Ropley Parish Council

Minutes of the Annual Parish Meeting and the Parish Council meeting held at the Parish Hall on Tuesday 5th May 2015

Present

Cllrs. George Brown (Chairman), D. Speed, J. Culverwell, D. Fielden, Mrs J. Nops, Mrs J Parsonson, T. Day G. Stogdon and S. Perkins ,Clerk Mrs S. White , County Cllr. M. Kemp Gee, ( left after Chairman’s report) ,Cllr Chris Graham District Councillor and 15 members of the public.

Apologies for Absence Alison Wood, Stephen Broadbent and Graham Flatt

Minutes of the previous meeting

The minutes of the Annual Parish and Annual General meetings held on 6th May 2014 had been confirmed on 3rd June 2014 and signed as a true record.

The County Councillor Mr Mark Kemp Gee thanked the parish councillors for being councillors and for their continued assistance. He reported that Council Tax remains unchanged for the 6th year, despite the government grant being halved. Hampshire schools are doing well with 83% of them being deemed to be good or outstanding. Child services continue to be rated good and have a budget of £400 million. The Isle of Wight has asked HCC to take over their Children’s services. Families down sizing help to provide larger family homes. The Council continues to support independent living for the older generation. Roads cost the county £140 million per year. District and County Council cuts will continue, although there is now less “fat” to remove which will eventually result in a council tax rise. Planning continues to be an issue and Cllr Kemp –Gee and Cllr Speed have been in communication over problems getting Traffic Management to complete a project. Amey‘s contract has 12 months to run, but problems with their slow response and workmanship continue. A lot of the resurfacing has been ineffectual.

Chairman’s report

Thank you to Mark Kemp-Gee, our elected representative. We appreciate his taking the time to attend our meeting and for his support throughout the year. I also take the opportunity to welcome Charles Louisson who is taking over as District Councillor this month. We look forward to working with Charles.

The format this year of our meetings is unusual, as the elections have caused us to move the AGM with appointment of officers to the 19th. Although we do not have more candidates, and therefore will not be holding an election, the protocol requires us to wait before confirming officers. We will hold a PC meeting after that with a full, normal agenda. Tonight we hold the APM, where we review the past year, and we are holding an abridged PC meeting afterwards to discuss issues that can’t wait, specifically the Farnborough airport proposals, and planning responses.

I am going to start by thanking all the Councillors on behalf of myself and the village for continuing to serve. Each representative will be giving an update on activities in their responsibility, and of course don’t forget their roles are defined on myropley.org! I shall resist singling everyone out. I will draw your attention to the fact that this group of volunteers continue to take on whatever is thrown at them, and deal with it in a timely fashion.

You may be aware that we raised the precept this year. It was last raised in 2009, and we have raised it from £30k to £32K. Our justification for this is threefold. One, as more houses are built, the net cost per household has been dropping, by 3.3% over the period. Second, our costs have not stood still, rec ground maintenance and insurance being two of the largest, so a modest increase is not inappropriate. Third, we continue to be a significant source of capital funds throughout the village. We are in the process of providing major support to the tennis club to build a new facility. Their original proposal was for a tennis mini-court, but together we have specked it to be a multi-sport facility that we can happily support. The Village hall has submitted plans to extend at the back and replace the failing flat roof, and we expect to have to pay for a good part of that. The shop has approached us for funds, and following a survey to show usage, we agreed a capital grant to replace aging equipment. We are also expecting to have to pay for some improved netting on Hale Close by the football pitch. Overall, the financial position of the PC is good, in that it has the funds to service its obligations, and provide support on a case-by case basis as required.

For the first time in a few years, it is neither snow nor flooding that has caused major problems for the village.

Sadly, this year saw the loss of our church. The Parish Council have no particular responsibilities re the church. Nonetheless, there is no doubt that we all feel its loss, and we await proposals with interest. I expect there will be a time that we have to consider what role, financial or otherwise, that the PC can be expected to play in its redevelopment and I look forward to that debate.

This year saw one of our pubs, the Anchor reopen as the Ropley. After a baptism of fire as everyone took the opportunity to have a look, things have settled down. I encourage you all to support them. As always, it is “use it or lose it”. They have been kind to let us install bike racks there for bus users, and it is an asset to the village. Our other pub, the Chequers, has continued to deteriorate. We have no power to force the owners to tidy it up unless it is a hazard to health. Currently EHDC do not appear to believe that stage has been reached. We were asked if we would agree to the rights of way being removed from the site, but we said that the pedestrian right way is necessary to access the bus stop. We anticipate that at some stage planning permission will be sought to replace the pub with houses, but we cannot affect the timing of that.

I am sure you are all aware that there was a consultation held on expanding the number of flights to and from Farnborough, and channelling them over this area. We obviously responded. The process is still grinding on, with the proposals appearing to get more onerous, and the opportunity for consultation less. After this meeting, in the abridged POC meeting, we will hear from Councillor Culverwell on the latest information we have, and what if anything we should do. There is a danger that we could be perceived as the path of least resistance and we must guard against that.

Last year, I spend a good while talking about planning, and this year will be no different.

As you all should know, EHDC were emasculated by having no local plan, and were at the mercy of developers. To deal with this, attempts were made to stick to an interim housing policy, and to rush through a site allocation plan. I was not on the inside of this process, but from the outside it certainly appeared to be planning “in hindsight”. What do I mean by that?

