SALTFLEETBY PARISH COUNCIL

MINUTES OF THE SALTFLEETBY ANNUAL PARISH MEETING

TUESDAY 22ND MAY 2012, 7pm in ST PETERS CHURCH

Present: C Warwick (Chairman), R James, S Harrison, Mr & Mrs Chapman, S Vessey, P Bowman, Mr & Mrs Ackroyd, L Moore, J Moore, T Heys, S Clark (Louth Town Football Club, L Appleby, J Appleby, J Read, P Beasley, P Ryan, D Loveday (East Lindsey District Council). There were a further 5 members of the public present. J Brown – Parish Clerk.

The Chairman welcomed residents to the Annual Parish Meeting & noted that was not a Parish Council meeting but a meeting for residents to come & listen, ask questions and share their views.

The Chairman asked for a proposer & seconder that the Minutes from the previous year on 17th May 2011 were an accurate record – proposed S Harrison, seconded R James. The Chairman signed the Minutes & introduced Mr David Loveday from East Lindsey District Council who would be talking about the new Planning Policy Framework & the changes it involved.

Neighbourhood Plans & the Localism Act:

Mr Loveday introduced himself as Interim Business Manager, East Lindsey District Council Planning Department & stated that he had seen many changes over the years. Mr Loveday gave a comprehensive update on the National Planning Policy Framework which the Press had claimed would enable planning to be carried out anywhere, which was not the case.

Mr Loveday covered several points, including:

·  The new Localism Act brought in by the present Government had a presumption in favour of Local Plans but also towards local peoples influence.

·  The Environment Agency (EA) Coastal Hazards Map – National & Local Policies make it clear that housing should not be allowed within the red & orange flood risk areas (as shown to the meeting) therefore growth in coastal areas by development is low. However commercial ventures such as Holiday Lets, Caravan Sites etc. are not directly affected by this. EA is, however, limiting the times that Caravan Sites can be occupied on the coast – currently April to end September – but ELDC is trying to negotiate for the Easter Break to be included & also October.

·  The move from Government is to look towards communities creating Neighbourhood Plans thereby having their say on developments in their own area but these plans depend on having growth in housing as an integral part of the plan, a difficulty for communities in coastal areas.

·  Saltfleetby has a Community Led Plan & if this includes planning within it can be included within our own documents at ELDC.

·  Design Plans can also be prepared for areas – plans that state style of housing to reflect the local character for any development

·  Limited amount of housing will be allowed in coastal areas & anybody applying for development will have to justify their application. Only 1000 new houses will be built in coastal areas over the next 15 years.

Mr Loveday handed a copy of the ELDC Planning Guidance Document to the Clerk. Previously there had been a Regional Plan which was scrapped under the Localism Act which placed an increased emphasis on the Plans at District level & ELDC was currently preparing a new Local Plan with some core principles included as to where & how development should take place but this will not be finished for another 1 to 1 ½ years. They would visit communities over the next year or so to talk about how they can become involved in that process; encourage people to get involved in order to have a voice in the plan for their local area.

Mr Loveday talked generally about wind farms – a case was being prepared for the application at Orby; Anderby had been refused permission but he expected there would be several more applications for this area

Questions from the floor:

  1. Saltfleetby was considered to be an unsustainable village because of the flood plan despite what had been included within the Community Led Plan which appeared unfair – Mr Loveday advised that if the applications were relatively small or medium scale the Local Authority had power to determine, but EA have the ability to challenge the decision which was why ELDC were engaging with them to talk about things; the last thing ELDC wanted was to ignore coastal areas, they wanted to see generic growth happen.
  1. Looking at the Hazard Plan this was a vast area – where was the water coming from? The Hazard Plan depends upon a number of flood defences being in place; any breaches of flood defences on the coast, caused by the strange weather sometimes experienced & more storms could give similar circumstances as in 1953 when floods occurred; there is a risk of it happening. Comment was passed that EA had not done their job with regard to improving defences. Mr Loveday noted that EA had agreed to hold the line until a certain future date, after that funds would have to be found elsewhere to maintain flood defences.

Beach nourishment was on-going on a yearly basis where sand was brought in on barges & pumped in – such work was vital for the tourism industry.

  1. Mr Loveday was asked when the EnergieKontor application would go forward to Planning Committee – he expected it to be June or July.
  1. When would the Local Plan go to consultation – probably September – towards the end of the year.

Mr Loveday to supply the Clerk with a copy of the EA map so that residents can view this. The Chairman thanked Mr Loveday for attending & an interesting & informative presentation.

Chairman’s Report:

The Chairman believed that the key word for the Parish Council this year was probably CHANGE. There had been a change of Councillors through the elections in May last year and as a result of some resignations new Councillors had been co-opted; there was still one vacancy. There was now a good mix of Councillors; some born and bred here, others who had lived here for a long time and some relatively new to the village. This meant the Council had the opportunity to share both local knowledge and new ideas to make the Parish Council forward looking.

The Council also had a new Parish Clerk and the Chairman wanted to say a big thank you to David Cooper, who had served the Council loyally for many years, and then introduced Jean Brown, the very experienced new Clerk.

Finally in terms of change we had a new Chairman and she wanted to sincerely thank Sandra Harrison for all her years as Chairman and all the hard work she had put in. Her continued role as District Councillor & Councillor would be very helpful to the Council.

The achievements of the Council resulted in a surprisingly long list - Parish Councils were a statutory body and as such must comply with the law; it had to now formally employ the Clerk and be responsible for PAYE etc. , also setting up a raft of Personnel procedures including forming a Personnel Committee, which had all been done.

