Dorset Association of Parish and Town Councils
Western Area Committee
Minutes of the DAPTC (WA) meeting
held at the Town Hall, Bridport, on Thursday 28 July 2016.
Present: Cllr Chris Turner Chair (Beaminster TC); Cllr Janet Page (Beaminster TC); Cllr Chris Baker (Beaminster TC); Cllr Colin Sparkes (Bothenhampton & Walditch); Henry Lovegrove (Corscombe, Halstock and District Group PC); Freda Hennessy (Corscombe, Halstock and District Group PC); Bob Gillis (Bridport TC); Cllr Jane Rogers (Thornhackett Group PC); Cllr Hilary Ballard (Osmington PC); Cllr Nicolas Ireland (Osmington PC); Cllr Debra Symes (Osmington PC); Cllr Michelle Warrington (Loders PC); Cllr John Broom (Lyme Regis TC); Cllr David Rogers (Chideock PC); Cllr Robbie Williams (Puncknowle, Swyre, and West Bexington PC); Cllr Peter Hardwill (Broadwindsor PC); Cllr Freddie Hudson (Bradpole PC); Sandy Goldsmith (Bradpole PC); Tricia Dendle (Bridport Area Neighbourhood Plan); Cllr Ray Doggett (Chesil Bank PC); Cllr Debby Snook (Char Valley PC); Cllr Sylvia Creed-Castle (Char Valley PC); Cllr Peter Noel (Charmouth PC).
In Attendance: Andrew Martin, Dorset Highways; Alaric Little, Dorset Highways; Dawn Heath, Dorset Highways; Jean Marshall, Head of Planning (Development Management and Building Control) for West Dorset District Council, Weymouth & Portland Borough Council and North Dorset District Council; Mrs Hilary Trevorah, Chief Executive, DAPTC; Hayden White, DAPTC Chairman and Sal Robinson (Secretary and Chideock PC)
398. Chairman Cllr Chris Turner opened the meeting by welcoming all present.
399. Apologies were received from Cllr Hilary Nadin (Loders PC).
400. Minutes. Having been previously circulated, the minutes of the meeting held on 26 May 2016 were taken as read, and were approved and signed as a true record of the meeting.
401. Matters Arising from those minutes and not included on the Agenda. None.
402. Andrew Martin, Dorset Highways.
Andrew Martin spoke about the work which Dorset Highways does, the impact of cuts and the need to cut back on routine work and pass this to Parish and Town Councils.
Except from the presentation “Highways – Working Together:-
“Dorset County Council (DCC) has a duty to maintain highways maintainable at the public expense and a power to maintain other highways. Dorset Highways is the Service responsible for carrying out DCC’s duties and powers to maintain surfaced highways, footpaths and associated features.
DCCs duty to maintain unsurfaced highways is carried out by the Countryside Service.
The level of maintenance necessary to comply with DCC’s duty can be lower than that expected by local communities. Over the past decade Dorset Highways has seen a significant reduction in the budgets for delivering routine highway maintenance and, as a result, non-essential and minor maintenance items can no longer be carried out; it is necessary to focus resources on the priority issues that affect public safety and the integrity of the highway, i.e. Core Functions.
The following items are considered to be core functions –
· Inspect and maintain surfaced highways and associated features in accordance with the Dorset Highway Maintenance Plan.
· Install new and maintain surface water drainage pipes.
· Empty surface water gullies in accordance with the Dorset Highway Maintenance Plan.
· Investigate and rectify flooding as and when required.
· Maintain highway verges in accordance with the Dorset Highway Maintenance Plan.
· Development of safety schemes where accident hotspots are identified.
· Resurfacing as required.
· Maintain highway bridges and retaining walls.
· Maintain salt stocks and clear snow in accordance with the published Winter Maintenance Plan.
· Replacement of essential signs.
Local communities may want the following non–essential functions to be carried out -
· Increased frequency of:
Ø Urban grass cutting;
Ø Rural verge cutting;
Ø Gulley emptying;
Ø Weed killing;
Ø Sign cleaning;
Ø General cleaning (road sweeping);
Ø Tree pruning;
Ø Siding out (removal of detritus from the back of footways),
than would be achieved through the Council’s normal maintenance schedule.
· Earlier refreshing of road markings and replacement of roads signs than would be achieved through the Council’s normal maintenance schedule.
· Additional winter service functions (more salt bins, more salt, salting of additional routes, etc.)
· Fingerpost arm replacement or re-painting.
· Village gateway signage.
· Other non-essential sign replacement.
· Grip clearing more frequently than biennial.
· Cutting back overgrowth around surface water gullies.
· Clearance of fallen leaves from gullies.
· Proactive clearing of surface water systems.
· Painting or treating fencing.
It is hoped that by working together with Parish and Town Councils, Dorset Highways can enable non-essential and minor maintenance items to be undertaken in areas where local communities consider them to be desirable.
There are three options that Parish, Town and Borough Councils may consider implementing to enable non-essential and minor maintenance items to be carried out in their area. Depending on the extent and nature of the non-essential functions envisaged may dictate the method by which such works can be approved and enabled.
OPTION ONE - Use of Volunteers
OPTION TWO - Parish / Town or Borough Council use a Suitably Qualified Contractor or In-House Workforce
OPTION THREE - Dorset Highways carry out works paid for by the Parish / Town or Borough Council.”
403. Chief Executive’s Report.
The report had been pre circulated and was taken as read.
There is a Workshop Training on Highways – Working Together on 8 September.
404. Jean Marshall, Head of Planning (Development Management and Building Control) for West Dorset District Council, Weymouth & Portland Borough Council and North Dorset District Council gave an update on Development Management as follows:-
· progress is being made in regards to the length of time it takes from application registration to determination
· there is still a backlog but this is being dealt with separately and is decreasing (was approx 450 cases, now approx 180 cases). There will always be some cases which are delayed for various reasons (50 – 100). New applications are going through to time-scale
· a 3 year Service Improvement Plan has been in place for 6 months and has led to some improvements
· staff from 3 different councils, each with different working practices., need to be brought together
· there are 3 different computer systems – a new system may be implements but this will take time as functions other than planning are involved e.g. licensing
· the proposed change to some type of unitary structure(s) for Dorset will have an impact
· there is increased use of the Planning Portal and e-mail which means less paper and therefore quicker
· a pilot group has been set up for the transition to paperless consultation with Towns and Parishes
· 70% of fees for applications are now paid electronically
· there are still issues regarding planning enforcement
· the Development Control Committee has been renamed the Planning Committee
· better training of members of the 3 councils and of Town and Parish councils is needed
· in the last regular Customer Survey (1st Mach 2016) the vast majority of the 350 responses indicated satisfaction regarding fairness and courtesy
· key performance indicators have been changed to be more meaningful.
· Land Charges (which includes conveyancing searches) has been passed to the Legal department.
405. As the meeting had been in session for over 2 hours it was agreed to abandon the remaining Agenda items.
406. The date of the next meeting is 24 November 2016 at Mountfield, Bridport starting at 7.00pm.
The meeting closed at approximately 9:30 pm.
Signed Date: 24 November 2016
Chairman