4 Minutes for meeting of Rockbeare Parish Council 20/2/13
ROCKBEARE PARISH COUNCIL
Minutes for a meeting of Rockbeare Parish Council held at 7.30pm on Wednesday 20th February 2013 at Marsh Green Village Hall.
Present : Cllrs David Miller (Chairman), David Mason (Vice Chairman), Cllr Naomi Allen, Colin Please, Dr Bryan Pepper, Jonathan Allen, Jeremy Honeywill, Cllr Peter Bowden (County and District Councillor), and two members of the public.
Apologies: Cllr Derek Button (District Councillor) and PC Dave Smith
All councillors were politely reminded of their obligation to declare interests under the Code of Conduct
1.1 APOLOGIES: To receive apologies for absence. AS ABOVE
1.2 MINUTES: Minutes of the last meeting of Rockbeare Parish Council held on Wednesday 9th January 2013 were signed as a correct record of that meeting. AGREED
1.3 DECLARATIONS OF INTEREST & RISK ASSESSMENT: To receive declarations of interest and to note any additional risks. NONE
2 PLANNING
http://planning.eastdevon.gov.uk/PublicAccess/tdc/DcApplication/application_searchform.aspx for details
2.1 DECISIONS (for information)
2.1.1 12/2565/FUL Land To The South Of The Smithy London Road – permission granted for demolition of existing buildings and construction of 4no. detached dwellings and garages and provision of passing bay.
2.1.2 12/2570/LBC & 12/2574/FUL The Old Rectory – Permission granted for removal of existing verandahs, conservatory and porch and construction of replacement porch, conservatories and verandahs and construction of orangery, including garden wall and covered walkway link to main building, and garden workshop
2.2 APPLICATIONS (for comment, support or objection)
2.2.1 13/0111/MRES Land East Of Crannaford Bridge (Parcel B Cranbrook) Crannaford Lane Broadclyst - Approval of reserved matters (access, appearance, landscaping, layout & scale) for education campus (secondary school and second primary school) pursuant to Outline application 03/P1900 with additional details as required by conditions attached to the outline permission.
COMMENTS: The Parish Council has two significant concerns about this development both of which relate to parking and access arrangements.
Some 86 parking spaces are shown for the development of the primary, secondary and UTC elements. Pupil numbers quoted are Nursery - 30 pupils, Primary - 420 pupils, secondary - 1000 pupils and the University Technical College - 200 pupils. Surveys by the DCSF show ratios of adults employed to pupils in school of 1:5 at the nursery, 1:12 at the primary and 1:11 at the secondary school. To this we must add a small figure for administrative staff which are excluded from DCSF ratios. Assuming the same ratio for the UTC these numbers suggest that there will be about 160 people employed on this site.
In addition to this demand there will be demand from pupils post 16 including those for the UTC and also some parking.
We consider the provision of 86 spaces to be wholly inadequate for this scale of development. It needs to be double that figure to meet the expected demand.
We are further concerned to note that there will be no arrangements for dropping off points for pupils whose parents bring them to school by car perhaps before continuing on to work. This will happen so it makes sense to make reasonable provision for it. Failure to provide a dropping off point is likely to cause serious problems in practice especially in adverse weather conditions when more parents will be doing this.
The town centre parking will need to be able to support the businesses – especially retail - that are expected to be there. Expecting the town centre car parks to provide parking for the schools is unrealistic and will be detrimental to the commercial success of the town centre.
Clerk to ask what is the variation to the s106 and ask to see a copy of the final agreement.
2.2.2 12/0375/MOUT Mcbains Antiques Exeter Airport - Demolition of existing buildings and construction of 12 no. light industrial units (Class B1) including parking and access works (outline application reserving details of layout, scale, appearance, access and landscaping) COMMENTS: none
2.3 TREE & SIGNAGE APPLICATIONS (for comment)
2.3.1 13/0035/TRE Site Of New Town Honiton Road - Fell 1 Oak tree – 1440 Comments; The parish council are unhappy about any trees being felled which have already been deemed worth preserving under a TPO.
