<p> Modbury Parish Council Meeting Monday 9th January 2017 at 7.00 PM Pavilion, Queen Elizabeth II Recreation Field MINUTES </p><p>Apologies: Cllr Ward, PC Hayhurst, Mr Joseph and Ms Turner.</p><p>Present: Ms Brown (Vice-Chair), Messrs Cole, Barnes, Hattersley, Berry, Ward, Rosevear, Lawrence and Berry.</p><p>1. On the walk from Modbury to St Mary Cross approximately two fields down from the cross (towards Modbury) a new accessway/driveway has been created, and beyond that in the next field there is a large mobile home. It is not known if there is planning permission for this. The address needs to be ascertained so that the Clerk can investigate, and if necessary, report to Localities Officer so that any enforcement action can be taken. 2. Leaflets have been circulated for the “Nextdoor” Neighbourhood Watch type Scheme. Who is paying the postage for this? This is a commercial thing being paid for by the organisers of the scheme which is being discussed later in the meeting. 3. In St Ives it has been written into their Neighbourhood Plan that there will be a restriction on New-build properties saying that they cannot be sold to buyers as 2nd homes. Is this a subject that Modbury should visit in their Neighbourhood Plan? It has not been provided for in the questionnaire but may well come up in the in free text section of the questionnaire. The Neighbourhood Plan will have a series of policies in it. The next Neighbourhood Plan meeting is on Wednesday 11th January so Mr Lawrence raise this subject with them NPG can discuss this. It will be necessary to provide evidence for demand of such a policy before submission to SHDC. 4. The request for an extension of double yellow lines on the corner of Silverwell has been put to DCC Highways by Mr Taylor already. There are a number of proposed road issues and Highways are looking at the costing and feasibility of carrying them all out as a job lot so that there will be one combined Traffic Regulation Order (TRO). Cllr Hosking arrived and advised that TROs are now being bundled to save cost. Previously each change to be made required a TRO costing approx £3K so it is more cost effective to submit all changes under one TRO. Cllr Hosking agreed that 12 months was a long time but that his counter proposal of 6 months had been overruled at the last relevant HATOC meeting. Cllr Hosking will find out the current state of play and report back to the Clerk. The Clerk will ask PC Ryan Hayhurst to keep an eye out for dangerously parked vehicles causing an obstruction; and Parking Enforcement to pay particular attention to that area for illegally parked vehicles.</p><p>Devon Councillor’s Report for information. 1. Bus Stop – Cllr Hosking attended a meeting with members of MPC to discuss the possibility of a Bus stop at the RA1 site. Locations are being discussed at another Meeting to be held on Thursday 12 th at 10.00am at the Green. Plan of the “as built” road by Bloor Homes were circulated by Cllr Hosking for this purpose. 2. Mr Cole asked Cllr Hosking to contact the DCC Solicitor to establish if a challenge to the definition of travellers could be made. The Chair intervened and commented that this question had been raised at previous meetings. This was a Parliamentary issue and there was no known change since Cllr Hosking provided a response to the earlier question. 3. The lowered pavement for the road crossing at Palm Cross Green is currently too high for wheelchair users. Who specifies heights of the drops? Cllr Hosking said it would be necessary to establish if the final road surface has been applied yet before he can take this further. He will look into this. 4. Police Report Read out by Chair (read out by the Vice-Chair) The total number of crimes between 12/12/16 – 09/01/17 was 3 (Broken down into 1 case of Criminal damage; 1 case of making off without payment; and, 1 offence under the Communications Act. (Cllr Hosking left).</p><p>17.001. Declarations of pecuniary and other interests a) Councillors were reminded of the need to update their register of interests within 28 days if there have been any changes to their circumstances.</p><p>Page 1 of 5 b) Mr Cole declared an interest in Agenda item 17005c)iii); Mr Barnes declared an interest in item 17007a)ii); Mr Rosevear declared an interest in item 17005c)i). </p><p>17.002. Planning The Council considered the following application:</p><p>80 3492/16/FUL Mr & Mrs M Foss Stoliford Farm Application for provision of new access 13/01/16 Modbury PL21 0SRto Stolliford Farm and access track to serve holding</p><p>A short discussion on the logistics of the application took place. The proposed new accessways will lead to an old barn, so it is anticipated that in future, further applications may follow. The new access will grant independent direct access to a particular field previously accessed via other fields. Mr Rosevear proposed, seconded by Mr Barnes a recommendation of no objection which was agreed by all. Mr Lawrence further proposed, seconded by Mr Rosevear that MPC should also add a rider to that recommendation asking if SHDC were aware that the new access may well be used as access to residential property in the future and would that affect Highways input?