COMBE MARTIN PARISH COUNCIL
Minutes of a meeting of Combe Martin Parish Council
held in the Community Centre, Church Street on Monday, 9 March, 2015 at 7pm.
Present: Councillors Graeme Coombs (Chairman) Trevor Kibble
Nigel Brettle John Lovering
Julia Clark Paul White
Wendy Druce Celia Withers
Yvette Gubb
In Attendance: County Cllr Andrea Davis, 7 parishioners, PCSO Ade Drury,
Parish Clerk
Before the meeting commenced, prayers were said.
196/14 Matters arising from the public session
a Nicky Tossell – expressed concern that County Cllr Andrea Davis seemed to imply at the last meeting that she had no say in how the road repairs were dealt with and was not able to influence DCC regarding Combe Martin’s interests.
b Dorothy Banner – was concerned at the overgrown condition of Norman’s Ham, and that excess water on site was no longer being directed into the Umber, which may cause the bank to collapse. The land had been used previously by children for gardening but this had not been the case for many years. Some years ago, Mrs Banner’s husband had gone onto the land, cleared it, put in a pipe to direct the water and cut down the Japanese knotweed.
The current position regarding the Riverside Walk project was noted. Council’s workmen had been in recently to clear a way through so that the Japanese knotweed can be sprayed when there is sufficient leaf area. This is the safe form of treatment.
Mrs Banner asked if Council’s workmen would dig out a pond which used to be at Norman’s Ham. This was unlikely, but the pipe can be re-instated.
c Iris Andrews – clarified the exact nature of the water running onto the site, that the spring used to shoot into the Umber but is now likely to build up behind a wall.
It was AGREED that Council’s workmen should investigate the site, and advise Mrs Banner when they would be on site to spray the knotweed.
d Susan Young – expressed concerns that she was not able to respond to Devon County Council’s consultation on public transport online, especially as the proposals are to cut the 300 bus service. She was advised that she could write to DCC or use the internet at the library.
e Hugh Monro – was concerned at the recent vandalism event around Blackmore Ham Gardens and offered to set up a group to monitor the area. The importance of people reporting anything suspicious to the police was stressed. PCSO Drury asked if the Shammickite would publish an item on the police Community Messaging service, which may help with this.
f Nicky Tossell - enquired about the CCTV in Kiln Car Park.
197/14 Apologies for absence
Apologies were received from Cllrs Helen Mallinder (illness) and Jill Sidebottom (family commitments). County Councillor Andrea Davis also sent her apologies.
198/14 Declarations of Interest
Councillor Subject Interest
Julia Clark Planning application no 58775 Near neighbour
Julia Clark Planning application no 58867 Assisting applicant in Cllr Clark’s role
as a District councillor.
199/14 Update on recent closure of Combe Martin Post Office
Cllr Yvette Gubb has spoken to the Post Office several times over the last few weeks following the closure of Combe Martin Post Office. It is hoped that the post office may open later this week or early next week. The Post Office has advertised the vacancy for Combe Martin Post Office on the Post Office website, inviting applications, with a closing date of June, 2015.
RESOLVED to write to the Post Office:
a asking what their intentions are for the long term provision of post office services in Combe Martin,
b expressing this Council’s dis-satisfaction with the unreliability of the present arrangements,
c expressing concerns that the Post Office ensures that any new business chosen to run the post office will be reliable and viable,
d raising the possibility of the Post Office being housed in the Library.
200/14 Current situation of roadworks in and around Combe Martin
Concerns were expressed about the changes in information about the road works in and around Combe Martin. Changes are placed on the website as and when they are received.
201/14 Date of Annual Parish Council Meeting
The date of the Annual Parish Council Meeting was changed to 18 May 2015, as the votes for parish councils will not be counted until Monday, 11 May, 2015.
202/14 County and District Councillors reports
a Devon County Council
Council tax up by 1.99 per cent to safeguard services
Devon County Council has agreed an increase of 1.99 per cent in council tax bills. The council tax increase will bring in an extra £6.2 million over the next year to help safeguard services. But the budget still calls for reductions of £46 million as a result of a 14 per cent cut in Government funding.
DCC is not expecting any change after the General Election, no matter who wins. All the main political parties are committed to keeping the current spending plans for the next two years and for Devon that means at least £34 million will have to be saved next year. DCC has to find money to provide services it is legally obliged to provide leaving very little for anything else. Communities will have to do more for themselves.
Devon consistently loses out in comparison with urban areas. Residents in rural areas like Devon receive some £153 less in Government support on average than urban residents and pay £79 more in council tax. Every child in every Devon school receives nearly £300 less than the national average. If we received average national funding that would be an additional £23 million. And under the public health heading, Devon is the seventh lowest funded authority at £29 per head against an average of £51. Average funding for that would bring in another £16.5 million. This is inequitable and DCC continues to lobby our MPs and the Government to campaign for a fairer deal for Devon and our residents.
Public transport review
DCC now faces making savings of £1.7m from its annual public transport budget. Most bus services in Devon are run commercially by bus companies at no cost to the Council. However, £5.376m a year is spent to support nearly 200 public bus services, carrying around 4.5m passengers every year. These services would not run without this support. The National Bus Pass Scheme costs DCC more than £9m every year. Efficiencies have already been achieved across the wider Transport Coordination Service to meet previous savings.
DCC is now consulting on proposals to reduce services. Part of these proposals is to cut the 300 bus service through Combe Martin.