2.3.2 ENFORCEMENT
2.3.3 Wain Homes, London Road, Whimple - 12/F0497 In relation to the above complaint about the pre development condition regarding the access road, this has now been complied with and the case is now closed.
2.4 Cranbrook –
Bill Richardson returned back to post as new community officer at Cranbrook. The East Devon New Community Partners will soon be seeking approval for the new secondary school at Cranbrook as well as applications for the town centre and surrounding residential areas in the vicinity of Crannaford Lane – Phase 2 of Cranbrook. Below is a list of the applications that EDDC will be expecting in the coming weeks:
Application / Expected Submission DateCountry Park MRES / Drawings received – waiting for form, fee, submission drawings and Country Park and Nature Reserve Specification and Management Plan.
Education Campus MRES / End w/c 7 Jan or beginning w/c 14 Jan
To include a deed of variation to the Section 106 Agreement for Cranbrook
MLR MRES / End Jan - mid Feb
600 houses MFUL / End Jan - mid Feb
Town Centre MRES / Middle of the year
Retail Units (neighbourhood centre) MRES / Not specified but pre-app meeting next week
Community Development Worker Update
EDDC will be conducting interviews for the Community Development Worker on 6th February. It is expected that soon after this person is in post he/she will liaise directly with parishes directly on matters relating to the day to day implementation at Cranbrook.
Report on Education Campus presentation from the East Devon New Community Partners. The venue and time is currently 7pm, Victory Hall, Broadclyst 24th January 2013:
2.5 Senior officers meeting – clerk to enquire when this is to be held and ask that the question of the access to
the Wainhomes development being sealed up when the development becomes integrated with the rest of Cranbrook is scheduled for further discussion, also when the country park application will be forthcoming and who has been appointed as the Community Development Worker.
2.6 Neighbourhood Plan/Parish Plan/Housing needs survey – no report this time
2.7 East Devon District Council Community Infrastructure Levy - East Devon District Council (EDDC) has
prepared a Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) Preliminary Draft Charging Schedule for consultation.
The purpose of this consultation is to set out EDDC’s first thoughts regarding a Charging Schedule. CIL will be a charge levied on developments to help pay for new and improved infrastructure. The consultation document is designed to encourage representations by interested parties in order to ensure that the levy has been set at a reasonable rate. The document sets out proposed charges for development in the district and includes maps showing the proposed charging zones.
Copies of the Preliminary Draft Charging Schedule are available for public inspection, free of charge, at www.eastdevon.gov.uk/cil and East Devon District Council Offices, Knowle, Sidmouth, EX10 8HL. Mondays to Fridays 8.30 a.m. to 5.00 p.m.
You are invited to submit representations on the document from Friday 8th February 2013 until 12 noon on Friday 22nd March 2013. Representations should be submitted by emailing or by post to Planning Policy, East Devon District Council Offices, Knowle, Sidmouth, EX10 8HL Any representations made after this time/date may not be taken into account. If you are an agent acting on behalf of clients with an interest in making representations please forward this email on to them.
Representations made will inform the production of a Draft Charging Schedule, which will, in turn, be consulted on in late Spring/early Summer 2013. Any representations made at that second stage will accompany the Draft Charging Schedule to independent examination which is expected to take place later in 2013. CIL is expected to be adopted in 2014.
Cllr Mason gave a report on how this will work and expressed his concerns that different areas will be banded in different fees per square metre of development, the lowest in the district being the periphery of Cranbrook and with mention of the developers being involved in the writing of the document.
HIGHWAYS, FOOTPATHS
3.1 Highways & Footpaths - to accept items to report – the landslip towards the road opposite the church &
hand rail on the bridge remain a hazard, Gribble Lane and Ragg Lane, Marsh Green Hall to Brickyard Road, Junction of Watery Lane and Quarter Mile Hill is currently closed – clerk to enquire when this will be open again. The parish council feel their roads are in decline, and not being maintained and it was agreed to write a letter to Tom Vaughan, Senior Highways Engineer for Exeter and East Devon letter and cc to Peter Bowden asking how they intend to address this.
3.2 Items raised by parishioner; The Parish Council's report on Highways & Footpaths mentions, not before
time, the need to clear certain watercourses.
