MINUTES OF THE ANNUAL ASSEMBLY OF MORETON PINKNEY PARISH COUNCIL Held on Wednesday 2nd April 2014 at 7.30pm in the Village Hall

Present: Richard Lainchbury Chairman Andy Jalland Vice Chairman Brian Collett Councillor James Smith Councillor Les Tucker Councillor Ben Vincent Councillor Caroline Clerk

Ian Morris County Councillor Peter Davies District Councillor Graham Suppiah PCSO Police Clive Ashmore PCSO Tim Eastwood St Mary’s Church Leonard Baxter Village Hall Committee Linda Tucker Garden Club Margaret Goodwin Indoor Bowls Dick Holloway Moreton Pinkney Charities Denise Hawes Apologies: None

1. The Chairman welcomed those present at the meeting.

2. Minutes of the 2013 Annual Assembly Minutes of the Annual Assembly held on 3rd April 2013 had been circulated prior to the meeting and it was agreed they should be signed by the Chairman as a true record.

3. Matters Arising There were no matters arising.

4. Reports 4.1 Police PCSO Clive Ashmore explained that he covers Washington ward (which is eight villages including Moreton Pinkney) with PCSO Graham Suppiah covering the towns, overseen by Inspector Andy Hall and Sgt Micki Simons. He gave the crime report for the ward for the year ending 31st March, there were 31 crimes in all with one theft in Moreton Pinkney, oftwo empty barrels from a field. Northants Police are looking for Police Support Volunteers and Special Constables and residents are encouraged to join up, leaflets were left in the village hall for those interested. PCSO Ashmore also encouraged residents to report crimes, especially drug related ones. This can be done anonymously via Crime Stoppers on 0800 555 111. In response to a question from Col Eastwood about a policeman resident in the village, PCSO Ashmore said when police are at home they are off duty, although they would be available in an emergency. Dist Cllr Davies asked for a breakdown of the 31 crimes in the ward, these were predominantly burglaries of both dwellings and non-dwellings i.e. sheds and garages, with some criminal damage. Margaret Goodwin asked how many of these crimes were solved, but PSCO Ashmore did not have those figures to hand. 1 Moreton Pinkney Parish Council Annual Meeting 02.04.14 PSCO Ashmore recommended the use of timeswiches on lights and asking neighbours to put out and bring in bins etc to give the impression that someone is at home, especially when you go on holiday.