The consultation closes on Monday 20 April 2015 and can be found at
new.devon.gov.uk/publictransportbudget
b North Devon Council
North Devon’s recycling service is being enhanced this month to enable local residents to put out more plastics in their weekly kerbside collections. From Monday 30 March, North Devon Council will be able to collect mixed plastics, such as yoghurt pots, margarine tubs and plastic food trays. There are some plastics that can’t be collected as part of the weekly recycling collections. These include black plastic products, plastic carrier bags, garden pots like plant pots and packaging film and cling film.
The annual litter blitz along the North Devon Link Road is to become a thing of the past, with more targeted clean-ups expected instead. Last year, NDC picked up 218 bags of rubbish along the link road as part of its litter blitz. The majority of the waste was made up of fast food wrappers, but also included things like builders rubble and mattresses.
North Devon Council is working with other regulatory services in Devon and Somerset to improve the way they support businesses by making regulations easier to access and understand. As part of this, local businesses are being asked to share their views and experiences of regulatory services by completing the ‘Better Business for All’ survey online. Services included in the survey are food safety, health and safety, licensing, trading standards and fire safety.
The survey closes on Sunday 29 March. The feedback gathered will then be used to develop ‘Better Business for All’, which is part of a national government initiative to reduce the regulatory burden on business. It is endorsed by the Better Regulation Delivery Office, which is part of the Department for Business Innovation and Skills.
A new website for North Devon Council is being launched on Tuesday 10 March.
The new site will replace the old one at www.northdevon.gov.uk and has been designed to allow more transactions to be carried out online. It also enables people to have better access to the site, not just through computers and laptops but also through mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets.
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander, visited North Devon to outline infrastructure projects worth almost £23 billion for the south west. This includes £2 billion to go towards seven road schemes, including the North Devon Link Road. Mr Alexander also announced how the seven new road schemes will create an estimated 1,300 construction jobs. He also set out how he is tasking local authorities and the local enterprise partnership to create a business case for investing in the link road. This is to ensure improvements can form part of the bid for the next Local Growth Funding round. Work on this business case will now continue.
North Devon Council’s accounts have been finalised for this financial year. £4 million has been removed from NDC’s budgets, but NDC’s share of the Council tax will be frozen for the 2015/16 year.
70% of the North Devon Records Office’s services are being moved to Exeter. The rest will remain at Barnstaple Library. Anyone wishing to carry out research of paper documents will now need to go to Exeter, although the Parish Registers are available online through the South West Heritage Trust. Barnstaple will now be the only records office, other than Exeter, in Devon.
NDC’s assets are being valued by specialist valuers.
Lavercombe Farm has been removed from the draft Local Plan’s housing sites, and there will shortly be a consultation on the final version.
203/14 Police and Vandalism reports
a Police report
During the last month there had been 3 crimes reported, compared with 4 in the same period last year. The crimes were:
Vandalism to street lights at Blackmore Ham Gardens
1 car window shot with bb gun at same time as above
1 sign removed at Nutcombe Farm
PCSO Drury was thanked for coming to the meeting on her rest day.
b Vandalism Report
The newly installed street lights at Blackmore Ham Gardens have been deliberately hit with a BB gun. At the same time, glass bottles were used for target practice, spreading broken glass in the play area and gardens.
A seat back has become detached at Parade, but there was nothing to show that this was related to vandalism.
204/14 Minutes of the last meeting
Minutes of the meeting held on 9 February, 2015 and the Extra-Ordinary meeting held on 2 March, 2015, were ADOPTED.
205/14 Planning
District Councillors Julia Clark and Yvette Gubb drew the meeting’s attention to the fact that any observations or decisions which they made regarding planning applications at this meeting were based upon the information available at the time. Such observations and decisions might well change in the light of any information which might come before district councillors when sitting upon North Devon District Council’s planning committee.
a Planning applications
Cllr Julia Clark declared an interest in the following item and left the room.
58867 - ERECTION OF ONE DWELLING WITH ATTACHED GARAGE AT LAND AT
WESTERN GARDENS
Applicant – Mrs Richards
RESOLVED to recommend that the application be REFUSED in view of the
difficult access onto the A399.
Cllr Julia Clark declared an interest in the following item and left the room.
58775 - VARIATION OF CONDITION 2 (APPROVED PLANS) ATTACHED TO
PLANNING PERMISSION 56120 TO ALLOW AMENDED DESIGN
(RETROSPECTIVE APPLICATION FOR ENGINEERING WORKS TO FORM
VEGETABLE PLANTING AREAS TOGETHER WITH PROPOSED ERECTION
OF POTTING SHED AND ONE TOOL SHED) AT LAND OFF SHUTE LANE
Applicant – Mr and Mrs Sklar
The representation by the Northern Devon AONB were NOTED.
RESOLVED to recommend that the application be APPROVED.
58748 – ERECTION OF DWELLING AT LAND OFF KILN LANE
Applicant – Mr Stephen Parry
RESOLVED to recommend that the application be REFUSED because it is
outside the development boundary, and could therefore set a precedent.
b North Devon Council’s Planning Approval
58583 - Retrospective permission for parking area in garden at My Way, Corner Lane
206/14 Matters arising from the last meetings
a Min 181/14a – TAP Fund
The application with Bishops Tawton PC has been approved and the offer accepted. The equipment will be ordered shortly.
b Min 181/14b – IT – to note the update on IT provision
Westward IT will be changing over the software and email on Wednesday 11 March, 2015. NDC is backing up the email data prior to migrating this to the new email system. A new laptop with 3 year warranty has been purchased.
c Min 182/14 – Lighting at Blackmore Ham Gardens
A quote had been received to repair the vandalised lights for £234. RESOLVED to have the works done immediately as the invoice will be received in the next financial year.
d Min 185/14b – Newberry Lane
Cllr Yvette Gubb has passed the email to Berrynarbor PC and asked that the matter be dealt with.