CROPWELL BUTLER PARISH COUNCIL

CHAIRMAN’S ANNUAL REPORT – VILLAGE MEETING 10 APRIL 2017

Meetings and Councillors

In a year of relative stability for the Parish Council, just one change of Councillor took place. Andy Thompson stepped down early in the year due to time pressures from his other commitments, and following the due recruitment process, we welcomed back former Parish Clerk John Lenthall, now as a Parish Councillor. Our thanks go to Andy for his services and contributions over several years as a Parish Councillor, and we certainly miss his ‘informal’ legal opinion on a variety of subjects. With Brenda Day, we now have two former Parish Clerks back as Councillors.

The Parish Council held 11 full meetings, and several meetings of various sub-committees, in the 12 months to 31 March 2017. Once again, I am grateful for the support and contributions from my fellow Parish Councillors and Parish Clerk Sally Carter throughout the year, and we also much appreciate the support and guidance of Councillors Richard Butler ( County Council) and Gordon Moore ( Borough Council). Richard will no longer be our local County Councillor from the forthcoming May local elections due to boundary changes, as Cropwell Butler is moved into the new Bingham West ward. We particularly want to thank Richard for his many contributions to the Parish over many years.

Finance and Regulatory

Details of income and expenditure can be seen in the accompanying Clerk’s Financial Report. A sub- committee of Councillors and the Clerk met in December 2016 to prepare a proposed precept, which was increased for the first time in a number of years, primarily to reflect the increased costs to the Parish Council of establishing and maintaining the new Village website (see later); accordingly the proposed precept was £11,933 vs. last year’s £11,220, which represents slightly over a 6% increase. The precept proposal was accepted at the January Parish Council meeting. Neil Gledson continues to carry out our internal audit, with our thanks.

Standing Orders, Financial Regulations, Policies and Procedures, Standards of Conduct, and Member’s Interests Forms, which are given to all Parish Councillors, have undergone a review, though more will be done to revise or remove out of date documents when time permits.

Maintenance Contract, Allotments, Cemetery and Children’s Playground

Following a competitive tender process, a new 3-year agreement has recently been made with our existing main ground-care contractor, intended to continue to deliver a high quality and reliable service to maintain the Village Green, Village Hall gardens, Playground and Cemetery as attractive village amenities. Allotment rents have been maintained for another year, but are being kept under review due to continued high water bills; allotment tenants have been advised accordingly. Poor’s Close, a small paddock near Hoe Hill accessed via Hoe Lane, and owned by the Parish Council, has now been vacant for more than a year. We would welcome any interest in taking on the tenancy (details from the Clerk), but also invite ideas for any other purpose it might be put to.

Cemetery Fees and Charges, and general policy, were reviewed last year, and we have maintained a more restrictive policy on plot sales to Cropwell Butler parishioners only, with other requests considered at the Parish Council’s discretion. The path around the cemetery has been re-laid, and a new block-paved entrance through the Lych Gate, with new shallow steps and handrail, has been installed. The project used funds from the John Samworth legacy, which was match-funded by the County Council’s ‘Supporting Local Communities’ scheme, for which we are very grateful. The Children’s Playground has continued to be regularly inspected against a checklist, and annually by an external inspector. Any issues raised receive attention, though since reliable vandal resistant bird spikes have proved elusive so far, the resulting pigeon mess remains a problem.

Village Hall, Village Newsletter, and Sheldon Field

Several Parish Councillors are also members of the Village Hall and/or Sheldon Field Committees, which helps maintain a close link between all three bodies. The Parish Council provided discretionary grants to both organisations, and again sourced and funded the Christmas tree for the Village Hall front lawn and financed the annual Bonfire and Firework display, which is run as a Parish Council event with proceeds retained for the Sheldon Field. We thank both Committees for their contributions to the village.

The Newsletter is another community facility which is produced and distributed by a small group of volunteers with our thanks, and any reasonable financial shortfall is subsidised by the Parish Council. Particular tribute must be made to John Fawcett, who has recently retired from editing and assembling each monthly newsletter. Following an uncertain period when it looked like the newsletter might have to be replaced solely with an online substitute, we were very pleased to hear that Bill Hill has volunteered to take over from John, and has now edited his first edition, hopefully the first of many!

Village Website

Following a lull in the website’s development, primarily due to lack of Parish Council time and knowledge, we asked Mike Jones if he would bring his IT project management expertise out of retirement to work with the professional web designer to complete the initial implementation. Mike’s contribution has been invaluable in ensuring the launch of www.cropwellbutler.com on 1 December, and we are very grateful to Mike for his dedication in making this happen. The site incorporates individual sections for the various village groups together with a calendar function, and is still undergoing a degree of development in conjunction with the web developer as we gain knowledge on the maintenance and update procedures. This is primarily a new and additional role for the Parish Clerk, resulting in agreement by the Finance sub- committee to increase Sally’s monthly hours contract from 1 April 2017.

