Holton Le Clay Parish Council
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Issue 176 June 2021 £1.50 COUNCIL OF THE YEAR: SOUTH KYME PARISH COUNIL ‘Lincoln by Night’ Painting by Gillian Beale www.gillianbeale.co.uk About us Lincolnshire Association of Local Councils (LALC) is a not-for-profit membership organisation for parish and town councils in Lincolnshire. As an unincorporated association LALC is owned by its member councils who exercise Inside this issue: control through the Annual General Meeting. Administered by a County Committee appointed at the Annual General Meeting, the Association operates in accordance with its constitution and also in the best interests of the first tier of local government. Every member Meetings 3 of the County Committee is either a councillor or a clerk from a member council. We also deliver an extensive training programme which is designed and reviewed regularly to reflect the needs of member councils. From our surveys 4 County Executive Committee • Gary Ellis President • John Rose Vice President • Tony Howard Chairman • John Kilcoyne Vice Chairman Neighbourhood Plans 5-11 • Mike Passfield Treasurer and Vice President • Katrina Evans Chief Executive LALC Team General Power of Katrina Evans (Chief Executive) 12-14 Competence Office Manager, dealing with all Council enquiries including HR queries, legal requests for advice. Representation at local, county & national meetings. Manages & delivers the training programme. Around the county 15-16 Amy Bestwick (Training Support and Media Officer) - currently on maternity leave. For enquiries about the website, e-news and quarterly newsletter during her absence, please contact Training 17-20 John Kilcoyne Lindsey Westman (Senior Admin & Finance) Provides admin support, deals with training bookings, clerk updates and vacancies, all LALC financial enquiries. @LincsALC Contact us: Get in touch Lincolnshire Association of Local Councils https://www.lalc.co.uk/contacts/ Dunholme Old School 01673 866596 / 07422 963475 8 Market Rasen Road Dunholme www.lalc.co.uk Lincoln LN2 3QR 2 LALC Meetings The year of remote meetings has now passed; lots of councils have embraced the use of technology, others have been glad to get back together. Lots of you will have given your views to the MHCLG call for evidence, so we’ll have to wait and see what long-term options are made available. As far as LALC is concerned, Zoom will be one of the ways forward. The benefits to LALC staff and course participants far outweigh the disadvantages of connection problems, technical issues and mute contributors. Remote training removes the need for long journeys across the county, it gives us more flexibility in when we can hold courses, and it allows resources to be shared easily. We will still continue to hold some training sessions and meetings face-to-face. It is important that we keep the personal contact where we can. Networking is still a much–needed and invaluable part of what we do. One of our first events will be a physical CiLCA catchup for our current cohort of candidates in September. And of course, we’ll be getting back together for our AGM on 6th October at the Bentley Hotel, South Hykeham. More details will follow in our newsletters. We’ll be delighted to meet you there in person. Contact us Please remember to use the online contact us facility from our website to make sure your enquiry gets through to the right person. The Good Councillor’s Guides ... The Good Councillors Guide The Good Councillors Guide to Finance & Transparency The Good Councillors Guide to Neighbourhood Planning The Good Councillors Guide to Being a Good Employer The Good Councillor's Guide to Community Business The Good Councillor’s Guide To Cyber-Security Download directly from LALC website or contact Lindsey to order copies at £3.99 each plus p&p. 3 From our surveys The success of our January survey has led us to try to find out more. We’ve had a few shorter surveys out over recently; thank you so much for your responses. We’re trying to find out about what your council is doing well; we also want to know about the things you’ve started that didn’t work, and the things you’ve not got going with. We’ve asked some of you to give us more details about what you’ve told us. See the next few pages to find out. If you haven’t completed the surveys yet, each heading below has a link or ask us. Neighbourhood Plans Where is your council up to with a Neighbourhood Plan? Achieved – well done! Awaiting approval. Currently preparing. Considering. Started but abandoned. Not considering. If you haven’t started to put together a neighbourhood plan, what are the barriers? Didn't know about it. Haven’t thought about it. Haven’t got round to it. Cost Time. Confidence. Other What has been your experience of the process of establishing a neighbourhood plan? If you started preparing a neighbourhood plan but gave up, can you explain why? How has having a completed neighbourhood plan been of benefit to your community? Have there been any disadvantages to having a completed neighbourhood plan? General Power of Competence This survey gives you four choices. Go with the one that fits you and answer the relevant questions. My council currently holds the GPC - well done! My council held the GPC in the past but is no longer eligible. My council meets the necessary two criteria and is eligible to hold the GPC but doesn't. Why not? My council isn't eligible to hold the GPC. Why not? What have been the benefits to your council from holding the GPC? And with all our surveys– what can LALC do to help? Information to show how each award can benefit your council and community? Support from other councils who already have these in place? Review of criteria for your council prior to submission. Sharing your story with other councils. 4 Our surveys: Neighbourhood Plans Neighbourhood planning as we know it now was introduced by the Localism Act 2011. It is intended to give a community greater say over the amount and type of development in their area. There are known benefits to having a plan. It’s community-led. It gives you more influence over local planning matters. It encourages dialogue with your community. It identifies issues in your local area. It may provide additional income for your town or village through the Community Infrastructure Levy. There are also disadvantages. It takes a great deal of time to prepare. There are costs, although hopefully they are all paid for through government grants. You will need knowledge of planning regulations and procedures. You will need to call on specialist skills and knowledge within your community. It doesn’t stop development. You can’t change boundaries. Not all development brings CIL money. You need to convince your community to adopt the plan through a referendum. What have you told us? It’s not all plain sailing. For every adopted neighbourhood plan, there are many that were started and abandoned. Plans that do make it to referendum have involved a great deal of effort. Some towns and parishes felt that district councils were very supportive, although this is by no means always the case. Some respondents suggested that it was difficult to maintain the interest and enthusiasm of residents across a long, complicated process. Some parishes have a plan in waiting but nobody is willing to step forward to take it on. Problems seem to have come up sometimes where neighbouring communities found it difficult to work together. We have got examples of success though. Parishes and towns are still making progress through the different stages of plans, and we’ve been told about achievements where planning decisions are made on the basis of adopted plans. What we have learned through our consultation is that these plans are not for everyone. Many communities, though, feel that all the effort and time has been well spent. See the next few pages for examples. 5 Ropsley and District Neighbourhood Plan The Localism Act, 2011 provided parish councils with the ability to have a vital say in shaping the future of their communities through a neighbourhood plan. To take advantage of this opportunity, in November 2015 'Ropsley & District Parish Council' voted to commence our journey in preparing our ‘Neighbourhood Plan’(NP). The first steps in this included putting together a team of willing volunteers to form the 'Ropsley & District Neighbourhood Plan Steering Committee', swiftly followed by designating our NP boundary with South Kesteven District Council (SKDC). Willing as we were, as rookies in NP's, it is fair to say it took us a while to grasp the intricacies and correct procedures for producing a plan. Nevertheless, we read lots and between us figured out the next steps including drafting a questionnaire, which we then put to our community. This asked a range of questions about local issues including what people liked about living in the parish, about our facilities and the communities thoughts around development in the parish… to name but a few. Information was gathered, further community consultations and presentations were undertaken over the next year and then we were ready to prepare our 'draft' plan. At this point we called on some excellent expert advice from town planner who understood how to weave the community’s wishes with local and national planning policy. Early last year we consulted the community again with the 'draft plan' and conducted other statutory consultations. The plan was scrutinised by an ‘Independent Examiner’ and after some final tweaks and sign off from SKDC it was ready to be voted on by our community at a Referendum.