4.2 Ian Morris – County Councillor Highways Maintenance Initiative - our Northamptonshire Highways Maintenance Initiative has been hailed as a success and gained national recognition for its approach. Over fifteen authorities have adopted our approach. Pothole related claims against the Council have seen a decrease over this Same period and the amount of ‘right first time’ permanent repairs has improved dramatically by over 50% (from 45% to 97%). In addition, in the first two years of this initiative efficiency savings of £126k through reduced fuel usage were reinvested into the Service and on average over 30% increase in preventative road treatments were carried out. NHMI has proven that the ‘right first time’ and preventative approach makes good use of resources directed at highway maintenance. March 2014 saw Northamptonshire County Council being allocated an extra £1.5 million from a national pot of £140 million to repair our roads and partly due to the persistent efforts and campaign of Northampton North MP, Michael Ellis, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced a further £200 million fund for local authorities to bid from. Our County Council will be bidding strongly from this fund. New Generation Superfast Broadband At the beginning of February, Culture, Media and Sport Minister, Ed Vaisey came to Towcester to officially launch our County’s New Generation Superfast Broadband Project. We are the first in the country to begin works on this type of project. Families and businesses in and around Towcester can now avail of broadband speeds of up to 30mbs. This development represents a key technological and infrastructural foundation for the future economic wellbeing of our county where 90% of our county, especially rural areas, will feel the benefits of this exciting infrastructural programme by the end of next year. We have already secured £300,000 from Broadband Delivery UK in support of superfast broadband deployment in the Northampton Waterside Enterprise Zone and the indicative allocation of £3.4 million from the BDU Superfast Extension programme from 2015. The County Council has launched a new free Wi-Fi service across all 36 libraries. It is also available at Brixworth Country Park and the Record Office in Northampton. Getting our libraries connected is particularly useful during our Job Clubs, Enterprise Hubs events and other careers and business start-up activities. In April 2012, in association with Northamptonshire Enterprise Partnership, we launched a number of enterprise hubs in our libraries to help people who were thinking about taking the plunge and setting up their own business. Since then we have helped over 700 new entrepreneurs on their way to starting a business. Over 70 are already up and officially trading. That’s more than one new business launched from our libraries in the order of one every two weeks. In the same period, we’ve helped 10,000 people with advice, organised 3,400 activities under our Families & Futures programme, reaching out and engaging with 84,000 children and young people. 600 volunteers have contributed more than 23,000 hours of their time and 20 people have found paid jobs, directly as a result of volunteering in libraries. Economic recovery has really taken hold both nationally and regionally. Northamptonshire businesses continue to show confidence in both turnover and profitability over the next 12 months, with strong performances from those in the service sector. The survey shows 98% (up from 95% previous quarter) of respondents expect turnover to improve or stay the same over the 2 Moreton Pinkney Parish Council Annual Meeting 02.04.14 next 12 months and 74% (up from 62%) expect profitability to improve over the same period. Within the service sector, 95% of respondents expect turnover and 90% expect profitability to improve or remain the same in 2014 (a respective one point and three point improvement on the last quarter). Youth unemployment (18-24 year olds) has reduced from 7.2%, (Jan 2013) to 4.9%, (Jan 2014). Experian, the business and credit reference agency, undertook a significant piece of research and concluded that our County Town, Northampton as the best place in the country to set up or do business with. International Women’s Cycling Tour As the National Women’s Cycle tour race date on 7th May nears, the itinerary has already been organised. This prestigious and elite sporting event including Olympic and world champion cyclists will be going through quite a number of Northamptonshire villages. The competition will be in five stages The first stage of the race will be launched on 7th May from Oundle and go through villages such as Lower Benefield, Brigstock, Grafton Underwood, Boughton House, Geddington, Rushton, Desborough, Harrington, Lamport, Brixworth, Spratton, Chapel Brampton, Church Brampton, Althorp House, Great Brington, Little Brington, Nobottle, Kislingbury, Rothersthorpe, Milton Malsor, East Hunsbury, Wootton, Great Houghton and ending in Northampton, The second stage on 8th May will go through Welford, Naseby, Cottesbrook, Brixworth,Holcot, Sywell, Mears Ashby, Wilby, Great Doddington and Wollaston before finishing off in Bedford. Northamptonshire is a beautiful place to live and a county that we can be proud of. This is an opportunity for our County to be showcased and an opportunity to engage and enthuse young people, especially girls, to take up a sport such as cycling. Empowering Councillors Scheme Our Empowering Councillors scheme is as popular as ever. Countywide we have funded well over 2000 community projects to the tune of over £2million. In my district I made sure my money has made a positive difference by funding a new sand bin for Silverstone Village, Tree works for Weston and Weedon, a mobile Vehicle Activated Sign for Abthorpe, a donation to looked after children awards event, a new swing at Syresham , New Kitchen units at Whitfield village Hall and the removal of a redundant Cricket Pavilion in Boddington. I have agreed to commit the entire fund of £7k for next year towards paying to sort out the problems with the parking at the square in Moreton Pinkney and can re-state that commitment here. Cllr Morris has also spoken to Helen Howard at MGWSP and may have obtained a commitment for an additional £1000 for the scheme from her budget. High Speed Rail As the County Councillor with the most affected division in the county you will not be surprised to hear that this has been taking up a large amount of my time. I have been attending the High Speed Rail Liaison Group meetings at both the County and District Council and have found these to be both useful and practical meetings for everyone that has attended . Although I remain completely opposed to the project I do feel that these meetings have provided some very useful help for the Villages and Parishes involved as well as paving the way for some joined up thinking between the County , The District , Our MP and the parish’s . I have lobbied hard for some benefits to the county for all of the disruption and travel chaos that we are likely to face during the construction phase and the proposed by-pass at would be one of these. Since being elected last May I have been appointed to both the finance and Resources Scrutiny Committee and I am deputy Chair of the Environment , development and Transport Scrutiny committee . I am also a member of the LGSS Joint Scrutiny working Group . The first two are fairly self-explanatory and 3 Moreton Pinkney Parish Council Annual Meeting 02.04.14 the third is a scrutiny group for the joint services company set up in partnership with Cambridgeshire County Council . All three of these appointments are interesting and challenging but my main role is to lobby cabinet members on issues within my division that they can help resolve. If you want to contact me on any issue within your Parish then please do get in touch with me on 07710 198272 or e-mail me on [email protected] In response to a question from Col Eastwood regarding the roll out of high speed broadband, the lack of which adversely affects both house prices and rural businesses, Cllr Morris said he was as frustrated as everyone else and was lobbying hard. BT’s information is rather general, the Clerk will ensure the website address with the latest information is made available on the village website. Col Eastwood also commented that the lack of a good mobile phone signal was also an issue in rural areas, but recognised that this was a commercial matter. Cllr Collett commented that the Cty Cllr’s grant would not improve parking availability in The Square, but would improve the appearance and Cllr Morris acknowledged this. The Chairman thanked Cllr Morris for his generous donation of his entire budget towards the scheme and for his hard work on behalf of the village.