</p><p>17.003. Minutes of Meeting of 12th December 2016 a) Approval of the minutes (distributed earlier) was considered. Mr Ward proposed, seconded by Mr Lawrence and all were in favour that the minutes were approved as a true and accurate record. b) The clerk had previously circulated the Appendix II Action Plan to council members prior to the meeting. Members were reminded of dates/times of the Planning Workshop and Lloyds Bank Modbury branch closure meeting.</p><p>17.004. Correspondence item “Modbury - a Vision of the Future” Agenda item 15(b) was brought forward and standing orders were dropped for Mr Ranwell to speak. His main concern was the process for agreeing a vision for the town. His second concern was the increased levels of traffic and parking problems. Mr Lawrence clarified that Modbury’s Vision was produced around 4/5 years ago. The correct mechanism for this is via the Neighbourhood Plan Group Mr Ranwell was invited to attend the next NPG meeting. The NPG need to revisit the vision statement to see if any improvement/revision is necessary. Increased traffic/lack of parking is a national issue and until roads become impassible; and, unless nationally implemented legal steps are taken to limit cars to households, MPC has no power to do anything about this other than to create town car parks which cost money. There is already a car park which is pretty much empty in the evenings. During the planning of RA1 it was proposed that there should be 2 spaces provided per property. A relief road would aid congestion caused by the general increase in traffic along A379, but all of this is beyond MPC’s control. Traffic and parking are continuing issues. Once the draft Neighbourhood Plan has been drawn up it will goes out to consultation for a statutory 6 week period, then it will be submitted to SHDC who will also hold a 6 week consultation prior to the draft going to the independent planning inspector who looks at the evidence and may approve or modify. During the consultation process, the developers may make a challenge if the plan doesn’t give the result they desire. It the Plan stands up after inspection, the next stage is the community referendum. If the parish reject the plan in the referendum then it is back to square one.</p><p>17.005. Finance and Human Resources a) The payments as listed in Appendix 1 were considered. Mr Lawrence proposed, seconded by Mr Rosevear and all were in favour that they were approved. b) The minutes of the recent Finance & HR Meeting held on 3rd January 2017 were received and there were no questions or comments c) (Mr Cole & Mr Rosevear left the meeting). The Council considered the recommendations of the Finance & HR Committee. Mr Lawrence proposed, seconded by Mr Hattersley with all in favour, that the following allocations be provided for in the budget for Grants to the following organisations: i) Modbury Information Centre - £1750 (last year £1500 was granted but an updated IT system and Page 2 of 5 Website is needed because of an increased usage by the public); ii) Modbury Memorial Hall - £500 (Same as last year); iii) Modbury Caring - £200 (Same as last year no request received as yet); iv) Citizen’s Advice Bureau - £200 (Same as last year but no request received as yet); v) MARS - £1,500 (same as last year; to compensate MARS for the maintenance of a site which benefits the whole community); vi) Neighbourhood Plan - £2,500 (NPG will be obtaining a Groundwork Locality grant of £9K maximum, which, it is anticipated, will be exceeded; so an increased grant was requested as a “one-off” to meet the anticipated expenditure. (BC and GR returned). d) The council considered the recommendations of the Finance & HR Committee; and Mr Rosevear proposed, seconded by Mr Cole, with all in favour that the Budget/Precept be increased by the sum of £1,500 to £30,000 for the year 2017/2018.</p><p>17.006 Palm Cross Green Development - General update Mr Lawrence and Mr Taylor had met with Rob Sekula from SHDC that afternoon. The show office will be open in March/April. The new play area on The Green was discussed. Contrary to what had been previously understood, Bloor are going to be putting in small play area in the bottom end of their development and SHDC have negotiated with them to provide more informal play type equipment. Normally, a 20 year maintenance provision is made by developers for play areas so Rob is going to find out what maintenance provisions Bloor will be making to find out if the Green play area will be covered; and if not, he will request Bloor do so. The Open Space Sport and Recreation Plan (OSSR) plan is being prepared by MARS. Mr Ward wanted to highlight that part of the planning application is that work does not start before 8am so that there should be no turning on/warming up of machines/disturbance prior to that time. He requested that residents inform MPC if workmen are not complying with this condition. Mr Ward said he was happy to be he contact point for this. Saturdays it is 8am until 1pm; and on Sundays there should be no activity at all.