| 25/05 To approve the minutes of the Council meeting held on 11th January 2005 and the Extraordinary Council meeting held on the 17th February 2005 The minutes of the meeting held on 11th January 2005 had been circulated, were taken as read, agreed by all, and signed by the Chairman, Councillor Pearson. The minutes of the Extraordinary Meeting held on the 17th February had also been circulated. Councillor Farmer in the absence of Councillor Langan who had chaired the meeting explained to the rest of the Councillors who were not present at the meeting what had taken place and confirmed that the minutes were a true record of the meeting. Councillor Farmer then signed the minutes. 26/05 Matters arising from those minutes 18/05 – The South East Plan. At the last meeting it was agreed to hold two meetings in early March, one in Highclere Village Hall and one in Penwood Village and to ask B&DBC to send a representative to talk about the plan. Unfortunately because of the short space of time to arrange the meeting is was not possible to arrange anyone to represent B&DBC. The clerk had spoken to her colleague at East Woodhay and it seemed they were due to hold a meeting on Saturday 10th April. Subsequently to that the Clerk had organised a meeting for Wednesday 6th April in Highclere Village Hall at 7.30pm. It was felt that to hold two meetings when there was already one arranged in Woolton Hill Village Hall would be too much and there would not be the representation from the village. The Borough Councillor had mentioned at the last meeting that once the date was arranged he would organise a speaker from B&DBC. The clerk had informed him of the date and he hoped to have a name shortly. The Clerk would put a poster in the Parish Magazine about the meeting. 27/05 Borough Councillor’s Report The Borough Councillors report in full is at the end of the minutes, the main points from the report are: The SE Plan had been published and he said it was still difficult to identify whether Highclere parish is entirely in “the rest of Hampshire” or partly in the sub-region for development. B&DBC Administration are still keen to go for the larger number of developments if possible. He was part of a working party trying to improve the Development Control Committee process. Site visits are now made prior to the committee meeting, which was speeding up the meetings. There had been some talk about BT telephone boxes being converted into internet kiosks at the taxpayer’s expense, using the Rural budget. Councillor Mitchell is opposing this use of scarce rural funds. On Anti Social Behaviour in the area Councillors’ Pearson and East reported that because of several disturbances over the last few months, some children had been taken into care and another child placed with another family member in a different Parish. Since this had happened everything seemed to be much quieter. Councillor Mitchell had met with Councillor Stuart Parker and an officer from B&DBC at Penwood Cross roads at 8.00am, joined by Councillors’ Pearson & East from Highclere and Councillor Maxwell, Chairman of East Woodhay Parish Council. They spent about half an hour looking at the traffic and taking photographs. The Penwood cross roads/A343 has been put as a strategic priority at B&D. A further meeting had been attended by the Gazette photographer, with Cllrs Mitchell, Pearson, East and Castle in attendance. The Newbury Weekly News had also sent a photographer independently. All this was part of a build up to a proposed public campaign. On planning matters Councillor Mitchell said he was willing to help any time. If the Council objects to an application he needs to have a copy of the objections. If the Council plans to be represented at the Development Control meeting he needs to have a note of what the representative plans to say. Both of these are important in order to ensure he is able to give proper support. The Clerk would provide Cllr Mitchell with a copy of the draft revised procedures which were to be discussed at the Council’s April meeting. Councillor Mitchell had recently attended the Parish Council meeting at Woolton Hill. He was very concerned that under the Safer Routes to School HCC plans to spend more than £100,000 on traffic calming on the C5, including street lights at the Church Road junction. Safer Routes to School is funded to encourage and facilitate walking and cycling and Cllr Mitchell doesn’t believe the proposals will achieve this; the impression is that they will make things better for those who drive their children to school. Alternative and more effective options had been ignored. These views had now been accepted by the East Woodhay Council and he hoped that Highclere Council, representing parents and children in our Parish, would also make representations to the County, on the basis that the Penwood crossroads is a higher priority than the existing proposals. He noted that 50% of pupils at both the Woolton Hill schools now come from outside the schools’ catchment area and that the majority of traffic at school times is parents. 