4.3 Peter Davies – District Councillor Written report attached. Cllr Davies suggested grant applications are made for both the parking in The Square project and the Vehicle Activated Speed signs, as he felt sufficient money was available for both. The Chairman felt the Parish Council had made a commitment to try and complete the parking project and didn’t want to jeopardise the scheme by putting in another grant application. Cllr Smith asked which companies had quoted for the work in The Square, these were Raybell and Ravensthorpe Construction. Cllr Davies said that both quotes were very similar to that provided by MGWSP. He said the deadline for the grant application was 31st May.

4.4 Richard Lainchbury, Chairman of Moreton Pinkney Parish Council There have been nine Parish Council meetings since the last Annual Assembly, including the Annual meeting in May; an extraordinary meeting was held at the end of April 2013 in addition to the usual eight meetings, to discuss a potential planning application for a dwelling in Prestidge Row and to obtain neighbours’ views. There has been one change in in Parish Councillors during the year, following the resignation of Judith Baxter in January this year and I would like to thank Judith for her work over the seven years she served as a Parish Councillor on behalf of the village. I would also like to thank Andy Jalland for his continuing help and support as Vice Chairman and to the other four councillors – Brian Collett, Keith Keeves, James Smith and Les Tucker for all their efforts throughout the year also to Parish Clerk, Caroline Bedford. I am pleased to welcome Ben Vincent to the role of Councillor, following his co-option at the Parish Council meeting in February. Following a successful grant application, I am delighted to report that we have been able to complete our programme of replacing old-style street lamps with new EU approved energy efficient ones and we look forward to seeing further reductions in our electricity bills as a result. The village website, thanks to Richard Lingard’s hard work, continues to be an asset to the village and a useful tool for both the Parish Council and village organisations to allow them to promote their activities and report on events. 4 Moreton Pinkney Parish Council Annual Meeting 02.04.14 On behalf of residents with no access to the internet I would also like to thank Richard for his work in producing the village newsletter, and to Leonard Baxter for his help in organising its distribution. The issue of parking in The Square has been on on-going problem for some years, and following receipt of an outline scheme from the County Council and a residents’ survey to canvas opinion as to whether to proceed, the Parish Council has committed to the task of trying to obtain sufficient grant money to enable the scheme to be completed. One quotation has been received which is £17, 500 – a significant increase on the £15k estimate for the work. The Clerk is going to try and obtain further quotations from two other contractors, identified by Dist. Cllr Peter Davies in conjunction with Helen Howard of MGWSP, in an attempt to reduce the scheme’s costs, and then to commence the task of grant applications. The issue of speeding through the village was also raised in the course of the year. As a consequence, the County Council has agreed to install wooden ‘gateways’ at the end of the village, once the necessary monitoring of traffic has been completed. Speed awareness signs have been placed throughout the village and the police have been asked to conduct speed checks on traffic. Line painting / SLOW signs are due to be done shortly, and it is hoped these measures will have a cumulatively positive effect on reducing the speed of traffic through the village. Following reports that some Heygates lorries were speeding, the Clerk had a lengthy conversation with the company’s owner, Paul Heygates. He would like residents to contact the transport manager with the date and time (and if possible the number of the vehicle) of any of his company's vehicles which are seen speeding. An investigation / action will be taken and Mr Heygates assured the Clerk that repeat offenders would not be employed for long by the company. The possibility of banning HGV 'through' traffic from the A5 to the Welsh Lane was raised but, owing to the area covered by this stretch of road, this is not a viable option for Northants County Council. The Chairman commented that there haven’t been many planning applications in the village in the past year. He said he had found the past year to be rather stressful, mainly because of the issues over parking in The Square, which had caused a lot of ill feeling between residents. He hoped this year sees a resolution of the issues once and for all.

Village Organisation Reports

5..1 Village Hall - presented by Leonard Baxter. Written report attached. Linda Tucker commented that the village hall needs on-going funds for the work needed to replace the roof. Mr Baxter said if some money is raised then it is easier to obtain matched funding. Cllr Collett stated that Mr Baxter had been on the Village Hall Committee for a long time and that it was his last year, he thanked him for all his hard work. Cllr Collett intends to remain on the Village Hall Committee.

5.2 Garden Club - written by Chairman Richard Lingard and presented by Linda Tucker. The Garden Club can report another busy and exciting year, which began on Monday 4th March with the Annual General Meeting in the Village Hall. A large number of members attended this occasion to hear Dick Holloway deliver his informative and interesting talk about cultivating Sweet peas.

