Buckfastleigh West Parish Council

Home , Hatherleigh, Scorriton, West Buckfastleigh

Minutes of the Annual Parish Meeting held Tuesday 2nd April 2019 at the Village Hall , Scoriton Meeting Commenced approx 7.30pm

Present – Cllrs Brent ( Chairman ), Colwill , Holmes , Le Marchant, Niering & Thomas Karen Gilbert as Clerk 6 members of the Public District Cllr Smerdon and C Cllr Hosking Helen Parr Community Engagement Oﬃcer Devon Greater Horseshoe Bat Project

The meeting started with a talk and presentation by Helen Parr, Community Engagement Oﬃcer Devon Greater Horseshoe Bat Project . Helen explained that the project had been running nearly four years and had just over a year to run , being funded by Lottery money . Its aim was to raise awareness on the Horseshoe bats which mainly frequent the South West of England Questions were presented and answered and Helen was thanked by Simon Brent - Chairman of BWPC for the excellent presentation - which , it was agreed , was enjoyed by all .

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2. APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE Ella Briens - DNPA ranger , Belinda Owen - Commoners , Leyton Juste - Twinning association and Laura Colwill - Scoriton Flower Show

3. Report from the Chairman of Buckfastleigh West Parish Council

I would like to start welcoming you all to the Annual Parish meeting and to once again thanks Helen for ﬁnding the time to give us her fascinating talk on the Devon Greater Horseshoe bat project. Having such a huge local population makes this all the more interesting and something we can all potentially become involved with .

The weather during the last 12 months has been far kinder to us than the previous year and apart from some unblocking of buddle holes and drains , has not required to much work. I had one nighttime outing with the village gritter - that was about it . Many thanks to all who helped to keep the water ﬂowing oﬀ the roads

Once again this year the Parish Council employed a very part time lengths man at strategic times in order to carry out the donkey work of unblocking drains, mainly after hedges had.been ﬂailed . I think this is money well invested and my thanks go to Sue for directing him to the Buddle holes that require attention

There have again been a number of planning applications for the Parish Council to comment on after which DNP makes decisions

We continue to receive the monthly police reports for which we are very grateful as they keep us informed of local crime and incidents

In the early November we had another excellent and very well attended Village Firework display. Many thanks to the team who gave up their time once again to set these up and then risked life and limb to let oﬀ the explosives . It still gets the adrenaline ﬂowing after all these years

I would once again like to thank both Peter Smerdon and Cllr Hosking who attend our meetings on a regular basis and give us a update on the decisions being made at both District and County levels. Always fascinating to hear what's going on in these areas and I think it's important that Parish councils have the opportunity to pass their thoughts onus the line We have unfortunately recently lost Sonia Lee is a valued member of the Parish Council . Sonia has moved away from the parish and I would like to thank her for her time with us and wish her luck with her future

Finally I'd like to end as usual by saying a huge thank you to all those local people who are happy to give their time freely in order to both carryout work and put on events around the Parish. All of your contributions to make this a really great parish to l live in

Simon Brent 2/4/2019

4. Report from County Cllr Richard Hosking 1 BUDGET Devon County Council has increased its precept by 3.99% this year contributing to an overall increase of our Revenue budget by 3% to £493 million. Within the budget there are increases of; 9.4% for increased demand in Children’s Services 2% for Adult Care & Health Services, and a reduction of 6.6% for Corporate There is a Spending Review scheduled for 2019. 2. CARE SERVICES Promoting Independence in Devon is our vision for providing Adult Care Services across the County. We await the publication of the Green Paper for Social Care to accompany the recently published NHS Long Term Plan. Public Health Nursing was taken back in house this year along with our There is now greater emphasis on offering help with Mental Health issues for children across the County. 3. FOSTER CARERS ALLOWANCES We have some 700 children in our care and about 46% of them are placed with Foster Carers. We reviewed Foster Carers allowances this year to attract more people to offer a loving home to Devon’s Children in Care in Future years. The decision process takes 3 years. 4. EDUCATION Devon still languishes at the lower end of the league tables for per pupil funding at £304 below the National Average despite intensive lobbying by South West MPs. James McInnes our Cabinet Lead is chair of the F40 Group of County Councils lobbying to reduce that deficit. 5. TRANSPORT We are pleased to note the commitment of £80 million to reinforce the railway line and sea wall at Dawlish. 6. INFRASTRUCTURE a) CDS has helped to connect over 300K premises to Superfast Broadband b) Take up 54% which has released £6m through Government Gainshare agreement for further investment by BT c) Better Broadband voucher programme now offering £350 to anyone with < 2 Mb download and no prospect of a contract in next 12 months for alternative systems, satellite, microwave, Wi-fi and 4G. d) Gigaclear are working hard to deliver their commitment to the next 5% e) Street Lighting – Devon County Council have saved £850,000 in the five years since we commenced installation of LED street lights. The programme will continue within the limitations of our capital budget. 7. HIGHWAYS Devon County Council were successful in securing an allocation of £18.745 million additional funding for pothole, surfacing and drainage repairs. 8. INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY Devon continues to invest in improved IT services and our in house team called SCOMIS have been successful again this year, winning awards and contracts for the provision of education service software and contributing significantly to the earned income of the County. LOCALLY 9. The Winter Service Task Group has now produced its report. The conclusion is that stakeholders are reasonably content with the service we provide in icy and snowy weather. We identified things we would like to improve but are unable to do so within the current budget constraints. Pleased to report that we have identified an insurance company that are willing to quote to cover driver, vehicle and gritter for volunteers operating as snow wardens. 10. I have received no requests from West Buckfastleigh for contributions from my Invest in Devon or Locality Funds. Charities and not for profit organisations benefitting the community are invited to apply for modest contributions to for example equipment purchase, repairs to property or events.

