ITEM 2

EXMOOR NATIONAL PARK AUTHORITY CONSULTATIVE AND PARISH FORUM MINUTES of the meeting of the Exmoor Consultative and Parish Forum held on Thursday, 13 September 2018 at 7.00pm at Withypool Village Hall.

PRESENT Steven Pugsley Exmoor National Park Authority and Chairman of the Forum John Atherton Brendon & Countisbury Parish Council John Bray Winsford Parish Council Matt Barrow Connecting & Keith Branfield Withypool & Hawkridge Parish Council Ron Buckingham Parish Council Liz Bulled North Molton Parish Council Ian Cowling Lynton & Barnstaple Railway Trust Martin Dewdney Exmoor National Park Authority and Council Jennifer Duke Parish Council Mike Ellicott Exmoor National Park Authority and Exford Parish Council Astra Fletcher Brendon & Countisbury Parish Council Rosamund Griffin Parish Council Bruce Heywood Exmoor National Park Authority and West Somerset Council Antony Howard Withypool Parish Council William Lock Exmoor Young Voices Susan J May Exmoor Trust Frances Nicholson Exmoor National Park Authority and Simon Palmer Airband Andrew Parry Local Resident Martin Ryall Exmoor National Park Authority Member Julian Soltau Local Resident Polly Soltau Local Resident Leslie Silverlock Exmoor Young Voices Vivian White Exmoor National Park Authority and Parish Council Colin Wilkins Winsford Parish Council Pat Williams Withypool and Hawkridge Parish Council David Woodbury Combe Martin Parish Council

1. Apologies for absence were received from:

John Addicott Beagles John Anson Cutcombe Parish Council Faye Barringer-Capp Parish Council Kevin Connell Winsford Parish Council Sarah Cookson Brushford Parish Council Andrea Davis Exmoor National Park Authority and Devon County Council Richard Edgell Exmoor National Park Authority and Devon County Council Molly Groves Exmoor Uprising Roger Hall Parish Council Nigel Hester National Trust Nick Holliday Exmoor National Park Authority Ivor Jones Exmoor National Park Authority and West Somerset Council Graham Lamacraft Parish Council 1

Malcolm McCoy Porlock Parish Council Richard Peek Exmoor National Park Authority and North Molton Parish Council Fred Rawle Exton Parish Council Bill Revans Exmoor National Park Authority and Somerset County Council Alastair Rodway Lynton and Lynmouth Town Council Rachel Thomas The Exmoor Society John Wibberley Invitee Katherine Williams Exmoor Hill Farming Network James Wilmoth Wootton Courtenay Parish Council

National Park Authority staff in attendance: Sarah Bryan, Chief Executive Dean Kinsella, Head of Planning and Sustainable Development Dan James, Sustainable Economy Manager

2. MINUTES: The minutes of the Forum meeting held on 14 June 2018 were agreed as a correct record. Matters Arising  Exmoor Young Voices: Will Lock, Chairman of Exmoor Young Voices, provided the following summary of their recent summer meeting: o Tessa Saunders, ENPA’s Senior Planning Officer (Policy/Community) had provided helpful advice in relation to the Self Build Register and the available plots, and highlighted the Authority offers free advice at the pre-application stage o The group will be meeting with landowners to discuss potential sites o A further Self Build Seminar is being planned for North Devon o Discussions are taking place with a large self build mortgage broker, to see whether S106 agreements on Exmoor are compatible with their lending criteria o A meeting was held with Dartmoor National Park Authority to see if there might be any synergy with young people on Dartmoor o The group discussed the strengths and weaknesses of on Exmoor o Will & Jade have been interviewed by BBC Radio 4 and hope to encourage Exmoor Radio in to highlight EYV’s issues to a wider area o Concerns were raised about digital connectivity  Speeding & Traffic Issues across Exmoor o In relation to Item 3, bullet point 3 of the previous minutes, it was clarified that the sampled approximately 2,000 vehicles in Exford over a 2 week period and the average speed was found to be 46 mph, so far in excess of the 30mph speed limit. o In order to inform the debate on these issues at the November meeting, Forum Members are asked to submit specific examples to Judy Coles, Corporate Support Office via email [email protected] by the end of October.

3. QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR:  Councillor Frances Nicholson advised the meeting that, regrettably, Somerset County Council had voted through £13m worth of cuts the day prior. The cuts will include reducing the precautionary gritting routes from 23 to 16. It is also proposed to remove roadside salt supplies, although discussions are taking place as to whether the County 2

Council could provide a service to Parishes who wish to pay for it. Once further confirmed details are known, it is proposed to call a meeting of Parishes in the Exmoor Area Panel and North Devon to discuss the matter further.  Concerns were raised about the proposed increased use of bicycles by Avon & Somerset Police.

4. CONNECTING EXMOOR: Dan James, Sustainable Economy Manager provided the meeting with an overview and context of work to date in relation to improving superfast broadband and mobile coverage on Exmoor.  In the last 3 years Exmoor has seen superfast broadband coverage extend from 0% to an estimated 90+% of premsies having access to connections offering speeds of at least 24-30 mb p/sec.  BT Open Reach in conjunction with Connecting Devon & Somerset carried out Phase 1 reaching 60% of premises initially, increasing to 69% with additional fudnign secured by the National Park Authority via the Rrual Community Broadband Fund. The work involved upgrading roadside cabinets with fibre optic whilst utilising exisiting copper lines to dwellings which can lead to signfciant speed reductions for those situated further away from the cabinet.  Phase 2 increased coverage to 90+% of premises, using funding ring-fenced by CDS for Exmoor & Dartmoor National Parks. Airband commenced this rollout in 2015 using a wireless technology.  Uptake of both rollouts remains low and more work is needed to increase uptake and thereby access additional funding opportunities towards extending coverage to the remaining 5-10% of premises.  Central Government has announced a Universal Service Obligation by 2020 allowing consumers and businesses the right to request a broadband connection capable of delivering download speeds of at least 10 Mbit/s. Implementation details are yet to be published. It is noted the right is to request and there will be some caps in terms of maximum costs covered, which may disadvantage some isolated properties.  Work has also been taking place on improving mobile connectivity, using 4G (roughly equivalent to superfast broadband) as an alternative to some isolated farmsteads.  A new Home Office funded 4G Emergency Services Network (ESN) is currently being rolled out by EE and the Authority recently approved a new mast at Warren Farm for this purpose.  It is anticipated that EE - and perhaps other operators - will put their own domestic services onto this equipment to provide enhanced coverage.  The Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) have provided £2.5m of funding to look at 4G “not spots” – areas where no operator is providing a 4G signal. Data released by Ofcom suggests that on Exmoor around 41% premises cannot receive a 3 or 4g signal indoors – this is significantly higher than West Somerset - 12.5% and North Devon - 7.1%  Once operators have been consulted the project will aim to pilot alternative approaches to delivering 4g in these not spots. Given the high level of not spots on Exmoor it is hoped Exmoor will benefit from the pilot.

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Matt Barrow – Connecting Devon & Somerset  CDS will be relaunching their voucher scheme imminently (£500 per qualifying property) which promotes the use of 4G as a broadband alternative solution for those parts of Exmoor (& other parts of Devon & Somerset) that are the hardest to reach by other alternatives.

Paul Coles, BT South West Regional Partnerships Director was unable to attend the meeting, due to traffic issues on the M5.

Simon Palmer, Technical Consultant for Airband  Airband delivers fixed wireless broadband to homes and businesses via a series of wireless transmitters mounted on telegraph poles. If there is line of sight to a transmitter from a property, a receiver can be fitted to receive superfast broadband.  The signal range is between 5 – 8 miles with standard speeds of 30mb p/sc. Residential packages start at £10 p/mth, with faster connections and larger data allowances available at an additional cost.  The initial rollout on Exmoor has now ended, but Engineers are still working to optimise signals and an uptime rate of 99.5% is being achieved.  It was suggested one reason for the low take-up of the Airband system was the lack of inclusive calls in the monthly package. Discussions are taking place with Voice Over IP (VOIP) providers to see if it is possible to make a package available.  Airband will soon be relaunching their programme of offering a free broadband connection to one key community building within a village.

N.B. Further useful information can be found at Appendix A.

FARMING ISSUES: Sarah Bryan, Chief Executive, provided Forum members with an update on progress with Exmoor’s Ambition, a joint EHFN/ENPA post brexit proposition, designed to reward people who own and manage land for the public goods and services they provide.  A series of meetings have been held with Defra officials over the past few months and they have expressed interest in the proposal.  The recently announced Agriculture Bill now provides the mechanism for Defra to be able to trial such proposals over the next 2 or 3 years, before rolling out a pilot across the country in 2021.  The Exmoor Hill Farming Network has arranged to provide an Update on “Exmoor’s Ambition” and Farm Support following Brexit at Withypool Village Hall on Tuesday, 18 September at 7pm.

