Notes of the meeting of the Somerton Parish Council held on
Monday 28 November

(No Clerk present, these are notes taken at the meeting)

Present: - Neil Good Acting Chair) (NG), Alison Smith (AS), Neil Clare (NC),Andy Corner (AC)

Members of the public: Rosemary Arnold, Ruth Power, Gill Crawford, Greg Renk, Catriona Renk, Jill Burton, John Gattley (JG)

In attendance: Cathy Fleet (CF) [Clerk]
ArashFatemian (OCC Councillor) (Arrived at 8:45pm) (AF)

Mike Kerford-Byrnes (CDC Councillor) (Part Attendence to 9pm) (MKB)

Apologies

Cllr Mitchell - resignation.

Clerk has been called away on a personal matter.

Declarations of Interest

Cllr Corner declared an interest in the Grass Cutting Item.

Minutes of Last Meeting.

Minutes of meetings from 25th July and 26th September were reviewed and signed as a true and accurate record of events

Public Participation

The public raised: Volume of Traffic, Timing of PC Meetings and Broadband.

Procedural

With the resignation of Cllr Mitchell from the PC, Cllr Good acted as Chairman for the meeting.

Reports from Councillors - CDC

This item was brought forward as Cllr Byrnes needed to leave by 9pm.

Precept- MKB indicated the current Precept arrangements were being reviewed and advised accordingly.

MCNP - MKBreminded PC a third round of consultation was planned for January 2017 and stressed PC needed to supply a date for the MNCP team to visit Somerton.

The meeting moved to discuss the level of Traffic and possible mitigations as this affected Precept budgeting and MCNP.

Points

Ref Traffic Calming

main issues:

Somerton village Heyford Road:

  • Establish best site for traffic survey, & best time for favourable result
  • speed bumps
  • twenty plenty signs
  • ?? state of repair of road

Somerton Ardley Road:

  • repair to speed bump so white signage can be re-done
  • General state or repair of road to make it possible for white lines on edges
  • Priority wrong way round: traffic coming into village should have to give way to traffic coming out
  • Establish best site for traffic survey, & best time for favourable result

Volume of Traffic

The volume and speed of traffic was felt to have increased - various developments felt to have contributed to this include:

  • Soho farmhouse - visitors going to Great Tew
  • Additional Housing at Adderbury and Deddington - access to the M40
  • Base Commercial Traffic - flouting the Routing Agreement
  • Base Residents - more people are living up there.

AF stressed two points:

  • Decisions are made supported by Data not anecdote.
  • OCC own the Highway so any traffic count or traffic calming must be approved by them

Mitigations

TVP Speedwatch Programme

TVP have a Speed watch programme, whereby volunteers get trained up to do survey. It can only be carried out in a 30mph zone and speeding vehicles can be reported and they will get an advisory letter. It was agreed that this would be pursued after the traffic surveys have been carried out, so as not to hinder our case for speed bumps.So perhaps keep on action list for follow-up.

20s Plenty Signs

Precept includes a sum for three signs - the meeting felt the scope needed to be extended.

Extend the current limitsfurther out particularly along the Heyford Road.

Parked Carsalong Heyford Road seem to be good idea but cause access issues and reduce visibility for residents.

Data Requirements

The meeting took onboard the need to support requests to OCC with persuasive data; this needs to be collected. Two methods were discussed:

Incident Reporting via 101

Ruth Power will contact Sean (Community Policeman) for guidelines on what sort of incident can be reported on the 101 number and then compose a communication from the PC via David Jaques Email network. Incidents recorded over the last 3 and 5 years are collated when assessing a road calming scheme - registering incidents will further our case for traffic calming. Any incident older than 5 years is not considered.

ALL those attending the meeting were urged to report incidents of any type - anecdotal evidence is not considered.

Traffic Measurement

The last measurements were taken a couple of years ago and these need to be repeated so we have recent data and it hopefully shows increases in volume and speed of traffic.

AF said the devices are deployed for two weeks and there was an 8 week waiting list for the measurement devices so the request needs to be carefully timed to avoid quiet times like school holidays.

Funding Traffic Calming Schemes

PC has several options including the planning system. MKB stated s106 agreements are agreed as part of granting planning permissions and so cannot be used for permissions already granted.

MCNP can help with this (hence our need to participate!) - They need to be contacted.

s106 agreements can only be used on the immediate area (so developments at Adderbury and Deddington would be too far away to qualify.

Actions:

  • Funding via Planning System -contact Andrew Lewis and ask him how he can help us to make sure any future planning applications for Heyford include Traffic calming for Somerton(01295 221813) ref Section 106 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990.
    Also discuss alternative exit proposal - there is a proposal to provide a new access to the base for Commercial traffic at the far end and close off the gate closest to Somerton. PC needs to respond to this carefully-Action: AS
  • Funding from Dorchester Group -contact Dorchester group to determine their position.Action: AC
  • Site Meeting with OCC -AF has arranged for a site visit by Anthony Kirkwood OCC Traffic Road safety team Friday 2 Dec 9:00 am. AS requested to attend and Greg Renk also volunteered his services to discuss issues and agree best location for traffic surveys etc. -Action: AS
  • Ardley Road Chicane -Request by email a change in Priority of Chicane on the Ardley Road Somerton (After Friday Meeting)etc. -Action: AS
  • Precept -PC proposed to increase Precept by:
  • £2000 to cover some costs towards Traffic Calming measures next year - this would enable us to fund some works directly or support any loan arrangement that might arise from a future scheme.
  • £100 for additional 20s Plenty signs
  • £500 to cover up to three traffic measurement requests
  • These sums were voted on and agreed unanimously.
  • Planning- .

MCNP

Richard Goddard & Emily Daly dates for public consultation to be either Thurs 19 or 26 Jan from 7: - 8:30 pm

There were 4 volunteers to distribute the MCNP leaflets: Ruth Power, Gill (West View) Greg and Catriona Renk.... We agreed to do it early in the New Year by leaflet drops and also by email a few times via DJ

Other Road Issues

NC reported that a Natural Spring coming up in Water Street and was concerned this would erode the road from the underneath. This was noted. ?? Action NC

Phone box removal

It was agreed to put this to the community via David Jaques network email. It was interesting to hear that the Phone does does not actually work, which may be the reason it has not been used in over a year. It was agreed to get some response from the village, there is a deadline to get back to BT on this some email needs to be done ASAP with a deadline for a response. Did I volunteer for this? or can Cathy action???