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COWLINGE PARISH COUNCIL

Minutes of a Meeting of the Parish Council held on 26th June 2017 in the Village Hall

Open Forum for items not on the agenda: Nothing raised

Present: Councillors: J Giblenn, J Deeks, S Smith and Lauren Evans (part). Also attending were Borough Councillor J Midwood (part) and Clerk J Barnett.

Item Action

1 Apologies for absence: Councillors Davis, Jamieson and Jones. Also County Councillor Mary Evans.

2 Receive Councillors Declarations of Interest in any agenda item: None declared.

3 Open Forum for items on the agenda: Nothing raised.

4 Minutes of the last meetings: The Council approved the minutes of the Annual Parish Council meeting on 22nd May 2017 and the payments made at that meeting.

5 Matters arising from those minutes: Possible land transfer at Tillbrooks Hill. Clerk said that information had been received from Havebury to say that they were planning to move away from charity status. Councillor Midwood said she understood they wished to become a Housing Association. This would mean that any possible land transfer is unlikely to happen this financial year. Councillor Midwood said that the Locality Budget money already given for this could be held over to Clerk next year if necessary. Also if the Parish Council wanted assistance with changing to better quality litter bins to improve the appearance of the village then she would be prepared to assist this year with her Locality Budget. Council to agree what bins required and to let Councillor Clerk Midwood know what assistance is requested.

6 Co-option of Councillor: Lauren Evans was co-opted onto the Council and signed her Declaration of Acceptance of Office. Councillor Evans was asked to fill in her Register of Members Interests form and LE return to the Clerk within 28 days for forwarding to the Monitoring Officer at West Council. Clerk

7 St Edmundsbury Borough Council: Councillor Midwood said that St Edmundsbury Borough Council was setting up Barley Homes company to build new homes for Borough residents - effectively Council homes again. The new Waste Hub at Rougham goes to Planning next month - there have been some issues. St Edmundsbury Borough Council and Forest Heath are finally to merge completely. There will be a Boundary Review within the process. Councillor Midwood said she is keeping an eye on the application at Cowlinge Hall to ensure

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that the planning conditions are followed. There will need to be a new post code for the Hall to ensure traffic does not try to access via Elms Road. Councillor Smith agreed with this in that there is already confusion between Hall Cottages in and Cowlinge with post often going to the wrong village. Councillor Midwood said that one item for County Councillor Mary Evans was a pothole at Clerk the road edge beyond Shardelows towards .

8 Suffolk County Council: Councillor Mary Evans had sent a report: 1. The clerk and I met for a site visit at Parklands last Thursday and I took photos and walked round the road boundaries of the site so the clerk could show me where the ditches have been filled in. I have written up a report for highways/flooding so they can take action as clearly when we do get rain the road will flood in several places. I was shocked to see how after such a prolonged dry period the ditch with the adjoining property is so very full of standing water. We did try to meet the householder but no one was home. 2. I have asked the highways planning team to work with St Eds planning to ensure the right road access is used for the Cowlinge Hall development works. 3. On the Better Broadband forward work programme premises in Hobbles Green are due to be upgraded by September. I have asked officers to investigate to see if there is any scope for a local self-dig scheme to extend this upgrade further. I will keep you posted. 4. I am holding a funding advice session for village halls at Village Hall on Monday 31 July at 7.30pm with SCC external funding specialist Andy Cuthbertson. I am aware of a number of halls looking for funding and it seemed a good opportunity to share information. An invitation will be emailed out this week. 5. Suffolk’s Fire and Rescue Service is undertaking a thorough review and check of all high rise buildings in the country following the terrible Grenfell Tower Fire. So far, I gather, nothing untoward has been found. Officer have sought to talk to residents and give them advice and reassurance. Calls to fires in high rise premises are recorded against three categories, according to the number of floors in the building. They are: 1-3 floors (low rise) 4-9 floors (medium rise) 10 floors and above (high rise) we have in Suffolk 98 high rise premises, of which 19 have 8, or more, floors: 14 of these are residential. The number of medium rise properties is 35, of which 13 are residential. Fire crews routinely train at the locations of these high rise buildings to gain experience and knowledge of access routes etc Pre-determined attendances are assigned to specific types of emergencies and risk premises. The Suffolk attendance to a fire, smell of burning or smell of smoke within any high rise building of 5 or more floors is: · 5 x pumping appliances · 1 x aerial appliance and support appliance · 1 x command support vehicle and support appliance · 2 x flexible duty (Level 2) officers · 1 x Group Commander (Level 3) officer Finally, My Life My Future is a programme of work to improve the lives of people with learning disabilities and bring them closer to the vision of the Joint Learning Disability Strategy 2015-2020. Over the past 18 months, extensive co-production and engagement has taken place with Signed Chair Date 397 398

