SEEND PARISH COUNCIL

Annual Meeting – Tuesday 16th May 2017

Present:Mrs G A’Bear, Mr Br Crisp, Mrs A Heatley, Dr N Knott,Mr T James, Mr T Murch, Mrs C Vince, Mr J Williams

Mr M Wiltshire and Mr M Wood.

Cllr J Seed plus members of the public, and representatives from clubs and organisations in Seend.

Apologies:Ms Tessa Doe, Mrs Anne Ewing, Jane & John Goman, and Mr Steve Vaux

Election of Chairman and Vice-Chairman for the coming year

Mr T Murch was proposed as Chairman by Mr M Wood, seconded by Mrs G A’Bear. There were no other nominations. Councillors voted unanimously to elect Mr Murch as Chairman for the coming year.

Mr Wood was proposed as Vice-Chairman by Mrs Heatley and seconded by Mr T James. There were no other nominations. Councillors voted unanimously to elect Mr Wood as Vice Chairman for the coming year.

To confirm and sign the minutes of the previous Annual Meeting

The minutes were available for all those attending. There were two minor amendments. Mr Savage should have read Mrs Savage (under election of Chairman), and in reports from village organisations, Mrs Valerie Whitehead, should have been Mrs Marion Whitehead. With no other amendments required, the Chairman signed the minutes as a true record. Proposed by Mrs Heatleyand seconded by Mr Wood. The minutes were approved unanimously.

Annual Report of the Parish Council presented by the Chairman

The Parish Neighbourhood Plan

The Neighbourhood Plan is one of the most important undertakings that the Parish Council has initiated, as it has the purpose of producing a pro-active plan that will shape the future of the Parish for a significant period of time. Important aspects of the plan are the consultations that the Neighbourhood Plan Steering Group (NPSG) is undertaking and the emergence of a draft plan that will be open to parishioners to vote on, through a referendum. The Parish Council has a monthly standing agenda item where the Chair of the NPSG, Georgina A’Bear reports on the progress made. The Parish Council has made funding available over a two year period to support the work of the NPSG and raised the precept for this purpose. Funding is available from external sources to support its work and as far as it is practicable these funds will be applied for so that the PC can recoup as much of its outlay as possible.

It is important that our parishioners engage as much as possible with the Plan and can I, on behalf of the Parish Council, encourage the representatives here tonight to ask their membership to comment on the emerging plan and provide feedback. This also applies to all of our parishioners.

Membership of the NPSG is comprised of the following parish councillors: Georgina A’Bear, Kevin Rigg, Pamela Akerman, and for part of this year Paul Manning. I am also a member of this group. The other parishioners in the group are: Steve Vaux, Aldetha Raymond, Sarah Chard, Sue McCulloch, Carola Thorpe and Yvette Rowe. The traffic sub-group, the footpaths and bridleway group and the business group have all produced reports.

The Neighbourhood Plan has key themes and they are: Housing, Business and Employment, Community Assets and Amenities, Highways and Traffic, Conservation and Enhancement of the Natural Environment and Green Living and Well-being which is a cross-cutting theme that runs through all of the other aspects.

The PC and the NPSG have received a detailed report on Highways related matters. The PC and NPSG have had two tentative meetings with Aster Homes, at their request, together with a representative of their planning team. The PC invited the Lye Field Trustees to participate in these two meetings as elements bear on the land that the Trustees currently own, as part of the Lye Field. The PC has made the notes and maps available for anyone who has requested them and they have been in the public domain. On behalf of the PC I would like to thank all those who have been involved in the work of the Neighbourhood Plan for their commitment to this important work.

The process of producing a NP typically takes between two and three years because there are a significant number of stages that have to be met not least is the need for it to be closely related to the Wiltshire Core Strategy. There is the inevitable risk that housing planning applications could arrive during the development of the plan but there is no way of short-circuiting this or speeding up the writing of the plan and consulting on it. Ultimately the PC has the responsibility for the plan and submitting it to Wiltshire Council and the Planning Inspectorate. Once approved, it will be enshrined in law.

