Draft Minutes of Gorseinon Town Council Meeting on Jan 13 2021 Held Remotely
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DRAFT MINUTES OF GORSEINON TOWN COUNCIL MEETING ON JAN 13 2021 HELD REMOTELY. MINUTES WILL BE APPROVED AT NEXT MEETING ON FEB 3 2021 MINUTES of the MEETING of GORSEINON TOWN COUNCIL, held on WEDNESDAY 13th January 2021 at Ty Newydd Community centre, 17 West St. GORSEINON, at 7pm and remotely via Microsoft teams. 77. Present, Chmn M Curtice, Andrew Thomas, Clerk Remotely P Morgan, J Curtice, Sue Rawle, A Stevens, Marcus Thomas, K Roberts, Carlo Rabaiotti 78. Apologies were received from Cllrs, Pat Griffiths, Joe Clayfield, Lee Anne Crowley Davies, Ken Jones, Joanne Crowley. Andrew Crowley 79 DECLARATIONS OF INTEREST. Cllr A Stevens declared an interest in planning application 2020/ 2357, 43 dwellings Pencefnarda road, and did not participate in discussion or vote. 80. MAYORS ANNOUNCEMENTS. The Mayor Cllr Malcolm Curtice advised of the following events he had attended, and was due to attend shortly; He advise of the Xas competition winners as below; 2 Best lit houses 2020 Bungalow top Brynteg rd Penyrheol, 44 Village drive Bryngwyn development Gorseinon Best dressed shopfront 2020. No shopfront considered suitable in 2020. The Mayor/Clerk had visited the 2 properties and cheques for £100 each were presented to the house owners. It was agreed to refurbish the Mayors/Deputies chains of Office and also include NHS memorabilia as done by the adjoining Council. 81. POLICE MEETING. The Police were not represented at the meeting, 82. PUBLIC FORUM. None in attendance. It was agreed that in future there should be no Public presence in the building during Council meetings for health reasons. The Public could send in requests by post/email to be discussed at the meeting. This revised format would remain during the ongoing pandemic. 83. APPROVAL OF MINUTES. a. The Clerk presented the December 2nd Council and Planning minutes (which had been distributed previously) for approval. They were approved with no amendments. (Proposed by Jan Curtice, seconded by Cllr A Thomas). 84. FEEDBACK FROM ALL MEMBERS a. Cllr Kelly Roberts reported Provisional bids for new childrens play areas at Parc Melyn Mynach and Loughor Foreshore. (Loughor town Council area) as part of the initiative Improving play facilities across the City having a £1m fund. The proposed upgrade of Parc Melin Mynach had been supported and forwarded by the 3 local County members. A Town Council contribution was confirmed as £25000 from next years budget. b. Cllr K Roberts offered thanks to all those who had helped locally with the Covid 19 response including 130 helpers , joint LA coordinators and Lucy Williams in particular. 10000 leaflets had been distributed to houses and over £30000 had been donated in a massive response. It was suggested the initiative be submitted to One Voice Wales for their Innovative Practice awards in 2021. She also advised over 130 Xmas gift bags had been donated for the Xmas appeal, up from 70 last year. c. Cllr K Roberts outlined the proposed new Traffic regulation Order / highway improvements being designed for Gorseinon Penyrheol streets as part of a new highways funded initiative from Swansea Council. It was noted the initiative was part of a £1m scheme to address highway safety in the community, and whilst some reservations were expressed about the consequences of 20mph limits and amounts of road humps, the overall initiative was understood and supported. Cllr Stevens would distribute maps to members for information. i. Cllr Marcus Thomas advised that the Friends of Parc Melyn Mynach had now been set up, with himself as Chairman and Aaron ? as treasurer, and about 30 Members to date. They were awaiting a bank account being set up. It was hoped that once approved by Swansea Council they could pursue a tree planting programme in the Parc. MT indicated intention to apply to Town Council for grant for schemes. 85. BUDGET MATTERS. Clerk reminded Members of the Town Councils revised 5 year priorities which were discussed and reconfirmed without revision as follows; GORSEINON TOWN COUNCIL 5 YEAR PRIORITIES 2016 -2021 a. Continue to develop andupgrade the Ty Newydd multi user base for the Town Council and community groups, that meets the Town Councils needs and is both accessible and affordable for all residents of Gorseinon / Penyrheol wards. b. Aim to improve communication with local residents and groups, work with local partnerships, and represent views of the community. as well as better explaining what the Town Councils role is, and what can be done for the local community. c. Deliver projects for the area that will engender and strengthen both pride and respect in the communities of Gorseinon and Penyrheol. d. Deliver projects that will improve the physical appearance and environment of our town centre & residential suburbs. e. Support worthy community groups / local initiatives