self-advocates, families, providers and other stakeholders to develop proposals to change the way learning disability services in Suffolk could be delivered in the future. A formal consultation to gain views about the proposals has launched and will be open until 5pm, Monday 10 July. Information about the proposals is available at: www.suffolk.gov.uk/consultations. Please take the time to visit the webpage and find out more about the proposals. Information about the consultation will be distributed widely and available in different formats.

9 Highways: The situation at Parklands had been dealt with in Councillor Mary Evans report. Councillor Deeks reported a pothole on Red Dock Lane. Clerk

10 Speeding in the village: Councillor Giblenn said that this had been brought up at the Annual Village Meeting and needs discussing to see if there are any solutions/ideas. Councillor Lauren Evans said that it was sometimes difficult even to pull out onto the road from their parking area - a recent car had been doing around 50mph at that point and made it dangerous. Councillor Sue Smith said that it was dangerous simply walking along the road due to lack of pavements. Clerk said that they had tried some years back to get an extension of the only pavement on the C666 in the village (a very short stretch at the Old Stores at Pound Green) to go round to the pub but that proved impossible due to cost. Councillor Lauren Evans suggested more signs - Clerk said he will ask for more 30mph repeaters as there is a lack of reminders through the village. There Clerk was discussion about the possibility of having a 20mph in the village and perhaps using children's posters 'This is not a race track' from Tindalls. There is also the possibility of 30mph stickers for the bins. Clerk to obtain costs for these. Clerk

11 Seat on Three Tuns Green: Clerk said that his family and a friend who have in total 3 of the seat plaques, will have a family morning there to clean the seat most likely in the school holidays. Clerk

12 Digitising village archives: Clerk said that the 2 volunteers had said that they had not been able to start on the digitising as the weather had been so good. They had decided that it was more appropriate for the Winter period.

13 Village Hall; Window blinds. Quotation received for dim-out solar backed blinds including fitting. This Clerk was approved by the Council. The garden area at the back is to be added to the contractors grasscutting schedule. Clerk

14 Planning applications: 1. DC/17/1010/HH - 5 Erratts Hill. Two storey side extension, two single storey rear extensions and porch to front elevation. There were no objections to this. 2. DC/17/0986/HH - 1 Tillbrooks Hill. First floor rear extension. There were no objections to this. 3. DC/17/1068/HH - Woodlands. Single storey rear extension. There were no Clerk objections to this. 4. Information received regarding the change of use at Bridgelands Farm from Class B8 Storage to 2 dwellings. This is under permitted development regulations.

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15 Correspondence: 1. Letter received regarding Tree Wardens and whether it was something the Parish would be interested in joining a possible county-wide scheme. There was no interest in this. 2. The current low-cost Village Hall electricity contract is to end in August. The Clerk has signed up for the continuation of the current contract for a further year. 3. Anglian Water supplies the water to the village hall and the business has been transferred to Anglian Water Business. There is no change to the terms.

16 Finance: 1. The 2016/17 accounts were approved and Clerk will send the required papers to the Clerk external auditor BDO 2. Accounts for payment. The Council approved 7 payments totalling £589.60 Clerk

17 Village events notified: Coffee Caravan 10/8 and 30/11 Farm Walk 23/9 EAAA coffee morning 30/9 Councillor Smith said that everyone she has spoken to has said that the Open Gardens had gone well. There will be a donation to the Village Hall.

18 Matters for consideration at the next meeting: Nothing raised.

19 Next meetings dates: The next meeting dates are: 11th September, 20th November (pre-budget meeting)

There being no further business the Chairman thanked the Councillors for their attendance and declared the meeting closed at 9.05pm

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