MINUTES OF THE ANNUAL TOWN MEETING OF ROSS-ON-WYE HELD

ON MONDAY, 7 APRIL2014AT 7.00PM IN THE LARRUPERZ CENTRE, GRAMMAR SCHOOL CLOSE, ROSS-ON-WYE

Present: – Mayor, Cllr C Bartrum

In attendance: Cllr A Atkinson, Cllr P G H Cutter, Cllr J Edwards, Cllr C Gray,
Cllr R Mayo, Cllr D Ravenscroft Cllr Dr J Roberts,Cllr Mrs C Utting

Mrs D Mason – Town Clerk; Mrs R Lewis – Deputy Town Clerk

13members of the public and press

1 APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE

Cllr Mrs J Davies, Cllr C Morgan and Cllr I Henderson.

2 MINUTES OF THE PREVIOUS ANNUAL MEETING

IT WAS RESOLVED that the Minutes of the meeting held on Monday, 27 April 2013
be signed as a true record of the meeting.

3 MATTERS ARISING FROM THE MINUTES

There were none.

4MAYOR’S REPORT

The Mayor introduced himself and thanked the public for attending the meeting.

He reported:

The past year had been the most important and momentous in the history of the Town Council. The Town Council was created some 40 years ago. In a previous year, some 20 or so years ago, the Town Council agreed to take on responsibility for this place that we are meeting in now, the Larruperz Community Centre, which is now a well established community asset for the town. But 2013/14 will be remembered as the year that the Town Council agreed to take on a package of assets from the County Council, assets which have never been owned by the Town Council. This is a challenge and an opportunity, that we have never had before as a Parish Council.

The financial problems of the County Council are responsible for this opportunity. The County Council no longer has the money to run and manage a range of assets and services which it has previously provided. The Market House shut at the end of January and the Old Chapel some time before that.

The assets on offer are:

  • The Market House
  • The Old Chapel
  • The Riverside, including the Rope Walk, Blake’s Gardens, Caroline Symonds Gardens and Long Acre
  • The two public lavatories at Red Meadow and at the bottom of Wye Street
  • The three car parks at Wilton Road, Homs Road and Crossfields
  • The markets

Most of these assets have historically cost the County Council money to run. The assets which make money are the markets, car parks and potentially, the Old Chapel.

The Town Council did not rush into this process. It thought long and hard about the implications. We had at that time three part time members of staff and a Council Tax demand of £196,500 a year. We were looking to take on assets which were costing the County Council around £100,000 a year.

We asked the people of the town what they thought about this issue by issuing a Prospectus which was available on line and in paper form. The recommendation by Town Councillors was that we should go ahead and every Town Councillor signed up to that position. 97.1% of those who responded said “Go ahead !”. We also held a public meeting in this building, which was attended by around 170 people. The overwhelming majority at that meeting also voted by a show of hands to “Go for it !”

The Town Council then voted to in principle take on the assets on offer. In the last few days we have obtained licences from the County Council to occupy the Market House and the Old Chapel and the keys to those properties.

We now have to decide what we are going to do with the assets and how we are going to manage them. That might mean in the future that we pass responsibility for managing these assets to a Community Interest Company. That might have the advantage that we can involve more people in the Ross community in the process and save us Business Rates. The hard work starts now as we discuss with the County Council the details of which assets we are going to take over, on what dates and what added responsibilities and obligations we now have to face up to.

Whatever we do, there will be delays, frustrations and perhaps mistakes along the way. But they will be our mistakes, honestly made and I am convinced that by going in this direction we will have a chance to have far more local control over Ross assets, owned and managed by Ross people. We will not be at the mercy of the County Council, which can seem remote and unresponsive to our local views.

So to sum up, despite the risks and pitfalls ahead of us, we have a wonderful chance to make Ross a better place and I am delighted that we have unanimous support on the Town Council to go ahead. And I may add that we have heard from more than 100 people who have volunteered to help in this project.

Finally, a few thanks. Firstly, I would like to thank all the Chairs of the Town Council’s Committees for their work over the past year. Secondly, I thank the Town Councillors who have been so diligent in attending Committee meetings. They do the unseen work on behalf of the Town Council and they do not receive any pay for it. Finally, I would like to thank the Town Council staff, Denise, Rachel and Jo for supporting myself and the other Town Councillors in what has been an unparalleled, busy and frenetic year.

5 CHAIRMEN’S REPORTS

The Chairman of the AmenitiesCommittee, Cllr Ravenscroft, reported on the responsibilities of the Committee, including the following :

  • Ross Town Cemetery
  • Tudorville Allotments
    A further piece of ground was to be made available from the cemetery which would accommodate three more allotments to add to the section formed last year from land owned by Herefordshire Housing.
  • Dean Hill Park
    New playground equipment installed in April 2013 had proved popular. The old rocking horse was being retained as it is a rare item.
  • St Mary’s Churchyard
    The entrance pillars have now been repaired and replaced.
  • Bandstand
    A further series of Sunday afternoon concerts was planned and for the first time a wedding had been booked on the bandstand.
  • Skate Park
    Repairs and painting work was being undertaken in April.
  • Street Cleansing and P3 Scheme
    The council supplemented work done by Balfour Beatty with the Can do Crew who also undertake work on footpaths paid for through the P3 scheme.
  • Weather Station
    This manned by a volunteer.
  • Christmas Lights
    A new string of lights was added this years and power sockets installed for each string of lights which has made the installation much easier and less expensive.
  • Parish Lengthsman
    A parish lengthsman has been appointed and has done much work in clearing blocked drains.
  • Advertisement Banners
    The council now manages the railings by Morrisons on behalf of Welsh Water. Charities can book a space - details are on the website.
  • Town Maps
    A contract has been given to look after the map boards located around the town.