Highways

Another major project that was agreed and installed during the past year was the installation of Vehicle Activated Signs at the ‘pinch-point’ at the western end of Seend High Street. This work took place in the summer of 2016 and the intention was that this would help to reduce traffic speed and collisions and improve safety for pedestrians. The decision to install these signs was informed by a large number of parishioners who attended a meeting where the various options were discussed. There were some teething problems initially with the signs and more recently the one at the eastern end of the pinch-point has not functioned consistently. It is not entirely clear what impact the signs have had on driver behaviour. The signs, at least do prepare drivers for on-coming traffic but for some drivers their unreasonable driving means that the signs appear to have little impact on their behaviour. The funding for the signs amounted to a third from the PC, a third from the Community Area Transport Group, and a third from the Melksham Area Board. Wiltshire Council has deemed that any highways improvements have to go through these two bodies and so it does sometime take some time for works that require funding to be approved, especially as we are competing against other parishes, in the Melksham community Area.

The PC has also continued to pursue the installation of a crossing point close to Church Walk. At every meeting of the PC road safety/highways issues have been discussed. The Seend Road Safety Initiative Group have helpfully pointed up issues that need to be addressed and have worked as a sub-group of the Neighbourhood Planning group. The Council has received their report and will discuss it in the next few months to determine those recommendations that can be taken forward. Our thanks to Nigel Knott, Bruce Talmage and Brian Crisp for compiling this report.

The volume, speed and the number of cars and lorries using the two ‘A roads’ through the Parish have become a real concern, as is the traffic using the C20 and the particular problem at the top of Bollands Hill, where the road is extremely narrow. Traffic speed continues to be a major concern on this stretch of road as it does on the road through Seend Cleeve. There is a proposal in the road safety report to try to get Wiltshire Council to force lorries on to the designated freight route which is the A365 from the A361. This has the potential, if this can be achieved, to add significantly to the amount of traffic in one part of our Parish i.e.in Sells Green. Lorries would be diverted from the A361 Semington Roundabout to Seend Fork, on to the A365 Melksham to Seend Fork This has the potential to create divisions in the Parish. This is a dilemma for the Parish Council, although it is difficult to see how this could be enacted and enforced.

There was significant disruption in Seend Cleeve during the part-demolition, followed by deep piling of the land adjacent to the canal bridge, by the Barge Inn and the subsequent rebuilding of the bridge. The PC had lobbied the Kennet and Avon Canal Trust for many years about the state of the bridge. The road closure caused disruption especially to residents of Seend Cleeve and the Council wishes to reiterate its thanks to those who were inconvenienced by these essential works.

Parking by canal boat owners in Seend Cleeve, Bollands Hill and Sells Green continues to be a problem with vehicles frequently parking on and destroying the grass verges. The K&A Canal Trust seem unwilling to do anything about the problem.

We have again considered the re-surfacing of the area in Rusty Lane adjacent to the three community buildings. We have not been able to make progress on this to date, for reasons of cost. It has taken some considerable time to get Wiltshire Council to fill in the pot-holes although the patching work has not been ideal.

Paul Manning has been our Road Safety Coordinator and Thelma Carr has attended the Community Area Transport Group, with Terry James as the substitute, if Thelma was not able to attend. Joan Savage was our representative on Melksham Area Board, until her untimely death. Tony Murch succeeded her in that role but daytime meetings make it difficult to attend.

As you may be aware the PC purchased a grit/salt spreader for use around the roads in the village not covered by Wiltshire Council’s general grit spreading during icy weather. Unfortunately the spreader broke down and the supplier initially refused to replace it but we have succeed in replacing it thanks to Sue Bond and Martin Wiltshire.

The Council is grateful to Penny England, Jo and Colin Waldeck for the work that they have done in relation to footpaths and rights of way. Mark Wood coordinates the PCs responsibility for this aspect. A number of footpaths have been cleared and new gates installed.

There were problems created by a tenant farmer who allowed cattle to escape and stray through parts of the village. This presented a danger to traffic and pedestrians and the Council enlisted the help of the officer responsible for animal welfare at Wiltshire Council.

Community Matters

The Council met with Trustees of the WI to discuss the likely future of the WI Hall. The Trustees had hoped that the Council could perhaps take on the building but the only way the Council could do this would have been to raise the village precept and the lead in time for this is eighteen months. There was a difference of views expressed within the Council about whether demolition or refurbishment for community benefit was the better solution.

The Council has commenced discussions with village organisations about declaring some key buildings and functions as Community Assets. The Council consulted with the village about whether the Bell Inn should be considered but there was a nil response from parishioners. We met with representatives from Seend Cleeve about the Brewery Inn and it was decided that a local group would pursue this but with support from the Council.

