HIGHCLERE PARISH COUNCIL
Minutes of the
Council Meeting held at Highclere Village Hall on Tuesday 13th
April 2004 at 7.36pm
Present:
Councillor Ray East
Councillor Amanda
Hosie
Councillor Don
Langan
37/04 To approve the minutes of the Council meeting held on 9th March 2004
The minutes of the meeting held on 9th
March 2004 had been circulated, were taken as read, agreed by all, and signed
by the Chairman Jim Pearson.
38/04 Matters
arising from those minutes
26/05 Councillor Hosie had heard that the Borough councillor Tim Jardine might be considering resignation and asked whether any new candidates had been nominated. If Cllr Jardine was to resign nominations could then be open to the potential candidates. If he does resign and there is an election it will be held on June 10th when the European election are due to be held.
39/04 To Note
the minutes of the Planning Committee Meeting held on 15th March
2004
The Chairman explained the main note of interest had been the planning application for Coombe Cottage, which the Council had vigorously opposed.
This application had come before the development committee the previous week April 7th, when Cllr Langan had spoken on the Councils behalf. Mr Patrick Hedgeland had also attended the meeting and had spoken on behalf of the Highclere Society and the residents. After a very long discussion by the committee the application was finally rejected by a very small majority. Cllr Langan felt that the developers would probably appeal against this decision and it might be a good idea to speak to them and see if we could arrive at a solution that would keep the residents happy and that the developers would be happy with. The Clerk would arrange a meeting between the Committee and the developer.
There had been several residents from around Top Farm at the meeting as a planning application had been received for this. Several years ago the owners had put in planning to have their barns converted for commercial use. This had been passed. They had then found that they had difficulty in letting the barns so had applied for planning permission to have them converted to three houses.
The application for Oakley Farm Caravan Park to extend their opening period to include the winter had been turned down.
40/04 Borough Councillor’s Report
Unfortunately Councillor Tim Jardine was unable to attend the meeting. The Clerk had spoken to him and he would not be attending the Annual Parish Meeting, but he would be sending a report in.
41/04 Correspondence received
The following
correspondence had been received and relevant information copied to
Councillors:
1. HAPTC – Successful Lobby by HAPTC re members’ travel allowances etc – no comments
2. Office of the Deputy Prime Minister – reply to Sir George Young re the above – no comments
3. HAPTC – DEFRA Consultation Paper – ‘Use of Mechanically propelled vehicles on rights of way’ 2003 – no comments
4. B&DBC – Energy Conservation and Prevention of Cold-Related illness. The Chairman explained that there were grants for up to 50% to help with insulating your house if you were over 60 years of age.
5. HAPTC - Insurance Policies for smallest Parish Councils - HAPTC had looked into trying to keep the cost of insurance down for smaller Parishes if they could arrange an insurance en block. Unfortunately they were not able to help the smaller Parishes.
6. B&DBC - Update of B&DBC rural database, 2004. This was very interesting and showed what facilities our area has. Unfortunately not many!
7. HAPTC - Notes on elections for Parish and Town Councils 2004. This was advising us of the European Elections on June 10th.
8. HCC - Highclere Village Traffic Calming – holding letter. After the last letter received from HCC the Parish Clerk had written again to them as the Council were not happy with the reply received. The Clerk would get in touch with them again to arrange a meeting in the next couple of months to discuss the various points raised in the letter. See also 46/04 below.
9. B&DBC - Bottlebank at Penwood. A letter had been received from B&D saying that after careful consideration they felt there was no place suitable in Highclere or Penwood for a Bottlebank. The only place that perhaps would be suitable is – as before - the car park at Penwood Village Hall. The Council did not wish to see them there because of the mess that was created from some of the local residents pulling out contents of the bins and breaking glass over the car park.
10.HAPTC - 57th AGM – Preliminary notice – Resolutions for the AGM should be received by Friday 2nd July 2004. The Council did not have any resolutions to send the HAPTC for the AGM meeting which is being held in October.
11.HAPTC - NALC deal offers greatly reduced software buying for Councils. There had been some special deals which greatly reduced the cost of buying software. The Clerk felt that at present her software was adequate for the job.