5. Report from District Councillor Smerdon - Cllr Smerdon commented on the rises in the Council Tax at District level - a £5 maximum increase at a rate of 3% against a national average of 4.99% The Joint Local Plan on which the three Councils of Plymouth, South Hams and West Devon have been co-operating was approved by Government Planning Inspectors this week. It was adopted by S Hams Full Council on Thursday. The Plan, which sets out development and housing policies for 25 years, covers a population of over 400,000 and a land area of 820 square miles, from Hatherleigh to Salcombe, and Marldon to the Tamar Bridge. Dartmoor National Park is developing its own Local Plan and is not part of this one. The Plan Delivery Team won an award for their work, bringing a very complex set of requirements into a workable and deliverable Plan in a total of 3 years, a very tight schedule. Cllr Smerdon highlighted the changes wish were to be implemented to the Waste collection service but added that probably not until March 2020

6 . Speakers / reports from Parish organisations

Scoriton Village Hall Management Committee - Cllr Le Marchant confirmed that the finances of the Hall are relatively healthy and that the damage caused by the recent ram raid ( damage to the lower glass due to a confused escapee sheep ) had been rectified . She also commented that there had been many Villages in Action productions in the past year - with 2 planned for the month of April

Scoriton Show We had another very good year last year - the weather held out for us and again it was a bustling day full of people .Firstly we would like to thank all those who made it possible and gave up so much of their time - from the committee members to all the volunteers and stallholders who made the day that more enjoyable

We were able to support a number of local organisations lwith donations from the 2018 Show which were Devon Air Ambulance , Dartmoor Rescue , Scoriton ﬁreworks , Scoriton Chapel Buckfastleigh Christmas lunches , Dartmoor Hill ponies and Holne events group

Volunteers are always welcome whatever amount of time that they able to spare

Do you get in touch if you think you may be able to help and thank you everyone for your continued support . We will hopefully see you all on 26th of August for this years show

The Parish Tree Warden Simon Brent , as Parish Tree warden , reported that Stumpy Oak was in relatively good shape - with Stumpy junior growing well

National Trust - NO REPORT

Methodist Chapel Cllr Colwill advised that there continued to be a regular loyal congregation with good attendance at the Harvest Festival and carol concert . There was a planned Summer Walk which will be followed by a cream tea and a Songs of Praise

Buckfastleigh West Commoners - We only have one meeting a year . The Association includes all Commoners who have paid their dues, there are four graziers . Our meetings discusses - ﬁre plan and training, areas identiﬁed for bracken crushing and swaling, liaising with Natural England, grazing calendar and stock movements

Police Report - NO REPORT

Dartmoor National Park Ranger

Report from DNPA Ranger Ella Briens Recently I have been working with Kerry Smith – Dartmoor Headwaters Project Officer as the Mardle catchment and Dean Burn has been selected to be part of a Natural Flood Management project run by the Environment Agency - part of a £1.2 million project across the headwaters of Dartmoor. (Other project areas on Dartmoor are Peter Tavy, Walkhampton catchments and Hanger Down). The project aims to work with natural processes taking action to manage flood and coastal erosion risk by protecting, restoring and emulating the natural regulating functions of catchments, rivers, floodplains and coasts. In practice this means land management and soft engineering - looking at repairing river banks, restoring woodlands, building ‘leaky dams’ from timber, stone and earth banks, restoring soil quality and flood plains – all projects aimed at slowing down the water and giving it time to soak into the ground rather than filling rivers with fast flowing, silt filled run-off. . Buckfastleigh and the river Mardle were selected as the terrain is a good match for many other parts of Dartmoor – giving useful data for other places. The project also aims to improve habitat’s and increase biodiversity, and contribute to research and development. What has this meant on the ground? We have been out onto Lambsdown recently as I am keen to combine our efforts and also look at impacts on Public Rights of Way from water erosion so the PRoW network will also benefit. . In other words I have been trying to co-ordinate where ‘Natural Flood Management’ can not only help with flooding and catchment issues downstream, but also help ‘save’ our rights of way in terms of erosion from flash flooding events….

