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Tel: 01969 667400 Fax: 01969 667930 e-mail: [email protected]

Report of UWCP Ltd – regarding The Upper Wensleydale Community Office and Library, The Little White Bus and Hawes Post Office

All 8 Directors, the Company Secretary and one member of the public were present at the meeting held on Monday 12th January. I am pleased to report the following:

The Little White Bus – Various tenders were submitted for the upcoming NYCC contract renewals in April 2015, four of which have been awarded to The Little White Bus. These will be:  Gayle/Hawes/ – including the Demand Response service and the Afternoon Tripping. This contract is offered at £5000 less per annum.  Keld/Reeth/Richmond – with 2 circulars to Tunstall/Scotton. This would operate a Summer/Winter timetable to make allowance for weather/tourism peaks and troughs.  Hawes// and also Hawes//Leyburn. This would possibly involve a Summer/Winter timetable element also for some of the journeys. The new contracts offer a full service for passengers, cutting out the need for change between The LWB and Dales & District, and it means passengers only pay one fare for the whole journey, or concessionary bus passes can be used on the scheduled journeys. NYCC will be providing 4 brand new buses, all decaled with our logos, and hopefully 2 will be low-floor for wheelchair/pushchair access etc. Directors agreed that these contracts were excellent news, both for The Little White Bus, and passengers in the area.

Hawes Post Office - We are so grateful to Steve & Linda Reynolds for helping us over the first couple of months, and Linda also very kindly lent a hand for a couple of days over the (very busy) festive period. We hope they are, at last, enjoying their retirement! Now that the Post Office has 6 months trading under its belt, we can start the process of applying to close on Saturday afternoons. We are extremely thankful for those volunteers who help us on a Saturday, but closing on the afternoons would save on staffing expenses. The Sorting Office is running very smoothly down at Raynes Court on Hawes Business Park, and the Outreach Services at Bainbridge and Askrigg are also running without problem. It has been noted by businesses that there has been a distinct drop in footfall at the bottom of town, since the Post Office closed at Town Foot.

Community Office – The office side of operations is running smoothly, and there is a good general hubbub about the place. Raynes Court, Hawes - A proposal has been put forward for UWCP Ltd to manage the rental units on the Business Park, rather than District Council sell them. It would be a SLA (Service Level Agreement) type arrangement. Following discussions, the Directors were in full agreement that this is something UWCP Ltd would be very interested in, principally as an income generator in precarious times of austerity. Finance – . NYCC Consultation on Libraries – UWCP Ltd currently receives an SLA payment for delivering library services. In return, we pay a licence fee. We do not currently pay any overheads. This will stay in place until 01 January 2017. As the libraries are currently undergoing a consultation period, we must now being negotiations with NYCC as to what the arrangements will be from January 2017. . Various other finance matters were discussed. The accounts for 2013-2014 were approved, and the Directors saw an operating surplus of £10,000 and an increase in our very solid level of reserves. The Finance Director went through a number of points regarding the new Management Accounts system recently implemented. These highlight the critical nature of The Little White Bus contracts to the survival of UWCP Ltd, not least as the Post Office can only ever hope to break even given it is now a community venture, and not a stand-alone retail outlet. The Community Office is currently coping very well with its staffing levels, but this will always need periodic review. Given the recent rapid growth of the business, robust security measures for the increased cash handling across all areas of business was discussed, along with queries relating to the accounts for the first 6 months of the Post Office. All Post Office bank statements and transaction histories were made available for, and to the satisfaction of the Directors.

The general conclusion to be drawn from the meeting is that the UWCO is presently running well. However, the accounts show that we are becoming increasingly reliant on The Little White Bus. As we are currently in a period of library consultation which, by its very nature brings uncertainty about the future, we need to remain vigilant in the security of our existing operations, and be on constant alert for finding both savings measures and income generators. Cllr John Blackie, the long serving Chairman of UWCP Ltd, announced at the meeting his intention to stand as an Independent Parliamentary Candidate in the General Election. The Annual General Meeting of UWCP Ltd will be held in May 2015.

Abbie Rhodes Company Secretary UWCP Ltd

Directors: Peter Annison, John Blackie (Chair), Denise Hartill, Jemma Hogg, Allen Kirkbride, Brian McGregor, Colin Luckett, Sir Joseph Pilling