12.HAPTC - Local Government Investments - Guidance under section 15(1)(a) of the Local Government Act 2003. This did not relate to us as we have no investments.
13.HAPTC - Hampshire Best Kept Village Competition 2004. The Parish Clerk would ask the Highclere Society if they would be interested in this and would send for the information.
14.Forestry Commission – The Chairman had received a letter from the Forestry Commission as had most of the residents of Penwood Heights, regarding an application they had received from a motorcycle club to hold an event on Sunday 18th July, between 10.00am and 2.30pm. The Clerk had already received many phone calls from residents of Penwood Heights protesting about this event.
In the past motor cyclists had used this land without permission and therefore several years ago the Forestry Commission had put a notice up banning this on their land.
The Council were concerned that if they let this event go ahead this time it would set a precedent and local motor cyclists might start using the land without permission. As the Forestry Commission Warden cannot be policing the land all the time this might get out of hand. The Clerk was asked to write to the Forestry Commission expressing the Council’s concerns.
The following correspondence was available for the Councillors if they
requested - there were no comments arising.
Government Office for the SE – Proposed changes to the draft Regional Transport Strategy
Hampshire Water Strategy – February 2004
South & South East in Bloom
HCC – Hampshire Now – Your County Council Magazine
DEFRA - Partnership in rolling our broadband to rural communities
Vol-Comm – Basingstoke voluntary Services – Spring 2004 issue
42/04 Penwood Village hall Lease
The Chairman
Councillor Pearson had been in touch with Mrs Levy from B&DBC regarding the
lease and the length of it. It seems to
have grown from the original lease of 2 pages to 28 pages over the years. There had been a meeting at B&DBC
concerning the lease on Tuesday 6th April, which the Chairman had
been unable to attend. It seems that
since then they had reduced the length of the lease and B&D would be
sending a copy of the revised lease to the Chairman and the Clerk.
The Chairman had
also received a letter from Mr Nick Harcourt from the Management Committee of
Penwood Village Hall saying they were very happy to leave the sorting out of
the lease to the Parish Council. It was
hoped that when the latest edition of the lease arrived that B&D and the
Parish Council would be able to come to a decision regarding it so that finally
it could be signed after a few adjustment to everyone’s satisfaction.
43/04 Update
on Mobile Phone Masts and Emissions
The Clerk had been in touch with all three of the users of the mobile
phone mast at Penwood Heights inviting them to the Annual Parish Meeting in
April. Unfortunately two of the users
were unable to make the meeting and the third would only attend if the other
two users were also were able to attend.
The Clerk had explained to them that at the meeting we only wanted to
know about the safety aspects of the masts and that we would only want them to
talk for about ten minutes.
Unfortunately at the time of this Council meeting there was still no one
from the three companies to attend, much to the disappointment of the
Council. The Clerk would see if she
could arrange for a representative from each company to attend our May or June
meeting and have a short slot before the actual meeting.
44/04 Update on Village Plan
Councillors’ Langan
and Drew had had a further meeting.
They now needed to get in touch with the Highclere Society to find out
dates when certain researches had taken place round the village. This would hopefully be finished in the next
couple of months. The Chairman Councillor
Pearson was concerned where the monies were coming from for this project. Councillor Langan expressed the hope that we
would still get funding from the Countryside Agency. Also a sum had been put into the precept for some of the work.
45/04 Recreational Area – Youth Shelter
Councillor East and
the Clerk had been in touch with Nicky Hutchins and Paul Hayes who were the
local community Wardens. They would be
attending the Council’s Annual Parish Meeting on the 28th
April. Hopefully at this meeting they
would be able to point us in the right direction with regard to a youth shelter
and whether they felt it would be a success.
It had been decided by the Council that if this went ahead the shelter
would be put in the recreational area at the opposite end from the children’s
play area. It was felt that this would
be a far safer area to have the shelter rather than on the land behind the Spar
shop. Also it was felt that the
youngsters would use a shelter in this area more than they would if it were behind
the Shop.
46/04 Penwood
Cross Roads & the A343 Update
Councillor East had
been to a meeting with the local Joint Action Group (JAG) group, which
Councillor John Wall and representatives from B&DBC had also attended. There is still great concern from the Parish
Council re the volume of traffic at the Cross Roads and also along the
A343.
