Hullavington Annual Parish Meeting

HULLAVINGTON ANNUAL PARISH MEETING

Minutes of the meeting held on 22 April 2014 at 7.30pm

Present: Nine members of the public attended the meeting including the Chairman of the Parish Council, Cllr Maggie Bawden Rawsthorne who chaired this meeting.

The Chairman welcomed everyone to the Annual Parish Meeting.

1. Apologies for absence

Apologies were received from Wiltshire Police,Mr Robert Fenner (Village Hall), Alison Reed (Hullavington PCC), Sarah Harmer (WI).

1. The Minutes of the Annual Parish Meeting held on 23 April 2014 at 7.30pm

The Minutes of the previous APM had beenagreed and signed as a true and correct record at the following Parish Council meeting in May 2014.

1. Hullavington Parish Council

The Chairman of the Parish Council gave a report, copied below.

Chairman’s Report – APM – 22.4.2015

Another interesting and busy year for the Parish Council and again, I have had the unfailing support of the Clerk and each of the Councillors. My sincere thanks to all of you for what you are doing for the village that we all love and particularly to the Clerk, who keeps us all in order and makes sure that we are doing things properly; also for the many hours that Sharon puts in attending various meeting so that she is up to speed with the latest legislation.

Thanks again to Jane Scott, our district councillor, for her help and guidance over the year, your assistance is very much appreciated.

To those members of the public who have attended our meetings over the last year, we thank you for your interest and we look forward to seeing you in the future.

We were pleased to welcome Dave Martin as a new councillor last September, Dave has lived in the Parish for many years and, like all of us, has the best interests of the village at heart. Dave attended the new Councillors Course recently and, like Patrick, found it most informative. We are still one Councillor short and live in hope that one day we shall be up to full strength.

At our budget meeting in November, we considered it expedient to increase the precept for the coming year. The increase, of 2.4%, equates to 85p per year for a Band D property and gives us a budget of £17,700. Since the Precept was set, we have been informed by Wiltshire Council that the Parish Council now has to start paying for any elections it may have to hold, this cost would be in the region of approx. £1000, so the increase was a wise precaution for unexpected eventualities such as this.

The Parish Council has been consulted on 16 planning applications between 1st April 2014 and 31st March 2015. Fortunately, this year there has been nothing too controversial.

It was hoped that the Community Benefit to the village would be the installation of Solar Panels on the roof of the village hall, with the hall benefitting from free electricity whilst it was being generated, and the Parish Council benefitting from the Feed in Tariff which would have been used for the benefit of the village as a whole. However, after lengthy negotiations with the Solar Panel suppliers and a full survey it was concluded that the roof of the village hall was not strong enough to take the weight of the panels. The only other option was to take the lump sum of £22,500 which was the best offer on the table from Wessex Solar Energy. This was finally received in December and is now held in a separate account to be used for the benefit of the whole community. Certain conditions attached to the original planning consent have not yet been fulfilled, namely the re-instatement of the road and the sowing of meadow grass on the site.

The traveller’s site at Rosefield has still not been completed, but recent works at the entrance to the site have been carried out to the satisfaction of Highways. Meanwhile it is still an eyesore.

There have been several highway inspections over the last year with Richard Dobson, the Highways Community Co-ordinator but sadly BBLP have not been co-operating very well, if at all! Still outstanding are the flooding issues at Cemetery Corner and Brookside and the erection of the new street name signs for The Parklands and Royal Field Close. However, the spare litter bin that was next to The Parklands bus shelter has finally been moved to near the stile on Willane, which is the far entrance to The Parklands. Only took a year!!!

Willane has also been totally resurfaced to a high standard and questions are now being asked about Hill Hayes Lane. Recently various markings have appeared on the road so we live in hope that some substantial work will also be carried out in that area.

Following comments from a parishioner regarding the difficulty of exiting Frog Lane due to vehicles being parked too near the junction, the police placed no parking signs at the junction and requested that residents park on the opposite side of the road so that vision was not impaired. This seems to have worked and in addition, all the white lining in the village has been repainted. This hopefully will encourage people not to park near a junction and to reduce their speed whilst travelling through the village.