The roadside ditch/gully between New Ford Farm and the crossroads in Marsh Green contains, in the flattened verge opposite No.6 of the former council houses, the water meter and service pipe to Cottle's Farm, our house. Since mid-November, a contractor has been tracing a serious and expensive leak, finally finding a damaged pipe in the ditch, alongside the meter housing.
He considers that there could be two possible causes for this:
(a) the over-enthusiastic use of a mechanical digger to clear weed and rubbish from the ditch, or
(b) the increasing tendency of heavy vehicles to drive on the flattened verge, thus depressing the meter chamber, and causing the metal pipe to weaken and/or crack.
SWW have in the past been asked to move their meter much nearer to this property, but have declined to do so. (for information this was forwarded to DCC Richard Hosegood)
3.3 Cllr Allen raised a problem of the layby needing making up in the village, it was agreed to make this up with
803, Cllr Please to report.
3.4 Cllr Allen expressed concern about the positioning of Cranbrook directional signs and Cllr Bowden said he
would report these.
3.5 Items to report to EDDC Streetscene - Southwest side of the bridge which crosses the A30 there is a pile of beer cans which need clearing.
4 REPORTS
4.4 Community Policing – PC Smith – no report this time.
4.5 Rockbeare Village Hall/Marsh Green Hall – to receive any reports
4.6 District Councillor Derek Button – The beginning of 2013 has started in much the same way that 2012 ended, with planning issues dominating the news here in the Broadclyst and Clyst and Exe Valley areas of East Devon. The consultation phase on the Local Plan proposals has now finished and responses are due to be considered in the near future. I know that there have been many concerns expressed about the scale of the land allocated for both residential and economic development but I suspect that the local development management committee will have none of this and will plough on with its previous proposals, perhaps with added development, despite local objections. Its report on the 5 Year Housing land supply makes grim reading and the apparent assertion that even more housing land will need to be brought forward and permissions granted almost without full consideration of the merits of each case smacks of a return to the much hated “predict and provide” mentality of a former era.
There is every possibility of that same committee voting to reverse existing policy in relation to traffic movements on Station Road, Broadclyst when it discusses an officer’s recommendation to approve a developers application to change the use of a substantial part of the Lodge Trading estate to allow some Class B8 (storage and distribution) and other business class uses. More heavy vehicles, more concern over road safety, more misery for residents of Station Road and Dog Village! Can East Devon be trusted to protect local interests?
Other issues that are currently in my thoughts are housing issues, concerns ref. flooding in the locality and maintenance of roads in the area.
4.6 District & County Councillor Peter Bowden– Cllr Bowden reported on the Police and Crime Commissioners
intentions locally and gave an update of County matters, the budget will be set tomorrow, and full detail will be available then.
4.7 Exeter International Airport Consultative Group – to receive report
5 BUSINESS & FINANCE
5.4 Funding applications – Rockbeare School are looking to equip each classroom with an apple tv, and buy
enough ipads for each child to use in their IT class, this is now becoming an important part of education and
not simply a luxury item. They have a secured a grant for all but 10% of the cost and would be very grateful of
a donation towards this project. They need to raise a total of £1500. The clerk would like to thank the school
very much for storing the parish records for her for the last few years, it will be necessary to retrieve these for the new clerk, clerk suggests that these be moved to the Devon Records Office as soon as they are handed over (it has now moved and they are receiving documents again). It was agreed that the educational equipment should be funded separately by the school, but a donation of £500 was agreed as a thank you for the storage of records for the past years.
5.5 Quotation received from Fine Memorials in respect of the Marsh Green War Memorial; Clean Memorial,
Repaint letters (175 raised lead letters @ £1.50 per letter) £495.00. AGREED. It was also agreed that some steps would be desirable and Cllr Mason is to cost some form of steps as well for agreement at next meeting.
5.6 Receipts: none
Payments: DALC new councillor training £30.00
DCC advertisement £108.00
South West Forum (gypsy awareness) £20.00
Rockbeare Roots January issue £90.00
Exeter Phoenix training courses £28 & £31 £59.00
(Cllr Miller required that it be minuted that if this does not result in benefit to the youth club that he will reimburse the council).