For more information contact [email protected]

Public Rights of Way remain a signiﬁcant part of our work. Rangers submit annual bids for works that they would like to achieve on rights of way in the Parishes they look after. I have currently bid for drainage works to be carried out again with a contractor in Burchetts wood, and on the Scorriton to Chalk Ford route to compliment the work we have been doing with volunteers.

We have a new system where you can report issues / problems with Dartmoors rights of way… See the new CamsWeb – https://prow.dartmoor.gov.uk

Key Messages – We are keeping the new look ‘lambing and Bird Nesting signs’ – part of the work that Becky Davies has been doing with the Ranger team. There have been a number of recent media reports regarding dogs and livestock, and it is useful to be able to back this up on the ground with signs on moorland gateways, together with enclosed fields with rights of way, that suffer with dog issues. Regarding litter (we are continuing with our #2 minute litter-picks – we were the first National Park to join the 2 minute beach clean campaign and go ‘inland’ to tidy up) and in addition this month, we are teaming up with the Tidy Britain Campaign and running a couple of community litter-pick events during their Tidy Britain 2019 Spring Clean – specifically this time on Roborough Down and Haytor - but if you would like to get involved more locally we can lend out litter-pickers and sacks but thankfully we feel that Buckfastleigh West is a comparatively tidy Parish ☺ . These advertised litter-picks are also part of our National Parks Fortnight of events with many free activities (6th – 21st April, celebrating National Parks fortnight and National Parks 70th anniversary) http://www.dartmoor.gov.uk/emjoydartmoor/planning-your- visit/discover-national-parks-fortnight...... to find out more.

Patrolling and CSAS – another signiﬁcant area of work that ties in with DNPA key messages - we regularly patrol honey pot sites and patrol jointly with the Police, and have been working together tackling issues such as illegal oﬀ-road vehicles and wildlife crime. This has recently been renewed and our work with the Police is ongoing. As a consequence this work does take us away from ‘quieter areas though.

New ‘Enjoy Dartmoors’ are out now…promoting the Scorriton Show….thank you to Sue Colwill who was hopefully able to bring some along to the meeting? ☺

Volunteer Wardens – thank you to local VW’s who help us out and continue to support Rangers with local events, litter-picking, surveying rights of way and more – Ethan Parsons, Pete Kerton, Jo Burgess, Tim Ferry, Janet Bomback and Carol and Bruce Durrant and community path volunteer Ron Dudley.

Other News… Shipley Volunteers – A successful start to an archaeological project on the old clay workings above the car park. DNPA have had lots of support from volunteers which is greatly appreciated, and to put this in perspective we had over 60 volunteered days from mostly local people which is a real boost to our Archaeological work as the budget for these kinds of projects is virtually non- existent.

Youth Rangers – The new Two Moors Way Marker Stone. What a project this will be - as we plan to erect a new marker stone weighing approximately 250kg! ‘Youth Rangers’ starts this year as a progression from Ranger Ralph Club and Junior Rangers…Rangers were tasked with providing a set of Dartmoor challenges for the Youth Rangers and this one will ‘step up to the mark’ and will need good team work and ingenuity!

Current Changes within the Ranger team Simon Lee is our Ranger Team Manager and Rob Steemson (previous Head Ranger) is now our conservation and communities Ranger.

Don’t forget! – enews, facebook, twitter, web-site My Contact Details – 07711104546 [email protected]

Holne Community Shop and Tearoom Sue Colwill advised that the Shop now contains new lines as well as the excellent selection of day to day items and encouraged everyone both in Scoriton and Holne to use the shop regularly to ensure its future . The Shop Committee was grateful for the hard work from the volunteers and thanked the users of the shop and tearoom for their support

Scoriton Village Twinning association The Twinning is ﬂourishing thanks to Buckfastleigh members . Sadly we do not have many local members - but all members are very enthusiastic . Last year we visited Fontaine Henry at the Spring Bank Holiday and , as usual , we were made very welcome and all had a wonderful weekend . There was the usual Vin d”heurre on the Saturday evening and on the Sunday we visited Falaise , the birth place of William the Conqueror . We had a very informative guided tour of the town and we also visited the Castle , and a delicious lunch was provided at a local hotel . On the Monday , the host families entertain their guests and in the evening there are lots of parties with various groups getting together . The twinning raises funds throughout the year by running various events . This year our French friends will be visiting us at the end of August , as they are always keen to attend the Flower Show Cllr Niering commented that he felt that a report should be given - in person if possible - by the Parish Council representative from Dartmoor National Park