The Chairman of the Finance Committee, Cllr Edwards told the meeting that the Finance Committee is responsible for

  • Monitoring the council’s spending
  • Scrutinising grants applications
  • Making recommendation to the Full Council Recommending the budget – which due to the new assets outlined by the Mayor would increase by 37%, however this equates to only. £21 per annum for a Band D property.

The Chairman explained that the asset base would be improved at no cost to the council, although there would be increased liability though no hard figures had been made available by Herefordshire Council. Members had estimated and cost of £105,000 which included £20,000 for the upkeep and running of the toilets in the town, and half of this would be taken from existing reserves of £280,000, the remainder accounting for the increase in the precept. He hoped that the Old Chapel would bring in income (from weddings and other events and users) and thus be self-financing.

Chairman of the Planning& Sustainable Development Committee, Cllr Dr Jane Roberts, explained that Planning Committee which meets every three weeks, is not a decision making body but as a statutory consultee, simply makes recommendations to Herefordshire Council.

  • The committee is purely advisory and has no power to allow or disallow any application. Recommendations must be based on Planning Law and guidelines and the committee looks at what is best for the town rather than individuals.
  • The committee had looked at the Tesco application and discovered that the town was quite divided on the issue. The committee neither supported nor opposed the application but made comments e.g. regarding the position of a petrol station. Following the publication of the Deloitte report, a further response was submitted regarding concessions in store and pathways to the town remaining open to be part of any planning conditions.
  • A Neighbourhood Plan process (with Ross Rural Parish) had been agreed and steering group meetings had begun. This plan is about Land Use and when agreed will become statutory planning policy. In the summer the objectives will go out to the public for consultation.

The Chairman of the Policy & Management Committee, Cllr Bartrum, reported that the committee consists of the Mayor, Deputy Mayor and Chairmen of all the other committees. Much of the work this year had pertained to asset transfer he had described in detail in the Mayor’s Report.

The Chairman of the Events Committee, Cllr Mrs Utting, reported the consisted of Councillors Henderson, Mayo, Dr Robertswith Cllr Gary as Parish Resilience Officer.

The Events Committee’s budget includes regular annual events such as this meeting, The Mayor Making, switching on the Market House Christmas lights and the Civic Service as well as the Bandstand Concert Series in the summer and one off special events. In the last financial year it was £16,000, representing roughly 8% of the Town Council’s total budget; this financial year it is £11,000 representing roughly 4% of the overall budget.

Last summer saw the Granting of the Freedom of Ross-on-Wye to the Rifles Regiment which took a great deal of planning and was carried out with military precision.

The one thing that can never be book in advance, however, is the weather and who could have predicted Saturday 13th July would have been the hottest day of the year last year and close to the highest temperature ever recorded in this country? Several of the cadets on parade on The Rope Walk passed out but St John Ambulance members were on hand to take care of them. I think it was a great occasion for the town and we received a lot of positive feedback about Ross which was nice.

In addition to providing residents with a civic focus and opportunity to celebrate the lovely town we live in some events are organised to attract visitors to the area which is good for the local economy as they bring their spending power with them. In November last year we held the first Flavours of Ross-on-Wye Market which was very successful at attracting shoppers into the town centre.

Another example of this is the Wye Valley River Festival in May this year. The big day for Ross is Sunday 4th May when it is hoped we will have a good crowd on The Rope Walk to join in all the fun that is planned. It comes from an initiative of the Wye Valley Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and is a festival that travels over several weeks the length of the Wye Valley starting in Hereford and ending in Chepstow.

With all the paperwork and form filling necessary to put on special occasions the committee has naturally relied on a lot of assistance from the Town Clerk and her Deputy. However, as the responsibilities of the Town Council are growing with the transfer of assets and services from the County Council the committee is looking at a change of emphasis from organising its own big events to a supporting role for other groups that do so.

Although we don’t have one annual headline event or festival in Ross we do have a whole series of them throughout the year that are very well organised. These include the May fayre, Country Music Festival and Carnival.

The Committee recently invited a number of representatives from organisations in Ross, such as the Association of Ross Traders, Carnival Committee, Ross Lions and the Royal British Legion, to a presentation given by Councillor Roberts setting out an idea to create an events brand for Ross that would see each organisation supporting the promotion of its own and the other’s events. The Town Council’s role in this would be to coordinate and provide a platform such as a website and booklet that would put forward a programme of what was happening in the town. It’s in its early stages at the moment but we will be pushing it forward.

6 QUESTIONS FROM THE PUBLIC

Questions were put to councilors regarding

  • the asset transfers
  • the Market House Clock
  • the state of Welsh Water wall where advertisement banners are now placed
  • the community governance review and the possible number of councillors on a new council
  • the possibility of the town’s Fairtrade status to be featured on town maps
  • the future of the Ryefield Centre

7PRESENTATION

Community Governance

Mr Bill Norman, solicitor to Herefordshire Council, gave a presentation on the Community Governance review. He explained the process and how the role of Herefordshire Council as a facilitator. He stressed that the ultimate decision is in the hands of the Town and Ross Rural residents. The consultation is about engaging with the local people.

Should the people decide that they wish to go ahead with one council, the two existing ones would disappear and a new one would be formed and a name and the size would have to be agreed. Assets of the councils should automatically be transferred to the new council.

The Chairman closed the meeting at 8.20pm.

Chairman…………………………….. Date……………………………..

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