5 Moreton Pinkney Parish Council Annual Meeting 02.04.14 Due to the long cold winter, few gardens were ready for the Spring Garden Competition, so it was postponed and eventually cancelled. However, the Plant Sale took place as usual on Saturday 11th May in the Village Hall with teas, coffees and cakes which helped the enjoyable village atmosphere. This event raised £85 for Garden Club funds. The Summer Garden Competition was judged on 7th July and a week later, the Summer Garden Party was held in Andrew and Pam Robertson’s garden on a warm summer’s evening which was well-attended by many members. The Annual Show was held a little later than usual on Saturday 7th September to allow more committee members to return from their holidays and to see if a later date would boost the number of entries from members. The Show was a great success, with more entries than in recent years and a welcome rise in the number of children taking part. The Garden Club organised a Coffee Mornings for Macmillan Cancer Relief in the Village Hall on 28th September, which raised over £338. The Annual Dinner was held at the Village Hall on 30th November and was very well-attended and for many, marked the beginning of the festive season. It was a great success and highly-praised thanks to the hard work of committee members who planned, provided food and manned the busy bar! During the course of the year, the Garden Club continued to fund the maintenance of the Tarry Well area and provided two new planters underneath the village boundary signs, thanks to the labours of Dick Holloway and John Richmond. These have been planted with spring bulbs and we hope that they will extend a warm horticultural welcome to our village. Thanks to the continuing support and generosity of our 125 adult members, the Garden Club’s financial status remains healthy and continues to play its part in the busy social and horticultural life of this village. My personal thanks are due, once again, to the entire Committee and our President who have contributed to our meetings, worked with diligence and good humour on our many events. The current Committee has kindly agreed to serve the Club for another year, as has our President until he is able to leave for cooler, northern climes.

5.3 Indoor Bowls – presented by Margaret Goodwin. Written copy attached to these minutes.

5.4 St Mary’s PCC - presented by Col. Tim Eastwood. Written report attached

5.5 Moreton Pinkney Charities – presented by Dick Holloway. Written report attached Mr Holloway said a large balance had been brought forward thanks to last year’s donation from the Jubilee Committee. This enabled the organisation to fund seven people under the Youth Assistance Scheme, six for £150 each and one for £100. The end of year balance at 31st December 2013 was £445 and since then the Parish Council had made a donation of £100 which he was pleased to have received. Over the years the charity has made 76 grants totalling £10,350. He said that in the course of the year Cllr Judith Baxter had resigned as Trustee and that Cllr Collett had been appointed by the Parish Council to take her place.

6. Public Time

6.1 The Chairman asked if anyone had any ideas about how the village might commemorate WW1. Col Eastwood said poppies were going to be planted by 6 Moreton Pinkney Parish Council Annual Meeting 02.04.14 the Garden Club but that there were no immediate plans for a special church service. Cllr Davies suggested the Parish Council investigate the option of planting a tree, possibly to replave the one that had been felled near to the Old School. Richard Lingard had emailed the Clerk asking if it were possible to install a defibrillator in the village. It was decided to discuss these options at the Parish Council meeting.

6.2 A comprehensive report had been received from the Parish’s Paths Warden (attached) for which the Chairman expressed his thanks. Judith Bryant has been working hard on behalf of the parish to ensure paths are kept clear and well maintained. She asked if residents could clear up after their dogs when using footpaths and bridleways as this was a health hazard to both walkers and farmers whose land and livestock were adversely affected. The Clerk will ensure that this is publicised in the village newsletter and on the website.

6.3 Col Eastwood asked if anything could be done to hasten the opening of the pub, as the remedial work seems to have stalled. Cllr Davies has spoken to one of the planning officers as there were some planning permission conditions, however, it was agreed that there was no means of forcing the owner to set a date by which the pub will be opened. It appears there has been some activity lately which may indicate progress is being made.

6.4 Col Eastwood commented that there was a lot of vegetation and a tree that looked to be in a precarious condition on Weston Lane. This was reported some time ago by Cllr Davies, but it appears that no work has been carried out.There was some discussion as to who might be responsible, as it is not clear who owns part of the land. The Clerk will raise the matter again with NCC – reference 694349

6.5 Col Eastwood remarked that the caravans off Banbury Lane looked unsightly. This land is now in new ownership and is being cleared. The Chairman said he expected the caravans to be moved in due course, but that the recent wet weather was probably causing a delay.

There being no other business the meeting closed at 8.45 pm.

Signed ...... Date ...... Chairman – R Lainchbury

7 Moreton Pinkney Parish Council Annual Meeting 02.04.14