social behaviour incidents on the area. This month there have been three reported incidents of anti-social behaviour across the whole beat area. This compares with six reported incident for October 2020 and one reported for the same month in 2019. As the county moves out of lockdown and into tier three restrictions, there will be an opportunity for most of us to try to catch up with festive preparations. Most of you will have completed some of your shopping online. However, for those that like to do the traditional Christmas shopping, this will, understandably, be more difficult to complete this year, particularly with the Government instructions to adhere to. With a slight easing of peoples movements, this will, invariably, lead to properties being unoccupied for periods of time whilst we all try to catch up. At this time of the year, there is usually a noticeable fall in shed and outbuilding breaks as criminals find it harder to sell items stolen from these buildings. However, Nottinghamshire Police do usually see an increase in dwelling breaks and vehicle crime at this time of the year. Even though this has not been the case in the last month on this area, it certainly is the case on adjoining beat areas. Below are some tips and advice for you whilst you are out and about shopping in this period. Readers of my reports will notice that the same advice was given at this time of the year, last year. I make no apologies in repeating the same advice this year. When you are out shopping. Keep valuables in inside pockets of clothing or bags. Only carry the cash and cards which you need. Always shield the PIN pad when entering your PIN number. Park in open well lit areas. Visit www.parkmark.co.uk to find accredited car parks. Avoid going back to your car to leave your shopping part way through your trip. If you have to keep items in the car, make sure they are in the boot, out of view, the car is locked and keep the receipts with you. Never leave your bag unattended on your trolley whilst shopping and don’t leave it in your vehicle whilst returning any trolley. At cash machines. If you see anything suspicious, alert the bank or call the Police on 101, or 999, as appropriate. Shield the keypad when typing in your PIN number at a cash machine, or in a shop. Only withdraw as much cash as you need and avoid carrying large amounts of cash. Put your money and cards away (not in your back pocket) safely before leaving the machine. 723 At this time of the year, in particular, there never seems to be enough hours in the day. Please remain security conscious over the Christmas period – remember criminals are with us all the year round, they do not take a break for Christmas. Might I take this opportunity to ask you to remain vigilant around any contact from potential fraudsters? I did mention this last month in the Police report and there have been reports made over the last month from community members continuing to receive this type of call on their land line numbers. The number of reports towards the end of the month has slightly decreased, but these fraudsters will always be active with their manipulative stories. There has also been an uptake in people wishing to purchase pets over the pandemic period. I did watch a television programme a couple of weeks ago where fraudsters are purporting to have pets for sale, but are not able to deliver the same when the charge agreed has been taken.