28/05 Update on Village Plan Councillor Langan unfortunately was not able to attend the meeting as he was returning from his holiday that day. Councillor Drew said that he unfortunately had also been away so was not up to speed with what was happening. Councillor Mitchell who was still at the meeting, and on the Steering Group gave an update on the Village Plan. A meeting is to be held at 7.30pm on March 23rd at Highclere Village Hall. Letters had been sent to about 25 local organisations around the village, with about another ten letters being sent to individuals who had shown an interest. So far the clerk had only received ten replies, though from the previous letter sent out there had been interest shown by people who had not replied yet. Councillor Mitchell said that in the absence of Councillors’ Langan and Drew he had met with Mrs Sue Roberts to discuss the format of the meeting on the 23rd and everything was well in hand for the meeting. There was to be another meeting of the Steering Group on Thursday 10th March when the final touches would be discussed for the meeting. The Clerk had also put a poster in the Church magazine about the meeting. Cllr Mitchell also reported that some £750 had been spent from the BDBC grant for 2004-05, in addition to the costs of the Clerk’s time, and that refreshments etc for the meeting would be added to this. 29/05 Update on Penwood Cross Roads, A343 & Traffic Calming The Clerk had received a holding response to the letter that she had sent replying to an earlier letter from HCC. Since then she had also received a letter from Mr Keith Pauw. This was a rather long letter for which he apologised and also for the slowness in replying because of his accident, which he had now recovered from. Included with the letter was a copy of the report that he had mentioned in May 2004 at the meeting held in Penwood Village Hall, regarding the feasibility of signals etc at the junction. The majority of the Council were not happy with his reply, they felt that yet again they were being fobbed off and as before nothing was being done. It was decided that the clerk would circulate previous correspondence so that councillors could make their own assessment. The matter would again be an agenda item at the April meeting. In the meantime the clerk would thank Mr Pauw for his letter and let him know the Council would reply after the next Council meeting in April. Councillor Farmer queried who we could go to next as our MP could not help us as this was a County matter and not national. Councillor Mitchell mentioned that if HCC failed to take an action to which they had definitely committed, after taking it up with the chief executive and leader the next step was to resort to the Ombudsman. Cllr Mitchell advised that it would be more effective to address specific items individually and in messages kept as brief as possible, rather than articulating a long list of grievances. In the case of the Penwood Crossroads he believed there was little chance of HCC taking significant action, which is why he had now initiated a public campaign. While the MP could not take up failures on the part of local authorities, he could certainly lend his support to public campaigns. However, again this would only be effective by selecting one target at a time. 30/05 Annual Assembly - 20th April The hall at Penwood had been booked for the evening of the 20th April for the annual assembly. The Clerk had checked that this would not clash with other events in the village (which it had done last year). The clerk had provided a draft agenda for consideration. Because there had been a talk last year about Anti Social Behaviour it was decided it was too soon to have another talk on the same subject. Also although “community wardens” would be an interesting topic it would be inappropriate to raise expectations of this support coming to Penwood. The Clerk had been in touch with B&D planning department and had heard from Mr Giorgio Framalicco, Development Control Manager, who has been with B&DBC for only a few months and was willing to speak at the meeting. The Councillors agreed that this would be good as most people were interested in planning and how B&D went about approving or refusing an application. The Clerk would let Mr Framalicco know that the Parish Council are delighted that he is able to attend the Annual Assembly. Apart from that the agenda would follow much the same format as previous years. The clerk had already written to the Borough and County Councillors inviting them to the meeting and they had both replied saying that they hoped to be there. The Council hoped that the main part of the meeting would be over in about forty five minutes and then if Mr Framalicco could speak for about twenty minutes to half an hour and about ten minutes for questions. There would be refreshments at the end of the meeting, which the clerk would arrange. There was concern that last year the Annual Assembly was not well attended. It had clashed with a meeting at the church and that had made a difference. The clerk would advertise the meeting in the Highclere Church magazine and also put up posters about it. It was suggested that perhaps a note should be sent to all residents in Highclere, Penwood etc. This was decided against as it would cost rather a lot of money. It was suggested that the Post Office would deliver leaflets at a much lower price if they were given the exact area to deliver in. The clerk would look into this and if the cost was reasonable she would do a note and arrange for the delivery by the Post Office. [Clerk’s note: The Royal Mail leaflet distribution costs £48.50 per thousand but there is a minimum charge of £500, which equates to about 33 pence per home for 1500 homes. There is ‘usually’ a two-week delay between booking a distribution and confirming the delivery date. We therefore need to make a very swift decision (before next meeting) if we wish to use this service.] 