and community projects, focused on sporting/social and cultural activities, particularly for the youth/elderly of the area. .Members then discussed in detail and approved the Draft 2021/22 budget as enclosed, totalling £140,000. Priorities were discussed, and the main changes were agreed as follows; Phase 2 of Xmas lights in lower High street would be included including replacing the lampstandards in Lower High street, before new Xmas lights are leased for phase 2 Lower High street of the new Xmas lighting. The landscaping of the grassed area at the bottom of Lime street was discussed and supported, but a Scheme needed to be drawn up initially and costed to establish costs and likely support from surrounding businesses and pub. £25000 contribution would be made to the new childrens play area to be built in Parc Melyn Mynach. Following on from approving the budget, Members discussed the 2021/22 precept. It was Resolved to set a precept of £129441 (Option B) in order to deliver the stated projects in the community, and the Clerk was instructed to notify Swansea Council accordingly. The proposed budget for 2021/22 was £140,000 so the shortfall would be drawn from Council reserves. The precept equates to a figure per household for 2021/22 of £39 per household (proposed Cllr Jan Curtice, seconded Cllr Carlo Rabiaotti, agreed by all Members present). 86.CLERKS MATTERS a) XMAS LIGHTING LOWER HIGH ST. Clerk had received quote from Swansea Public lighting to replace 6 lampstandards in lower High street to the accommodate new Xmas lighting features. The cost was £11556 for 6 columns and £15385 for 8 columns. Council agreed to order 6/7 new columns for the 2021 xmas features to be erected. An additional lampstandard at bottom of Lime St was to be investigated. b) Web site upgrade 2020. Following advice from Swansea Council legal section, Cultivate media had withdrawn its website upgrade offer. Clerk had updated Members on current position re website upgrade, following 3 formal tenders which had been secured to upgrade the Councils website. It was agreed for the web site sub committee to review the position in 2021. A revised quote had been received from the current supplier Vision ICT for the bronze/silver package which was agreed to be examined further. c) Grassed area environmental scheme at bottom of Lime street. Clerk had contacted Environmental groups and a meeting was to take place on Jan 14th on site with Swansea parks dept. It was suggested that trees planted on the grassed areas would be the best solution with ornamental pyramid planters close to the main junction. Further options were being examined, and quotes obtained from CCS for further trees on the bottom of Lime street and at bottom of Heol y Mynydd opposite the Cockle Shell. d) Local Places for nature wildlife Garden award Argyll Gardens ( now reallocated to Penyrheol school).Clerk had formally asked if the project could be relocated to Penyrheol junior school, where the items would be more secure. he school Headmistress was grateful for the offer which would complement the schools programmes very well. Keep Wales tidy have now accepted the Penyrheol school site for the garden package - equipment was delivered to the school on 20 October for the caretaker/parents/pupils to install. Following 2 successful bids, 880 small Tree whips have now been delivered to Clerk from Woodland Trust– awaiting sites and planting. Members would consider the best sites for planting, and for planting schemes). e) Members discussed the recent IT upgrade for all members to allow remote meeting to take place during the year ahead. At The AGM it had been agreed to move towards virtual meetings in the Covid crisis and to allow paperless meetings in future. The Clerk and Cllr Stevens had ascertained the IT need for existing Councillors and the purchase of appropriate IT equipment had been approved by the Chairman. Members approved the action taken. Cllr Andrew Crowley had asked for new computer equipment to be loaned to him from the Council. f) Clerk advised of current hiring situation following the recent reclosure of Ty Newydd to users and the updated risk assessment Now that WAG had asked Community centres to reclose, users were slowly asking for an update. Clerk had done risk assessment and cleaners had now done a thorough sanitisation of the building. Users were hoping to slowly return as from start of Spring once restrictions had been lifted.. A new cleaning and sanitisation regime had been agreed for users. g) Cllr Roberts / Cllr M Thomas had advised that a Friends of Parc Melin Mynach had now been set up. h). Clerk reported the grants meeting in February had received no funding requests too date and as such it likely to be postponed, as was the Mayors dinner 2021 due to Covid restrictions. Members had agreed earlier that the grant allocation would remain and be distributed to worthy causes throughout the year as the Covid pandemic eased.