</p><p>17.007 Committees and working groups: The council received the following updates from the following committees and groups: a) Communications Group last met on 3rd Jan to review the new website with Oliver Pritchard-Barrett. They also discussed possible options for the Messenger Editor situation. Agenda item 14 was brought forward. i) The new Website is a Parish Council website as opposed to a general Modbury website. Oliver has completed the “2nd draft”. Everybody should have now looked at this. Feedback is needed as it is hoped that the site can be declared live at the next parish meeting. Councillors were asked to look at the site over the next 10 days and give feedback to the Clerk about any amendments that need to be made. There is a direct link to Modbury Information Centre on the website. Need to update all of the information before going live. Pages need information to be rewritten on them. It was suggested that there should be a forum section to allow the public to comment about issues. There is a Modbury Town site that does this with a hot link to the Business Chamber and NPG websites. This would require some form of administration over and above what is currently required. The Communications Committee will enquire to establish the feasibility of having such a page with a view to maintaining the security and integrity of the official site. ii) The Messenger - Agenda Item 13. was also brought forward. (Mr Barnes left the room). The current Editor will resign after completing the March issue (which goes out at the end of February). An advertisement has been placed in the Messenger for an editor with an Honorarium; but no volunteers have yet come forward to handle the post on this basis. Following the Communications Chair’s request on to how to proceed, and after discussing the possible options, it was resolved (with a proposal from Mr Lawrence, seconded by Ms Brown, and all in favour) to advertise in the forthcoming addition of the Messenger inviting people to come forward and tender for the post. MPC have</p><p>Page 3 of 5 offered to support the Messenger if it goes into deficit to the tune of £500 on top of the honorarium. (Mr Barnes returned.) b) Thanks were given to Brian Weeks for having commenced work on the heritage noticeboards. c) Neighbourhood Plan Group are currently analysing data from the 450 questionnaires received so far. (A further separate update report on the Neighbourhood Plan was received by the Clerk following the meeting and this is available as an addendum to the Minutes). d) Maintenance Committee – (including the Bus Stop Working Group): Mr Taylor and Mr Cole have been trying to resolve lots of issues including the Bus Stop (see above Cllr Hosking’s report); and the Trees/hedges in Champernowne. It has now been established that the Trees/hedges belong to SHDC; the footpath belongs to DCC; and only a small strip belongs to DCH. They have met with the SHDC Locality Officer who has confirmed an order has been put in for the trees to be pruned but Mr Cole has concerns they may not do what the Maintenance Committee wishes so this is ongoing A revision of Grass Cutting may need to be looked at. e) Emergency Plan Group will shortly be obtaining some more empty sand bags that last longer than the hession ones, so these will be filled and stored at convenient locations in the bottom of town so they are to hand when needed. f) Parish Office Work and Task Group - The Clerk confirmed that the Parish Office Lease expires 31st May 2019. There are no windows/breaking clauses during the remaining term.</p><p>17.008 The Council discussed problems that have been experienced by some residents of Modbury who are on Job Seekers Allowance, but find themselves in an untenable situation when the only way to secure their benefits payment is to undertake job searches and submit proof thereof via a specialist internet site. Whilst SHDC have made grants to such people to purchase laptops for this purpose, there is currently no provision for any assistance with broadband access (other than that provided at libraries in Plymouth or Kingsbridge which, given public transport travelling costs can be equally as unaffordable). Mr Rosevear confirmed that the Modbury Information Centre have WIFI and would be happy to allow members of the public who do not have internet access to come in and use their broadband. The router is on all of the time so even if the office is closed, access could be gained sitting in the courtyard outside.</p><p>17.009 Brochures have been posted through Modbury resident’s doors advertising a scheme called “Nextdoor” - Neighbourhood Watch type Social Media Scheme. There is a similar scheme in the USA allowing people to find (for example,) babysitters. It is genuine and the company running it are commercial. Before subscribing it would be prudent to ensure that the organiser is adhering to Data Protection standards. MPC is generally of the opinion that if anybody does wish to subscribe, it is a case of “Caveat Emptor” (“Buyer Beware”). MPC would not be prepared to recommend this scheme.</p><p>17.010 Correspondence a) The Council discussed the recent email received about the Highway Community Enhancement Fund. It was generally agreed that the Maintenance committee would look further into this. Mr Rosevear volunteered to take on this task. </p><p>Meeting Closed at 9.23pm</p><p>Page 4 of 5 Signed by Chair:……………………. Date:………………….</p><p>Page 5 of 5</p>