31/05 Freedom of Information Act – Draft The Act requires that Parish Councils make available all their information for Parishioners on request. The clerk had done a draft for the Council to look at and comment about before publication. The clerk was hoping that most of the information that the Parish Council had would be available on the web as are the minutes from the council meetings at present. The Council were happy with the draft. The clerk would tidy it up and there were just a couple of gaps that needed to be completed before sending it off to the Information Commissioner for adoption. 32/05 Correspondence 1. HAPTC – The Chairman, Councillor Pearson had received the minutes from the last Chairmen’s meeting and the agenda for the next meeting on the 14th March. On the 14th March they were going to discuss the South East Plan and the effect it might have round the B&D area. As it is quite likely he may not be able to attend the meeting he asked if any of the other councillors’ were interested and free to attend. Unfortunately no one else will be able to attend. 2. Post Office – The Chairman had received a reply from the Post Office re the postal address for Penwood, which is Penwood, Burghclere. It seems quite a lot of people get lost trying to find Penwood as they go to Burghclere first. The letter from the Post Office also included a letter from Post Watch which was not very helpful at all. It seems Post Watch were not willing to do anything about this. They also stated that they had nothing on file re this. The Chairman had sent copies of letters from our MP and B&D supporting the change of the address. As the Post Office was not happy with the reply it seems they may follow it up. 3. B&DBC – Public Consultation: Draft concept statement for New Road, Basingstoke - this was rather a long document but as it was in Basingstoke in did not affect Highclere and Penwood 4. B&DBC - Parking in Residential Areas - This was in response to a motion raised at Council. The purpose of the letter was to offer the Parish an opportunity to identify any residential roads where there is perceived to be a parking problem. A response if any was requested by 4th April. The clerk would write to them. 5. Standards Board for England – A Code for the Future – no comment, several councillors’ took a copy of the booklet. 6. Basingstoke & District Training Consortium – Workshop for working with young people 31st March – the Council felt at present this was not the right time to attend the workshop. 7. B&DBC - Pedestrian Access Improvement Capital Programme – submissions to be in by 14th March. Whilst the Council are keen to have more footpaths through the village at present it has not been decided if and where they would go 8. B&DBC - Burial Grounds Survey 2005 – A questionnaire that B&DBC had received from the Home Office. The clerk would complete the form and return it to the Home Office. 9. B&DBC - Policy regarding the Management of Unauthorised Encampments – Highclere has been fortunate of late not to have had any unauthorised encampments but it was becoming more a problem in the overall area. Any comments should be sent as soon as possible. No comment 10. Hurstbourne Tarrant Parish Council - Re signings on the A343 - At present Hursbourne Tarrant had signs for the A34 through their village. As they were working on Safer Journeys to School they were asking HCC to change the signings from Andover so that no heavy traffic making for the A34 is directed up the A343 through the village. They asked for Highclere Parish Council’s support. The clerk would write confirming the Council’s support. 11. B&DBC - Consultation Draft SPG: S106 Planning obligations & community Infrastructure – comments by Wednesday 6th April. The Council had concerns with regard to S106 money and felt that when there were monies from this that the village did not receive them all. The clerk would write to B&D asking how the monies were allocated and what percentage and to let the Parish Council know when there was S106 money available. 12.B&DBC - Office Closure etc – copies given to all Councillors’ for their information 13.B&DBC - Mayor’s Charity Ball - 22nd April - Tickets £28 - None of the Councillors’ were available to go. 14.HCC - Highclere Traffic Calming – this had been discussed earlier under 29/05. 15.West Berkshire - Draft Town Design Statement for Newbury – This was a very long document that the clerk had downloaded. If any councillor wished for a copy they could find it on the web. Other Correspondence (available for Councillors to review) Defra - Clean Neighbourhoods & Environment Bill – no comment Office of the Deputy Prime Minister - Two discussion documents – Citizens Engagement and Public Service: Why Neighbourhoods Matter and Vibrant Local Leadership – the clerk has a copy of each if any councillor wishes to look at them. West Berkshire Heritage News – the clerk would put this on the notice board. 33/05 Accounts For Payment The following accounts were passed for payment. BT (telephone) £24.46, HAPTC (subscription) £232.00, D. Mitchell (mileage plus parking) £26.85, HAPTC (Local Council Review Orders 2005/06) £13, Inland Revenue (PAYE + NI) £160.31p, C Corrall (litter warden) (124.68, L. McClelland (litter warden) £59.40, W Bendle (litter warden) £151.88, D Mitchell (Salary) £467.83. 34/05 Councillors’ matters arising to be included in the next agenda Response to letter received from Mr K Pauw regarding the A343 and Penwood cross roads. The Village Plan plus feed back from the meeting on the 23rd March 2005. Following the extraordinary meeting held in February changes to Council procedures for responses to planning applications. |