Councillor East had
done a survey several months ago and now had the final figures and report from
it. This survey was carried out for
four hours a day for five days, two hours in the morning rush hour and two
hours in the afternoon. Councillor East
noted that there had been 18,000 vehicle movements in these twenty hours of
monitoring. The Council were very
grateful to Councillor East for all the work that he had put into this project
not only the time spent monitoring the movements of the vehicles but the
subsequent work in putting a report together which would be on display at the
Parish Meeting on the 28th April.
A vote of thanks was passed.
Copies of this report would be made for the Councillors.
It was reported that
West Berkshire Council hope to carrying out a survey with regard to the A34/M4
intersection. Traffic would be
monitored before and after the opening of the new intersection. There was concern that once this
intersection was open we would have even more traffic using the Penwood Cross
roads and the A343.
As minuted under
correspondence (41/04/8) the Clerk would seek to arrange for Mr Pauw (HCC) to
attend a future opening meeting, hopefully before the end of June.
The second phase of
road calming, which had originally been scheduled to start in October, had
finally started at the beginning of the previous week. Unfortunately, apart from a mobile toilet on
the site, not much seemed to have happened.
The Clerk would ask HCC to provide a completion date. There was still concern re the unlit
islands. At night these were very
difficult to see and also motorists were still overtaking on the wrong side of
them. A response from HCC is awaited.
47/04 Community Enhancement and Community Safety
Grant Schemes
Unfortunately
Councillor Drew who was looking through the information on grants was unable to
attend the meeting. The Chairman felt
that we needed to make a ‘Shopping List’ of items that we would like to do and
put them in order of importance and then the Councillor would know exactly what
they were looking for when they went through grants that are available. The first item would be pavements. The Clerk had made copies of a map of
Highclere that had been received from HCC and given out copies. Councillors’ Drew and Farmer would now use
these to work out where there were pavements and where there were not. Obviously there would be no way that even
when the council apply for grants for pavements that they will be done all at
once so they would have to be broken down into smaller allocations.
48/04 Parking – Woodlands
Concern had
expressed concern at the lack of parking at Woodlands in Penwood. Unfortunately more and more people now had
cars on this estate and several residents brought vans or lorries home with
them. Often they are on call so need
their vehicles at home. This is making
parking extremely difficult and also very dangerous at several points if you
were pulling out of a side lane. The
Clerk was asked to contact B&DBC and also Sentinel Housing, and see if
there is anything that can be done to alleviate this problem. It was felt that it was probably Sentinel
Housing’s problem as they own most of the land there.
49/04 Annual parish Meeting 28th April
– Agenda
The Clerk had posted
notices on the notice boards re the meeting, a notice had also gone into the
Parish Magazine, the clerk would put up more notices round the village in the
next week so that the residents are more aware of the meeting. Unfortunately, as has already been
mentioned, the Clerk had been unable to find anyone available from the three
companies that use the Mobile Phone Mast at Penwood to attend the meeting. She would carry on trying to see if anyone
would be available. The Clerk had been
in contact with the two community wardens, Nicky Hutchins and Paul Hayes who
were looking forward to attending the meeting and talking for about ten
minutes. Unfortunately Councillor East
would be on holiday for the meeting but it was proposed that the Clerk would
organise for display boards so the work that he had done on the Penwood Cross
Roads could be on view to the audience.
The clerk would also arrange for refreshments to be served after the
meeting.
50/04 Accounts for Payment
The following accounts were passed for payment. Highclere Society (Web site contribution) £30.50, D Mitchell (Parish Clerk salary) £478, W Bendle (litter warden) £176.92, C Corrall (litter warden) £134.68p, L. McClelland (litter warden) £31.68, D Mitchell (Parish Clerk expense, telephone) £92.60, D. Mitchell (Parish Clerk Expense, photocopies, plans of Highclere) £7.05.
51/04 Councillors’ matters arising to be included in
the next agenda
No matter arising to be included in the next agenda
There being no other business, the meeting closed at 10.23pm.
The next full Council meeting will be on Tuesday 11th May 2004 in Highclere Village Hall, Jubilee Room at 7.30pm.
Planning committee meetings will be held as and when necessary.