PARISH OF POSTLING ANNUAL PARISH MEETING 2012 Minutes of Postling Annual Parish Meeting held at Parish Village Hall on Wednesday 30 May 2012 starting at 7.00pm. PRESENT: Cllr Frank Hobbs (Chair), Cllr Christine Hobbs, Cllr Helen Calderbank, Gill Thomsett, Clive Adsett, Christine Webb, Jo Maher (Clerk), County District Councillor Susan Carey 1) APOLOGIES: Cllr Caroline Butterfield, Cllr David Nicholls, Cllr Jane Reynolds, Chris Reynolds, Cllr Charlie Wilkins 2) MINUTES OF THE PREVIOUS MEETING: The Minutes of the previous Annual Parish Meeting held on Wednesday 11 May 2011 were approved and signed by the Chair. 3) CHAIRMAN’s REPORT: The past year has seen Jo Maher settling-in as our new Clerk, and hopefully she is enjoying her work, as well as bombarding us with e-mails, as most of the documents from KCC and Shepway are sent in this manner now. We thank her for her hard work and input. In the past year we have been represented on the Village Hall Committee by Cllrs Helen Calderbank and Frank Hobbs, and on the KALC Area Committee by Cllrs Frank and Christine Hobbs. We have continued to keep KCC Highways informed when potholes appear and have reached a repairable size, and most have been repaired fairly quickly. Sandling Road is in a very poor state, but the good news is that it is going to be resurfaced this summer, albeit by surface dressing, but hopefully after many blemishes have been repaired first. We continue to push for the Phone-box to be repainted and have been assured that it is “on the list”, although BT is unable to give a firm date. They only paint between the months of March and October. We continue to give grants to Postling Parochial Church Council for grass-cutting and to Age Concern at Lyminge, who provide an excellent service to some of our residents. We kept our precept at the same level this year, although your bills showed a small % increase, this is due to the way SDC calculate them. We are hoping to erect the AONB Village signs this year and have been offered funds by our County Councillor, we now need to decide where they should be sited. Last year we mentioned the surplus Village Plan funds and we have been informed that a new notice board is the preferred option, more of that in the Vision Team report. The next major impact on the Parish is the Shrine Farm Sand Extraction site. This now on the KCC’s preferred list, and as a result, there is to be a Public Exhibition in the Village Hall on Tuesday June 26th from 4.00pm to 7.30 pm. We will be keeping a close 1 eye on these proposals, in particular over lorry movements whilst in operation, and what proposals may be made for uses after extraction is completed, although this will be many years in the future. There is currently no time scale for when extraction will commence, this will require Planning Permission. We are still awaiting plans for the site opposite the Village Hall, but when they come forward we will call a public meeting. Finally I would like to thank all our Councillors for their time on the Parish Council last year, It has been a difficult year for some of them, indeed two are in hospital at the moment, and we hope things will improve for them in the coming year. Frank Hobbs, Chairman Parish Council 4) POSTLING NEW VILLAGE HALL ASSOCIATION REPORT: The committee has only met once for our AGM. We try to maintain the Hall in a sound and reasonable state of repair. With that in mind, we are about to finish replacement of the remaining wooden fascias and soffits in uPVC to match the front. Lettings income is very similar to last year with the nursery school being the main daytime user and table tennis in the evenings. The 2011 Sponsored Ride was another success, although numbers were a bit down and with reduced sponsorship. Just under £5000 was raised which was distributed to Kent Air Ambulance, Age Concern Lyminge, St.John’s Ambulance Hythe , Postling Church insurance and the Postling Village Hall. Well done and thanks to all those who helped not only on the day but also in the lead up to the event. The 2012 Ride, which is the 33rd, is planned for Sunday 9th September. Our Christmas party was also a little down on numbers but nonetheless a good pre- festive village get-together. Thanks to Gill and her team for organising the food and decorations. Chris Reynolds, Chairman, Postling New Village Hall Association 5) APPOINTMENT OF REPRESENTATIVES to the Village Hall Association: Cllr Christine Hobbs proposed Chris Reynolds, Chris Clark and Gill Thomsett as representatives to the PNHVA, seconded by Cllr Helen Calderbank and carried unanimously. 