Thanks to significant commitment and work from Mark Wood a defibrillator was installed outside of the Community Centre and Mark has organised supplementary training in CPR using equipment supplied by the British Heart Foundation.

The Council wishes to thank the Community Centre for allowing us to locate the defibrillator on the outside of the building and for allowing us to connect it to an electricity supply. We hope it will never be needed!

The Council has continued to undertake minor repairs to assets owned by the Council and thanks to Sue Bond, we now have a comprehensive list of Council owned assets. The Council allotments continue to be maintained in a good condition by the allotment holders and our thanks to them for their hard work in maintaining them.The former telephone kiosks have continued to be used for the benefit of the community and thanks to those who help keep them as useful and functional places.

Sadly we have not been able to secure a police officer or community beat officer at our meetings. We do receive occasional emails and Anita Heatley has been diligent in keeping us in touch with policing matters as they have arisen.

‘My Wiltshire App’ has become the mechanism through which problems can be reported or information obtained relating to the services of Wiltshire Council. In the past requests have had to come through the Council but now anyone can use this App and the Parish Council does not necessarily need to be involved, although it still reports matters as they are identified. Our preference is that parishioners inform us if work needs to be undertaken and any related issues.

Parish Council Membership

The most important person on our Parish Council is the Parish Clerk and this year we said goodbye and thank you to Rosemary Fisher who had served in that role for thirteen years. We appointed Sue Bond as our new Clerk and Rosemary kindly helped with the induction and transition of duties. Sue has made a tremendous start to her work and she has initiated some changes that are helpful. We hope we can retain Sue for many years to come.

Seend Parish Council is comprised of eleven parish councillors. At the Annual Parish Meeting held on 10th May 2016, Tony Murch was elected as Chairman for the year, with Mark Wood elected as Vice-Chair. Sadly during the course of the year Joan Savage died. Joan was a long-standing councillor and contributed much to the Parish of Seend both as a councillor and in her other voluntary work. She was forthright and she was determined that public money should be spent wisely. Joan was replaced by Nick Vaux. The Council had the benefit of Nick Vaux, for a short while but sadly he was not able to commit as much time to the PC as he would have liked and so he resigned. At the end of the PC year Thelma Carr and Kevin Rigg decided that they would not be standing again and unfortunately we also lost the opportunity for Paul Manning to stand again.

On behalf of the PC I would like to thank Thelma, Kevin and Paul for their many years of dedicated service. We shall miss their wise counsel and commitment to the work of the Council. There was no need to hold an election during the recent round of local elections as the number of people standing, equalled the number of seats available.

We welcome Brian Crisp, Nigel Knott, Carole Vince and John Williams to the Council. We look forward to working with them and to their contributions to all of the work that the Council undertakes.

On behalf of the Council, I would like to thank Jonathon Seed for his attendance and support for our work. If we have problems Jonathon follows these up promptly with the officers at Wiltshire Council. Establishing good relations with officers and members, whilst accepting that we may need to challenge sometimes,is the most productive way to proceed. A constructive dialogue is in my view, the best approach.

My thanks to all of our Parish Councillors, and to our Parish Clerk for their work during the course of the year, and for their unstinting commitment to our Parish and its community.

Some challenges for the year ahead:

  • Continuing to develop, consult on and complete the Neighbourhood Planning process
  • Possible new housing development and ensuring that any development meets the needs of our community and in locations that have minimum impact on existing homes and within the framework of our Neighbourhood Plan
  • What can we do to address the problems caused by the increase in traffic, especially heavy lorries and traffic speed? How can we take forward some of the important issues identified in the Traffic Report? What is going to be achievable in getting lorries to use the designated freight route? Would this be fair on the parishioners in Sells Green?
  • Promoting community cohesion especially in relation to the potential tensions caused by possible housing and highways issues
  • Continue to support and help the professional development of our Parish Clerk
  • Developing a Parish Council plan so that we can become more pro-active
  • Building understanding, tolerance and capacity within the Parish Council
  • Wiltshire Council may require us to take on more responsibility for maintaining the Parish

Chairman, Mr Tony Murch

Seend Parish Neighbourhood Plan Steering Group – Chairman’s Report

In April 2016 we wrote to Community Stakeholders i.e the School, Church, Community Centre, The Lye Field Trustees and received a good response. With the main response being how valued all our Community Assets are and how they enable lots of activities to take place and create a sense of community spirit.

I would like to say a BIG thank you to all the parishioners who completed the Housing Needs Survey. We had an amazing 42% response rate.