The inspector had given a total requirement. The large numbers were allocated out to the settlements as far as possible. This left a minimum of 150 to be parcelled out between the 20 small villages. There was no plan where they should go; this was not bottom up but top-down planning. Developers meanwhile continued to submit applications with the Council having few grounds for refusal. Developers in Ropley Medstead and Bentley were quickest off the mark and applications there have either been approved or are currently being considered. EHDC then had to prepare a document to allocate the 150 across the 20 villages. This document, the sustainability appraisal, then produces a report that says development should be mainly in Medstead, Ropley and Bentley. This is based on the facilities in each village, the shop and post office being a major part for Ropley. No mention is made of lack of gas or mains drainage, and it is implied that it is easy to get the bus.

The effect of this is that Ropley can expect a disproportionate amount of the 150 homes. More worryingly, if this analysis is accepted, then henceforward we can expect Ropley to take a bigger and bigger part. The thinking will be, the bigger we get, the more we can take relative to smaller villages. Further more, the more houses there are, the more people to use the facilities eg shop. Another concern is the desire to get over 11 homes in order to qualify for affordable, thus not restricting to ribbon development. As a Council we need to work hard with our District Councillor to ensure the haste around these documents does not lead to ill judged assumptions.

There is one other thing we can do. Last year I reported how the Ropley Society had agreed to take on investigating a neighbourhood plan. Well, things have moved on, and more weight is being given to them. The PC has thrown its weight behind the provision of one, and thanks to Simon Perkins for agreeing to chair, and Jane to be on the Committee. They have a lot to do, and time is important. They will not be able to affect materially the outcome of this plan, but future plans could be much more clearly affected. There is at least some possibility of bottom up! They have attracted a good group of volunteers and I encourage you to participate as required.

In the meantime, we will continue to attempt to offer a balanced view of planning development in Ropley, and will attempt to ensure that any new building does not overly impact on neighbours or the village as a whole. This issue will continue to be paramount for at least the next 12 months.

The good continues to be the strength of the clubs and societies and events in the village. The Parish Council does all it can to assist the clubs in an even-handed manner. Their success, of course, only makes the village more desirable!

In closing I do have to single out Sarah, who has again kept us all in order. Mine is the easiest job on the council, and is it thanks to the hard work of the Councillors and Sarah.

District Councillors Cllr Charles Louisson was elected unopposed at the recent elections EHDC . He spoke about the challenges of planning in the village and the need to keep the essence of a village in Ropley whilst backing the need for growth. He hopes that a solution will be found for the Chequers site and he wishes to work closely with the Neighbourhood Plan group.

Cllr Chris Graham did not stand again for re-election. He spoke about Fibre Optic cables being installed in the field by the Chequers. Work has already begun in West Tisted to improve the Broad Band speeds. He then spoke about the lack of increase in council tax, although there has been a rise in the Fire, Police and Ropley PC tax. Household in band A will pay £999 per year while those in H pay £2866. EHDC now have a 5 year land supply with allocated sites. Cllr Graham thanked the Councillors for their support during the past 12 years and he congratulated Charles Louisson on becoming the next District Councillor for Ropley and West Tisted.

PCSO Nops reported that over the year there had been I burglary from a dwelling, 4 from out buildings, 2 motor vehicle thefts and 2 accidents. Generally Ropley is a safe place to live. There is about to be a massive reorganisation of local policing. Two PCSOs will cover Ropley, Bentley, Lasham and through to West Meon Hut. Areas will be reorganised as well ,with 7 police stations covering Hampshire. £ 20 million of cuts need to be made. The first responder team will be giving a demonstration on 25th May at the Pram race.

Reports from Representatives

Highways (Cllr. D. Speed) It has been a frustrating year in many ways. On the positive side – roads and lanes have been repaired. Not as quickly or as well as we would like but they are in better condition than many roads in other parishes. The lengthsman project has been successful mainly due to Sarah’s hard work and has been renewed for another year. The disabled parking spaces have been marked out at the entrance to Hale Close. This project was 6 months late and only went ahead when I liaised directly with Amey. Complete inertia has apparently gripped the traffic management dept of HCC. The cycle rack project was completed on time with the use of a portion of our Development Contributions.

Now the negative side:- PCSO Nops and Cllr Parsonson and I have been involved with Traffic management on three other projects . i. An improvement to the C18 / A31 junction at The Ropley ii the installation of signs to stop large lorries trying to access the C18 iii Modifications to church street to enable better access for emergency vehicles on the section of road above the shop. Constant contact with traffic management only results in vague completion dates none of which are met. Discussions were started in June/ July 2014.

The Chequers –last May HCC had said they would not extinguish highway rights on the site until a full planning application was lodged. Recently a request for extinguishment had been made. HCC were mindful to approve this, but the Parish Council with the support of Cllr Mark Kemp Gee managed to have this reverted back to the original decision of last May. Our reason for objecting is that access across the site to the bus stops is the only safe and secure route. Extinguishment could most certainly mean a blocking of the access. Recent attempts to contact the owners, The Wellington Pubs Co, have been met with a stony silence.

Hampshire Association of Local Councils (Cllr. D. Speed) unfortunately I have only been able to attend one meeting during the year. This focussed on Highway matters with the usual references to staff and budget cuts. The contact with Amey was made at this meeting. Other issues discussed Superfast broadband – action is ongoing, talk and demonstration on the use of a Defibrillation. The Parish Council have funded a complete package for a local volunteer. A talk on the Police - stating crime is down but there are pressures on budgets and there will be a reduction in front line policing. Talk of reductions in bus services but this does not appear to have affected Ropley.