We were rather surprised in March to observe that the highway verges in the village were being cut by BBLP and WC! On talking to the team, we were told that they would be cutting the verges on a fortnightly basis throughout the summer. When I questioned Richard Dobson about this, I was informed that they should have been doing it all last year. I informed him that the Parish Council had been responsible for these areas for at least the last 20 years, that we had just negotiated a new contract, and felt that we should receive some payment from WC for this work that was being done on their behalf. It was discovered that another parish had entered into a Service Level Agreement and were being paid £300 per year because it was doing its own grass cutting. The response from Richard Dobson was “Although we are looking at service delegation such as this, there is no financial capacity to develop a service level agreement. The ways in which this can be taken forward is either the parish council can discontinue their cutting and BBLP will do so as per their schedule, or we can instruct BBLP to not cut this area and have it removed from our maps.” From our experience of BBLP over the last year, we shall continue with our contractor, but try to negotiate some sort of reimbursement from WC in the future.

The Initial Response Plan which the village had many years ago, has been resurrected with the new designation of Community Resilience Plan. This is being taken forward by Councillor Patrick Sobers so please contact him if you have any skills or items of equipment that could be used in case of an emergency situation.

The village continues to enjoy - and benefit from - the proximity of Buckley Barracks. Once again, the Army has supplied and rigged tents for the School Spring Fayre and the Church Fete and erected the Christmas tree, selected by Sheila Greenman, in the churchyard. Thanks to the work carried out by Hank Slater and Dave Martin, the tree remained upright this year, although when the lads came back after Christmas to take it down, they also managed to re-arrange the work carried out by Hank and Dave, so modifications have been made and its fingers crossed for the next Christmas tree.

A diseased tree was discovered on The Green, and this was removed by Councillor Slater in September at no cost to the village. Thank you Hank.

The rubbish bin at the bus stop in Wellington Place is now being emptied on a regular basis and, wonder of wonders - the lights on Frog Lane leading to Wellington Place are now working following nearly three months of negotiations. Long may they shine!

Efforts are continuing to get Footpath 29 reopened for the benefit of the village and the footpath across the MOD land from Hullavington to Stanton is going to be being signed, thanks to Don Queen who has offered to undertake this work.

The unused bus library stop at Buckley Barracks has been replaced with a stop at The Parklands from January 2015. An advert was placed in Hullavington News to publicise this facility.

Thanks to a very generous donation of £200 from Wiltshire Rural Housing Association, who is the developer of the houses on what used to be Lawn Farm, the parish council will be developing a wildlife meadow on the remaining third of the cemetery. Councillor Pete Gash has offered to do all the preparatory work of ploughing, weed killing, harrowing and seed sowing. A new memorial seat that has been placed in the cemetery for the benefit of all who wish to sit and remember will now have a pleasant outlook over this and of the village.

Members of the W.I. once again planted up the tubs sited at the Parklands end of the village - and the ladies also carried out maintenance to the garden behind the bus shelter. Their efforts are greatly appreciated by the Parish Council.

The village is once again entering the Best Kept Village competition and, having suffered the ignominy of being placed last out of three last year, we are hoping that this year we can repeat our win in 1999. The judges are not looking for the prettiest village, just the best kept village, so it is up to everyone to do their bit, tidy up around their properties and perhaps help any elderly neighbours with this task. Judging takes place in May and June so the optimum time to start the tidy up is the beginning of May.

So, that is what the Parish Council has been up to over the last year.

Thank you.

It is now time to hear reports from other organisations in the village.

1. Wiltshire Council

Jane Scott OBE gave an outline of her report, the full report is below.

Annual Parish Report: 2015

Jane Scott OBE: Leader of the Council

I have great pleasure in presenting the Cabinet reports for this year. For 2015/16, we have faced another reduction in our government grant, which, combined with inflationary and populationary pressures, resulted in us needing to make £30 million of savings. Many of you may have attended our public budget consultations, where we reaffirmed our 3 priorities, to protect the vulnerable: elderly and young people, to support the economy and create jobs, and to empower communities to become strong and resilient.

The administration of the Council has worked very hard to ensure we are a council that protects the majority of our frontline services despite the budgetary pressures. We have chosen not to raise council tax to help families across Wiltshire. A Council Tax rise at this time would be an additional pressure on many households - particularly those on low or fixed incomes. We have therefore prioritised keeping taxes low, and offering choice for those who can afford it.

Following on from the setting of the budget by full council in February, in March we realigned the Cabinet responsibilities by bringing in Philip Whitehead as Cabinet Member for Highways and Transport; which enabled John Thomson, Deputy Leader, to focus on communities, campuses and area boards in addition to his work with broadband and for Jonathan Seed to concentrate on the housing portfolio.