Standing Orders and Financial Regulations which govern the way the Council operated had also been updated. The Council also had a duty to carry out risk assessments on all aspects of its work, including the use of contractors for such tasks as verge cutting; these things all took time, particularly for the Clerk

Some of the more interesting achievements are the publication of regular newsletters, which were delivered to all houses in the village. The setting up of the Parish Council Website which can be accessed at

http://parishes.lincolnshire.gov.uk/SaltfleetbyGroup/ the pages on the site were gradually being populated but there was already a large amount of interesting information under ‘News’. Feedback was very welcome as were suggestions. In due course the Soloby History pages which Sylvia Crossfield previously managed so well would be added & the Chairman offered thanks to Sylvia.

The Community Led Plan was finalised during the year & a very detailed objection on was submitted on residents behalf to ELDC following the public meeting about the Wind farm at Gayton. This fight was on-going and further submissions had been made. It was yet to go to the Planning Committee. The Lychgate at St Clemens had been replaced as the result of a grant from Defra obtained by Sandra Harrison as District Councillor. It was a beautiful piece of craftsmanship and urged residents to take a look. The Council was trying to make the village look more cared for by contracting to have the verges and hedges cut in addition to those done by LCC and by regular mowing of the Parish Footpaths and the ground around the bus shelter at St Peter’s. The Parish Council was also supporting the Diamond Jubilee Celebrations, which had featured in the last few Newsletters.

For the future the coming year’s priorities would be governed by the Community Led Plan. One item of which was to secure a community facility. Steve Clark from Louth Town Football Club would be updating later on the plans to take over Marshlands and the Council would be seeking the views of villagers on the way forward. Following the events with Louth United Football Club caution would be exercised.

Questions raised:

It was noted by a resident that two of the caravans currently parked at Church Lane had left. The Chairman noted this was good news, she had been talking to all relevant people concerned & the situation had caused considerable stress to nearby residents. District Councillor Harrison was now involved on behalf of the community also.

Financial Report:

The Clerk advised that the Council started the year with £13,409.95 & raised a precept of £9,000; other receipts, including VAT & grants was a further £5,406.85; giving a total of £27,816.80. The Council had set a total budget of £9,100 for the year. The total spent was in fact £13,858.35. Reserves had been built up over the years because of the loss of the old village hall & the wish of residents to have some form of community centre; should any grant funding be required for a new community centre the Council would need to be in a position to match fund.

The appearance of the village had been raised as very important by residents & because of this the Council undertook flailing of the B1200; the Council also had an agreement with Lincolnshire County Council to care for some of the Parish Paths & a grant was received from them of £870.00 to cover this work, because the Council undertook this the paths received three cuts a year whereas Lincolnshire County Council only carry out two cuts. Grass cutting was also carried out in St Clements Churchyard, a responsibility which now fell to the Parish Council and also around the bus shelter.

The refurbishment of the Village Name signs was paid during the year at a cost of £2,336.52 & other projects undertaken included a new oak gate at St Clements Lychgate to replace the one donated to the village many years ago & which had been stolen. A grant of £2,000 had been obtained with help from Cllr Harrison towards this & for repairs to the actual structure of the Lychgate & which meant that the Council only contributed a sum of £200.00; the gate had been added to the Council Insurance Policy on an All Risks basis. A rodent infestation reported by residents at St Clements Churchyard had also been dealt with & this had now been eradicated at a cost of £320. The Council issued regular newsletters throughout the year & was leading on the Community Led Plan & its actions and paid for the printing costs.

The financial year closed with the Council having total funds of £13,958.45 & the Precept had been maintained at £9,000 for the new financial year.

Questions Raised:

  1. A resident raised a tree that had fallen over one of the Parish Paths & into the garden of a house under construction that would require removing – Clerk to look into.

Community Led Plan:

The Chairman noted that the Plan had been contributed to by 60% of households with the village; five priority areas had been identified – Highways & Pavements, Local Services (Police, Ambulance times etc.), Speeding of vehicles, Community Facilities & Activities & Communal Space. She noted that help was needed from willing volunteers to deliver some of the actions, e.g. Neighbourhood Watch – acting as a co-ordinator – volunteers also to be trained on using a speed gun & volunteering for duty to man it – this had proved effective in other areas with letters being sent by Police to people breaking the speed limit. The Chairman asked people to take time to look through the plan – items in red could be delivered fairly quickly & easily other would take longer & need negotiations with other agencies. If people wanted to get involved she asked them to contact any Councillor or the Clerk.

Questions Raised:

  1. Ambulance services appeared to have difficulty finding houses because of the confusion with postcodes; sat navs were unreliable & sent drivers to wrong locations. A previous suggestion had been to use grid references for the village – Council to consider whether this would be feasible.
  1. It had been heard by one resident that the ambulance station at Mablethorpe would be closing & services moved to Spilsby. Council to enquire regarding this.

District Councillor Harrison noted that First Responders boosted response times which gave a false impression; many of our houses did not have identification outside them & this is something that should be looked at as a community. Council to consider.

Update from Saltfleetby Church of England Primary School:

As Mr Sanders was not present the Chairman of the School Governors, Mrs R James, gave a report. There had been a great deal of change at school over the past year; two teachers had been lost due to differing circumstances, one had been replaced & the other would shortly. The school was now federated with Theddlethorpe; they had shared a Head Teacher already for two years but being federated meant that ideas could be shared & teachers trained together. The School now had a football team that was progressing well & numerous After School Clubs such as computer, football & drama. The Pre-School had reopened & received a good Ofsted report recently.