The John Samworth Legacy

As reported last year, the Parish Council was extremely fortunate to be bequeathed the sum of £100,000 in the late John Samworth’s will. Having consulted initially with John’s widow, Lesley, we had also consulted with the whole village to ask for proposals which would be a fitting tribute to John and would benefit the village as widely as possible. A series of ad hoc Parish Council meetings have been held during the past year to agree the criteria for the type of projects which should be taken forward, and also to score each proposal made against those criteria. This process resulted in a number of the proposals, covering projects at the Village Hall (two projects), Sheldon Field (three projects) and Methodist Chapel (one project), being taken forward, and £10,000 has been retained for Parish Council projects, including the new Cemetery path and steps. Revised financial and purchasing procedures have been implemented to meet the necessary standards during the procurement and implementation stages, and all projects are now well underway. The spend to date on each project is reported separately, and we would envisage that the vast majority of the funds will be spent during the current financial year.

Buses, Roads and Paths

Following the previous withdrawal of the Trent Barton ‘Rushcliffe Greens’ bus service through the village, and its replacement with a less useable County Council connecting service to and Radcliffe, we have continued to attempt to revive a more acceptable service. Liaison meetings have been held with Trent Barton and the County Council, including various village and Cropwell Bishop representatives, but it seems abundantly clear that there is neither the budget nor the will to make the service better for us, or indeed other villages which have seen a reduction in service quality. We are therefore not optimistic that an improvement will be seen in the foreseeable future, but we’ll keep up any pressure we can bring to bear. In the meantime, we would encourage use of the Connect service to help at least maintain that service.

Notts County Council Highways, now contracted out as Via , are informed of various road and path defects, and other improvement proposals, on a frequent basis, but budget restrictions usually mean that either nothing is done or inadequate pot-hole filling is carried out which does not last. This problem has become significantly more pronounced over the past year, and road conditions in and around certain parts of the village are now abysmal. There are particularly significant problems on Back Lane/Butler Close and Tythby Road, requiring both road/path redesign for safety reasons and substantial repair work, all of which have been reported to Via EM. It is clear to us that Cropwell Butler, probably not alone in Rushcliffe, is not receiving sufficient attention, and we encourage all residents to also report faults themselves either in writing or on the ‘report a fault’ page of the County Council’s website. We have started to publish responses that the Parish Council receives from Via EM on our own website.

Planning and the Rushcliffe Green Belt Review

As a statutory consultee, the Parish Council receives a number of planning applications of varying degrees of complexity throughout the year. Our views, observations, and recommendations are made to Rushcliffe Borough Council as appropriate.

The saga of Rushcliffe Borough Council’s ‘Core Strategy’ for housing development, including a review of the Green Belt within the Borough, has continued. As Cropwell Butler is one of eight villages in the Borough proposed to have the main core of the village ‘inset’ from the Green Belt, we had made a proposal to RBC for the positioning of the ‘inset boundary’ twenty months ago, and had by now expected this to have been accepted. However, we are caught up in delays and revisions to Part 2b of the Strategy, which seems to have no direct additional impact on us (but certainly impacts Cropwell Bishop), and means that the final outcome is still not known for sure.

Police and Ambulance Service Liaison

We continue to take every opportunity to maintain Police awareness of relevant Village issues, including our involvement when possible in local Police Liaison meetings. Speeding through the village, often involving ‘rat-runners’ passing through as quickly as they dare, remains a significant problem. We have recently revisited the potential for implementing a local Road Safety group, previously known as ‘Speedwatch’.

The Parish Council’s ‘public access’ defibrillator, in a security cabinet in our phone box, is now registered with EMAS for emergency public use. Anyone needing to use the equipment in an emergency calls 999, and apart from initiating the attendance of paramedic/ambulance help, is given the necessary access details. The machine itself gives verbal instructions for its use to even an untrained user, and initially merely monitors the heart and will not defibrillate unless it diagnoses that requirement.

Communication

We are keen to ensure that we continue to represent the views and interests of all parishioners, and we therefore encourage residents of the Parish to contact any Parish Councillor or the Parish Clerk on any relevant issue or concern. The address and phone number for the Parish Clerk are published with meeting agendas/minutes. Contact details can be found for Parish Councillors on the website www.cropwellbutler.com, and can also be contacted via the clerk’s email address: [email protected].

Chris Davenport

Chairman, Cropwell Butler Parish Council

10 April 2017