Minutes of the Annual Parish Meeting Held on Tuesday 10Th April 2018 in the Village Hall
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MINUTES OF THE ANNUAL PARISH MEETING HELD ON TUESDAY 10TH APRIL 2018 IN THE VILLAGE HALL Present: Cllrs Robertson (Chairman); Robinson; Gentle; Ongley; Freeman; Constable and Gough In attendance: WC Cllr Wayman; Mrs E Young (Clerk); and 26 members of the public Apologies: Cllr Bowen and Cllr Caughey (holiday) Welcome: The Chairman welcomed all to the meeting and explained this was not a Parish Council meeting. Short reports will be given by local organisations. The APM is a requirement in law for villagers, Parish Councillors and organisations to be kept informed and involved in what is happening locally and how it affects the village and the parish of Hindon. The role of the Parish Council is to act, as a focus for local opinion, providing a way of getting things done that is best for the local community. Minutes of the last APM held on 25th April 2017 (already circulated) these were agreed as a true record and signed and dated by the Chairman. Reports: copies of all reports have been filed and can be obtained if necessary from the Clerk. The following are highlights: Wiltshire Council: WC Mrs Wayman reported: Looking back to the Council’s May elections, I am honoured to represent the Nadder and East Knoyle Division again. It is a huge privilege and I am always happy to try to help where I can. I was asked to join the Wiltshire Council’s Cabinet with the Highways, Transport and Waste portfolio. It was a steep learning curve. It is a portfolio which touches everyone as we are all use the roads and all have our rubbish collected. 2017/18 has seen a continued expenditure in major highway maintenance. £21m was spent last year resurfacing 181km of roads, making a total of 761km since 2014, about 17% of the network. The reintroduction of the Parish Steward scheme continues to give satisfaction for parishes. Issues can be reported by anyone on the My Wiltshire system and are fed through directly to the parish stewards where there are matters that they can deal with. The Parish Stewards are also our gritter drivers and have worked tirelessly recently gritting and clearing our roads. The combination of freezing and wet weather sees a jump in the number of potholes appearing. Last year 9000 potholes were filled – about half of them by the Parish Steward. I am conscious of the pressures of the Council’s budget particularly from adult social care. Wiltshire is an ageing population more so than many other counties. I have had the unwelcome pressure of increasing car parking charges. Surplus income from these charges are used to support passenger transport, particularly rural bus services where they are uneconomic for the bus companies to run. I have found the waste portfolio interesting. There is a myth I hear that all our waste goes to landfill, even the stuff we recycle. It is not true. Very little goes to landfill. The landfill tax makes it prohibitively expensive. There is a map of the Council’s waste section on the web site which shows where all the recyclables are sent in the UK. The Household Recycling Centres have all been refurbished to allow larger containers and improved traffic flows. You may have noticed there is a leaflet with the Council tax bill advising that ID will be required to show you are a Wiltshire resident when visiting a Recycling Centre after 9th April. This Summer will also see a change in the waste collection service. You will be able to recycle more in your blue-lidded bin and the black boxes will be only for glass. Collection days may also change. As the vast majority of my Division lies with the Cranborne Chase Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, I am pleased to be a member of the Cranborne Chase Partnership Panel. I feel very strongly about protecting this beautiful landscape but there is a balance to be had in trying to achieve sustainable communities and I do support some housing development, particularly if we can provide some affordable homes to attract younger people and families to live closer to their employment. I am always happy to try to help, so please let me know if there are any problems that need resolving and I will try my best to sort things out. Hindon surgery report: The annual survey (overall satisfaction) 7th out of 7,5000 GP practices in England) and the Friends and Families test (99%) suggested our patients like what we do and do not want to change. Detailed reports are on our web site. Dr Julian Treadwell left for Oxford at the end of March after 31/2 years at the surgery. We have three months with just the GP partners before a new GP assistant and a regular mid month locum start in July. Patrick has to take 24 hour retirement to get his NHS pension paid as soon as he is 60. He will work on just three mornings in May/June with Sally doing the rest. Claire Polley has left to look after elderly relatives and Maxine Smallbone joined us in reception and dispensary The application for a new surgery building is with NHS England. Patient Representative Group met on 27th February and much of the meeting we discussed plans to manage the work during reduced GP availability and the new surgery. We have implemented the only change requested following the Care Quality Commission inspection in August 2016 (lockable consulting room doors) but other comments about confidentiality and lack of space can only be solved by a new building. We are using the fund to buy essential equipment that can be moved to a new building and have had several generous donations during the year. We continue to work closely with locality practices and already share a specialist nurse who works to reduce the risk of patients aged 75 and above from emergency hospital admission. We are now a dementia friendly practice and set up the first Wiltshire multidisciplinary memory clinic involving David Burton from Alzheimer’s Support. The local community team is struggling to recruit and retain staff and can only provide a service to the genuinely housebound with longer waiting times for therapists. Thank you to all our staff and the attached community staff, local GP practices, social services and hospital support for helping us to provide your care and to our patients for their continuing support and help with what we do. Hindon Parish Council The Parish Council has a good complement of councillors but would like to see another lady Councillor join us. Our Parish Clerk for many years, Elizabeth Young will be retiring shortly so we will need a new Clerk. We are very grateful to Elizabeth for her hard work over many years. Neighbourhood planning is one of our main focuses at the moment. Cllr Robinson is in the lead role ably assisted by Cllr Gentle. The draft plan is nearly there but Cllr Robinson will take us through progress so far. We have two new speed indicator devices called SIDS, and we have found they are more effective in controlling speed than the traffic calming measures we have tried. Cllr Freeman is the lead on the Speedwatch Team as well as looking after Highways, Emergency planning, flooding and Snow Watch. He has also joined the Governing body at the school and will be giving a report tonight on the school. The precept has been increased this year to £11,500. This reflects the extra work needed on the allotments, playground and up keep to walks around the village. The clerk’s salary has also increased in line with recommendations. Any capital works we apply for from Wiltshire Council will require a 20% contribution from the Parish Council and we will need to be ready for this. The planning committee comprising of Cllrs Robertson, Bowen, Robinson, Constable and Ongley meet regularly to discuss planning applications on buildings and trees. The allotments are looked after for the Parish Council by Cllr Caughey. He liaises closely with John Akeroyd of HACA and attends their meetings. We have had some maintenance work to undergrowth and fencing down the allotment path. Cllr Gough regularly inspects the playground to ensure it is safe and in good order. We have carried out work to reduce nuisance at the western end of the mini sized football pitch to cut down noise and footballs going into nearby gardens. We hope to provide with the Neighbourhood Plan somewhere for bigger kids to play football. Village Hall committee has a PC representative serving on it. Cllr Bowen is our Rights of Way man; he ensures the walks are kept tidy and fit for people to enjoy a walk around. Cllr Ongley looks after our entry into the Best Kept Village competition this year and he needs help from everyone to keep the village looking lovely. The village web site continues to expand. It contains information on the Parish Council agendas, meetings and minutes. We hope to add a link to the monthly newsletter but had a couple of problems to sort out. Fly tipping is an ongoing issue and will probably increase if Recycling Centres continue with their ever-restrictive access. Community Shop The AGM for the shop will take place on the 7th June and it is at that meeting a detailed analysis of the previous financial year will be given. All shareholders are invited to attend. The retail business continues to have challenges. The most recent of these as far as the shop is concerned is a series of wholesale suppliers have gone out of business.