6) NEIGHBOURHOOD WATCH REPORT: The village has had another very quiet year on the crime front. The only incident reported to me was where a white van attempted to remove some oil from a tank in a garden, back in August last year. This serves as a reminder to keep a watch on your oil tanks, as this has been a very common trend during the past year. There are always the usual reminders about locking doors and shutting windows in the hot weather if you are at the bottom of your gardens enjoying the sun. Finally the usual reminder to report anything you feel is out of place or anyone acting in an odd manner, and of course if you see a vehicle parked in an odd place try to take down the registration number as this may help in solving crimes in other areas. 2 Cllr Christine Hobbs, Neighbourhood Watch Co-Ordinator 7) DISTRICT COUNCILLOR’S REPORT: Shepway deals with all the planning matters not covered by KCC and I am pleased to report that Shepway District Council’s Local Development Framework is now with the planning directorate. Having an up to date plan in place should give our district protection from indiscriminate development. Shepway’s new waste and recycling collection service has increased recycling rates to over 50% with our district the best for recycling in the whole of Kent. Thank you to everyone for their efforts with all the different bins. The key to higher recycling is making sure that the different types of waste are uncontaminated and sorting before collection really helps. Shepway is undertaking a boundary review (our last one was over 10 years ago) to make the number of councillors per elector more equal. We are also taking the opportunity to reduce the number of councillors as part of our efforts to save money. There will be a consultation on this and your views are welcome. Looking ahead, Shepway will see the Olympic torch pass through our district on 18 July and if you’d like a front row view then there’s still time to volunteer to be a Shepway marshall for the event. Both Shepway District Council and Kent County Council have set budgets which qualified for the government’s council tax freeze grant so there has been no increase in the level of council tax for the last two years. There can be no guarantees but, if we can, we will continue the freeze. Susan Carey, District Councillor, Tolsford. 8) KENT COUNTY COUNCILLOR’S REPORT: KCC has long had the problem of dealing with rising demand (more elderly, more people with dementia, more children in care etc.), rising costs (fuel, landfill tax etc.) and keeping council tax rises low. Now as part of the overall national effort, local government has been asked to make significant extra savings. We are now one year into a four year programme that will shrink expenditure by a third. Council tax has been frozen with the help of a special grant from government but there is no guarantee that this grant will continue so, whilst the grant is welcome, we still need to shrink our cost base. I am very involved in the projects to reduce costs at Kent County Council and £97m of savings were made last financial year. Much of these came from reducing the number of posts (including that of Managing Director), the new waste collection system has also helped reduce costs. The savings targets for this financial year are £95m and then the year after £65m. Despite the financial challenges KCC has done much in the last year of which we can be proud. The new Turner Centre was a KCC project to help regenerate Margate and provide Kent with a world class art gallery. It has been an enormous success. KCC has also led the Pfizer task force to deal with the crisis caused by the withdrawal of Pfizer from its Sandwich site. We have rescued nearly 1,000 jobs by creating a science park and there are plans to improve both road and rail connections into East Kent. In our own district, KCC is providing funds to change the roads leading to and from Folkestone harbour so that the long awaited redevelopment of the seafront can take place. KCC has also produced a plan for a £43m network to provide superfast broadband for over 90% of households in Kent and better access for the remaining 10%. This is planned to be funded by a £9.87m grant from central government, £10 m from KCC and the balance from a telecommunications company. Please sign up to the Make Kent Quicker campaign on www.kent.gov.uk to show your support. I have used my County Councillor Highway grant for a special clean and minor repair of highway signs and cutting of vegetation which should take place soon and I am 3 pleased to report that Sandling Road is scheduled for resurfacing this summer; you will have seen the potholes marked up for attention before this happens.