In presenting this report, I wish to thank council staff for working so hard in difficult financial times to deliver our priorities, and the communities of Wiltshire who have matched our reduced funding with community initiatives, volunteer hours, and innovative ideas, helping us to provide the services that the communities value.

John Thomson: Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Communities, Campuses, Area Boards and Broadband

Having taken on a new area of responsibility, updates on this portfolio are contained within the reports of my colleagues. Work continues on the seven approved campuses in phase 1, and meetings are taking place with other towns and communities who are looking to bring their campuses forward. Area Boards have had funding without reduction confirmed for the next year which will enable them to continue to support communities.

44,000 premises in the County now have access to fibre broadband through the Wiltshire Online programme, and we expect 91 percent of premises in Wiltshire to have access to broadband speeds of 24 mps and above by the end of March next year. We have also secured funding to roll out a second phase, focusing around areas that have yet to benefit.

Cllr Keith Humphries: Cabinet Member for Health (including Public Health) and Adult Social Care

Public Health

Following the transfer of responsibility for public health to local authorities in 2013, Public Health has fully integrated and is now truly at the heart of Wiltshire’s public services. The following outlines just part of the work over the last year.

For new-borns and their families, we have trained 80 volunteers to support breastfeeding mothers, launched initiatives to help vulnerable families with new children, and worked with the Lullaby Trust to promote safe sleeping practices to reduce Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Working with older children we have developed our SHINE weight management programme, and expanded the MOTIV8 Substance Misuse scheme to help Children and Young People.

We have worked to raise awareness of schizophrenia and Autism, and have rolled out schemes using the Arts to improve health and wellbeing and strengthen communities. We delivered Mental Health First Aid training courses in locations across the county to increase knowledge and confidence for people supporting someone experiencing emotional or mental ill health or distress. The Big Pledge scheme saw Wiltshire's Community Areas commit to becoming Dementia Friendly and the Before I Forget campaign helped them to become dementia aware.

Through Slimming on Referral we helped 2,509 people to lose weight. In addition, our Active Health scheme was delivered in leisure centres to support 3,000 people referred for cardiac rehabilitation, exercise after stroke, weight management, or falls prevention. We ran a Diabetes roadshow and assessed 791 people. Our Stop Smoking Service worked with 4,500 clients helping over half of them to successfully quit, and we launched a new Community Health Trainers Service, providing 298 clients with health and wellbeing assessments and support to improve their health. Our outreach domestic abuse support service received over 500 victim referrals and we developed a new joint Domestic Abuse Strategy to improve outcomes.

Public Protection

We provided over 3,000 environmental and pollution interventions and dealt with over 1,300 noise complaints, and had a 98% recommendation rate for our pest control service. Over 917 notifications of infectious disease were investigated and action taken to reduce the risk of further infections. We launched a new Alcohol Strategy to promote responsible drinking levels and reduce alcohol related harm, developed a new licensing policy and dealt with over 3,000 licensing applications. We signed up 200 businesses to the Eat Out Eat Well Nutrition Award Scheme. 1,400 food businesses were inspected and we supported over 94% to attain a food hygiene rating of satisfactory or better, and helped local food businesses comply with new food allergen legislation.

We worked to deter commercial vehicles from breaching weight restrictions through prosecutions and the introduction of new Lorry Watch schemes locally. We responded, in just 6 months, to 4,000 criminal and consumer complaints and set up new ‘No Cold Calling’ Zones, with Community Area Boards given the ability to implement their own zones and social care workers trained to identify rogue traders. We worked with local people and managed public safety at major events including the Tour of Britain and the Summer Solstice and 1,298 outdoor education events were approved enabling 40,780 participants to engage safely across the county.

Adult Care

The number of customers for whom the Council pays for a service has grown from 6,917 in 2012/13, to 7,568 in 2013/14 whilst those where we have had contact with has also grown from 13,247 in 2012/13, to 15,521 in 2013/14. A great deal work has been undertaken with the Clinical Commissioning Group, Acute Trusts and other providers and our joint Better Care Plan with the CCG was one of five selected nationally to be fast tracked to enable integrated health and social care in Wiltshire

Two new care homes have opened in partnership with the Council and the Orders of St John Care Trust in Warminster and Devizes. These care homes offer nursing and residential care for older people including those with dementia. Work on an information and advice portal is well underway and by April there will be an up to date service directory and self-referral form available on the Council’s website. This will detail a wide range of services available to support people with their health and social care needs. Further work will take place subsequently to extend this to libraries and various NHS settings.