BREINTON PARISH COUNCIL
Minutes of Meeting held on 15th November 2017
Present: Tony Geeson (Chair), Anthony Powers, Jackie Morris, Keith Ray, Liz Morawiecka
In attendance: Ward Cllr Bob Matthews, 1 member of public, Graeme Adkin (Clerk).
1. Apologies for absence
1.1 Lorraine Lewis
2. Declarations of interest & consider requests for dispensations.
2.1 Tony declared an interest on Agenda item 8 – precept, and donations to St Michael’s.
3. Minutes of meeting 23rd August & 18th October, and matters arising
3.1 Minutes for both meetings were agreed and signed.
3.2 Matters arising –
a) Speed limits -Tony advised he was seeking support of the MPs before taking this further.
b) Boundary Commission proposals (Correspondence from previous meeting) – Tony advised that these were unchanged from the previous proposals, namely, Breinton would move into Hereford Parliamentary constituency.
4. Clerk’s report, including bills to pay
4.1 Clerk gave details of the financial statement as at 1st November 2017.
4.2 Cllrs approved the following payments:-
Lengthsman – £238.65
Royal British Legion – £30.00
Grant Thornton – £120.00
Village Hall – £18.00
Clerk reimbursed exps (fireworks £262.49 & food £108.02) – £370.51
Clerk salary as agreed by Cllrs
4.3 Cllrs signed cheques, initialled invoices and bank statements to verify amounts reported.
4.4 Cllrs discussed and agreed to make the annual donation to St Michael’s for Teamtalk and upkeep of the churchyard, in the sum of £1,000. In addition, there will be a further, one-off payment of £450 to set against the additional cost to remove the tree, as advised by Preb Rob North in his recent letter. These amounts were agreed unanimously by the Cllrs. These payments will be made at the December meeting.
4.5 Tony did not contribute to this discussion, and nor did he vote.
4.6 Cllrs discussed the comments made by Bill Wiggin MP, regarding reduction of the proposed routes for the Western relief Road from 6 to 2, across KAR. Clerk to draft a response
4.7 It was agreed that the leftover drinks from the fireworks will be used for the Christmas refreshments after the December meeting.
4.8 Clerk advised of works carried out by Balfour Beatty.
5. Other Reports
Ward Cllr Bob Matthews
5.1 Bob updated the meeting on various issues.
Police
5.2 Clerk updated meeting on incident at Warham in October, as advised in the recent report from the Safer Neighbourhood team.
Footpaths Officer
5.3 No report.
Village Hall
5.5 No report.
Tree Warden
5.6 No report.
6. Environment and Amenities Working Group
6.1 Tony advised he had written to the 2 MPs, seeking support before contacting Highways Agency regarding speed limits..
6.2 Tony will contact Holme Lacy College with a view to getting students to make a bench for Breinton Common, and possibly interpretation boards..
7. Review of fireworks party
7.1 Costs of drink, food and fireworks was £370.51. Donations received of £345.49.
8. Precept
8.1 Tony suggested the following adjustments to the amounts shown in the draft calculations: –
Elections – reduce to “£0” (as extremely unlikely for an election in the near future);
reduce expenditure on fireworks to £200 (shortfall hopefully covered by donations);
Church donation to £1,000 (it gas been a similar level for several years without an increase).
8.2 Clerk to revise calculations, and also consider Clerks and Councils Direct; cost of audit for subsequent years.
8.3 Explanation of any increase will be provided in press release in due course.
9. Councillor interests (review within code of conduct)
9.1 Various aspects regarding conflicts of interest were discussed by Cllrs.
9.2 Agreed that any dispute will be determined by an independent person, namely the Monitoring Officer.
9.3 Unless previously agreed by a meeting of Breinton Parish Council to the contrary, a Cllr attending any other meeting is doing so in their personal capacity, and not as a representative of BPC. The Cllr should make this clear at the other meeting.
10 Lengthsman
10.1 Clerk to issue letter to all farmers in the parish to maintain hedges and ditches, including link to Balfour Beatty website.
10.2 No specific works identified for lengthsman to undertake.
11 Hereford Area Plan
11.1 No update at this stage.
11.2 Clerk to write to Cllr Mathews regarding route of WRR, and proposed reduction in routes from 6 to 2.
12 Planning
12.1 No planning decisions to report
12.2 No planning applications received this month.
13 Correspondence
13.1 Anthony was unable to attend the Balfour Beatty event. GA to request powerpoint slides and for copy of Q&As.
14 Items for next agenda
14.1 Usual items, and to include Christmas refreshments.
Signed ………………………………. Date ………………….
Chair/Vice chair
Date of next meeting – 13th December 2017