5. PLANNING ISSUES: Dean Kinsella, Head of Planning & Sustainable Development advised that 3 new pieces of legislation have recently been introduced:  A revised version of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) has been published – the document has been reordered to make it easier to use, with the main change being more emphasis on design. Previously the NPPF focused on balancing the quality of design against the need for housing, but did not necessarily take into account how a development would fit into the special landscapes found in more rural areas like Exmoor.  With effect from 1 October 2018, local planning authorities must agree conditions of a pre commencement nature with an applicant. A substantive response must be received within a period 10 working days or the permission must be granted without the condition, or the permission be refused.

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 Permission in Principle is an alternative way of obtaining planning permission for housing-led development, which separates the consideration of matters of principle for proposed development from the technical detail of the development. It is not anticipated that this will be widely used on Exmoor.

6. EMERGING ISSUES OR TOPICS FOR WIDER DEBATE: The following were noted:  Speeding through the National Park - how it might be controlled o N.B. This subject will be addressed at the meeting on 15 November – Could Forum Members please send any specific examples of speeding issues or traffic concerns to Judy Coles via email ([email protected] ) by Friday, 19 October 2018, to aid the discussions at the November meeting.  Education / Social Mobility  Project  National Parks’ Review  Wider landscape management issues  How to involve young people in farming on Exmoor  Commercial activity of NPAs  Renewable Energy

7. DATE AND TIME OF NEXT MEETING: The next meeting will be held on Thursday 15 November 2018 at 10.30am in Winsford Village Hall.

8. OTHER BUSINESS OF URGENCY: There was none

The meeting closed at 9.00 pm

(Chairman)

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APPENDIX A

Digital Communications Updates to Exmoor Parish & Consultative Forum, autumn 2018

Connecting Devon and Somerset Online checker for superfast broadband availability at an address level: https://www.connectingdevonandsomerset.co.uk/ (this will give an indication of whether a service may be available and from whom. In some instances confirmation via computer modelling or a site visit will be required to ascertain availability of superfast connections. The website will also include details of a new voucher scheme expected to be launched imminently providing financial support to properties unable to benefit from a superfast connection to install an alternative system. Vouchers can be aggregated between neighbouring properties.

BT / EE Most of the work we are doing on Exmoor is complete at the moment so the key updates would be: 1. We are keen to explore opportunities with communities to co-invest bringing fibre in where they don’t have high speed broadband via our Community Fibre Partnership scheme. This scheme can utilise the government’s Gigabit voucher scheme. 2. Warren Farm mast extension is now approved and we have articulated the coverage benefits of that. At the moment we don’t have a date for completion on that work.

Answers to specific points raised:  Do BT have a similar programme to Air band to provide free connections to Village Halls? No, we don’t.  Can you provide an update on why mobile phone coverage in Winsford is still to be switched on despite several engineer visits? Winsford is a trial of new network deployment techniques and is on hold at the moment so I don’t have a definite date for go ahead on this one.  Will the recently approved masts – such as Warren Farm – provide access for domestic/business users as well as the Emergency Services Network? Absolutely.  Is there any BT programme to install smaller scale masts to provide coverage in “not spots” That’s partly what the Winsford trial is about – to see whether it is commercially viable.  If fibre is being run to new masts, is there a way for premises along the route to connect to this with a Fibre to the Premise solution if superfast is not currently available to them? Normally the fibre backhaul for the mast would be exclusive. The best way for a community to determine if we can get fibre to them is to register at the Community Fibre Partnership site. Paul Coles, BT Group Regional Director - South West

Airband Deployment of the initial roll out is complete with final assurance being undertaken by Connecting Devon and Somerset as the ‘client’. Response to specific points raised:  With regards to connecting additional individuals or groups (potentially making use of the CDS Voucher Scheme); we are always happy to look into bespoke solutions for this. Email [email protected].  In terms of inclusive packages including VOIP (as an alternative to land line) we’re in advanced discussions with a VOIP provider around a formal partnership. This will mean that customers will have a more coherent picture of costs for Wireless internet and VOIP telephones.