Wellington Town Council Meeting 7 July 2014
WELLINGTON TOWN COUNCIL
28 Fore Street, Wellington, Somerset TA21 8AQ
Tel: 01823 662855
E-mail:
COUNCIL MEETING
You are summoned to attend a meeting of Wellington Town Council to be held in the main hall of the United Reformed Church in Fore Street, Wellington on Monday 7 July 2014 at 7p.m..
Greg Dyke
Town Clerk
AGENDA
1. APOLOGIES
2. DECLARATIONS OF INTEREST
To receive declarations of personal or prejudicial interests, in accordance with the Code of Conduct. The usual declarations made by members are set out at the end of the agenda.
3. MINUTES
To confirm the minutes of the meetings of the Council held on 2 June 2014 (copies attached)
4. TOWN MAYOR’S ANNOUNCEMENTS
5. POLICE REPORT
6. PUBLIC PARTICIPATION TIME
7. GRANTS
(a) Inspire Hope Today (known locally as King’s Church)
At the last meeting the following four separate applications for grants had been received from the King’s Church for community focused projects that were currently being run at The King’s Centre.
(i) King’s Toddler Time
A grant of £3,500 had been requested for this project
(ii) Shine Summer Kidz Camp
A grant of £2,500 had been requested for this summer camp
(iii) Ignite Youth Club
A grant of £2,290 had been requested towards this weekly Friday Night Club
(iv) Fired Up Summer Youth Camp
A grant of £2,000 had been requested for this Youth Camp
The Finance Committee voiced a number of concerns around:
· Being able to justify some of the costs contained within the projects;
· Duplication of the services to be provided by other groups and organisations in the town;
· Uncertainty about where Kings Church would relocate once the existing building had been sold and whether or not it would remain in Wellington
It was decided, therefore, that consideration of these applications be deferred pending receipt of further information and the applicants be invited to attend the Finance Committee to explain the proposals in more detail.
(b) Life Education Wessex
An application for a grant of £250 has been received from Life Education Wessex towards its work of providing health and drug prevention education to approximately 260 children at Beech Grove School.
(c) Reminiscence Learning
An application for a grant of £1,650 has been received from Reminiscence Learning towards its Archie Project. This is an intergenerational dementia awareness community project designed to ultimately make Wellington a dementia friendly town.
(d) Whiteball Tunnel Project
An application for a grant of up to £2,500 has been received from Actiontrack Performance Company towards the Whiteball Tunnel Project. When working on the Nynhead community play, local historians uncovered further historical stories from the time of the building of the Whiteball Tunnel in 1841 at Sampford Arundel and the impact and links with the neighbouring community of Wellington. This, together with the story of Second World War heroine, Odette Hallowes, who lived above the Whiteball Tunnel, is the celebratory focus of the final production.
The Whiteball Tunnel Project aims to bring together members of the Wellington Community and beyond in order to perform in St John the Baptist Church between 5th – 8th November 2014. It will also bring new people into the town as participants and audience members.
Full details of the applications have been circulated separately to members
At the beginning of the financial year a sum of £15,000 was allocated in the Council’s Estimates for grants. £11,134 remains in this budget.
8. CORRESPONDENCE
(a) Avon and Somerset Policing Plan
The local Policing Plan for the area has recently been received from Police and Crime Commissioner, Sue Mountstevens. The plan sets out the priorities for the police, community safety and criminal justice services for the next three years. The priority areas continue to include tackling anti social behaviour, burglary, violence against women and children and putting victims at the heart of the criminal justice services. The Plan also has a new emphasis on road safety.
(b) Fly the Flag for the Commonwealth
The Pageant Master for “Fly a Flag for the Commonwealth” acting on behalf of Buckingham Palace has invited NALC to encourage all town councils to take part in this event. Attached is a letter from NALC’s Chairman which has been circulated to all town councils encouraging participation. Also attached is an extract from Guide to Taking Part web site.
(c) Wellington Monument – Update
Following prompting from the Town Council, the following information has recently been received from the National Trust:
Update on Wellington Monument
We understand that Wellington Monument is hugely important to the local community and wanted to share the latest progress and next steps with you.
Over the last few years we have been gradually making improvements to the site including works to the car park and revealing more of the views through tree removal. Most recently we sent the door away for repair and this has now been returned and rehung and is looking fantastic. The fencing remains a necessary evil due to the health & safety risks of falling masonry. Last year we also held a really successful open day during which we were able to offer access to the top of the monument by putting in place temporary safety measures.
This year we are investing considerable resources to appoint consultants to develop a repair approach for the Monument. It presents such a complicated engineering challenge that even with the previous survey work , we simply do not know enough about why the monument is failing to propose a solution that will safeguard its future. We hope to appoint consultants in the next month or so and it is likely that they will advise we need to undertake a programme of monitoring before design options can be explored. Until the consultants are on board and have started their work, we are not going to know how long any monitoring is going to take. It is therefore very difficult to be specific about when we will have a way forward. In many ways it may have been better to hold this communication until we were clearer but we have received several enquiries recently asking about progress and so did not want to delay.
We are also really interested in getting a better understanding of why the Monument is important to different people. The National Trust aims to capture this in ‘Spirit of Place’ statements. We recently held a workshop as part of the process to gather views from stakeholders and are now drafting the statement. Once complete, the statement will become a crucial aid to making decisions , including informing decisions on repair solutions.
We take our responsibility of looking after the Monument on behalf of the nation very seriously. But we are also a charity with limited resources and many, many liabilities that all have to compete for time and funds. Whatever the solution is likely to be, we will have to raise money externally to make it happen. We can only make so much progress with our fundraising efforts in advance of knowing how much money we need to raise and what it will be used for and this will only come following monitoring and subsequent design work. Once we do know more, we will be in a position to talk to the local community and see how people might be willing to help us. We are truly grateful for offers of help already received and hope we don’t lose people’s support before the time comes that we can make really makeuse of these.
We hope this update is useful and gives re-assurance that we are taking the future of the monument seriously. We will share future progressin due course. In the meantime, we are happy to speak to individuals further.
(d) Audit
The annual audit of the Town Council’s accounts carried out by Grant Thornton UK, on behalf of the Audit Commission has now been completed. As previously explained, because TDBC mistakenly paid the 2014/15 annual precept in the last financial year this meant that the threshold for the type of audit the Council were subject to has changed. Grant Thornton has carried out an intermediate audit which means that this year we have come under even greater scrutiny than usual. A copy of the Auditor’s report is attached.
It also means that we have gone into a higher charging band and the fee to be paid to Grant Thornton will be £200 more than we would normally have been expected to pay. TDBC have agreed to meet this extra cost.
9. TRAFFIC LIGHT SEQUENCING
As members will recall, consideration was previously given by the Council to issues around traffic and traffic lights in Wellington at the meetings in January and March this year. The Council had contacted the Highway Authority about it on many occasions and Councillor Andrew Govier, in his capacity as a County Councillor, had been in touch with the traffic engineers on a regular basis.
Following further prompting from Councillor Govier, the on-going situation with congestion on Longforth Road has now formed part of a study into the proposed new pedestrian crossing on Taunton Road and if the crossing could have further detrimental impact on traffic flows in the town.
As part of this study the Traffic Engineers have looked to see if there were any other solutions to the issues at the junctions.
A meeting has subsequently taken place with the appropriate County Council officers. They have done a lot of work on the problems we are having with this junction. They are proposing to introduce a right hand turning lane so that traffic can travel into and out of High Street at the same time. This will, according to their modelling, significantly improve the flow reducing waiting times significantly. They are also proposing to improve the crossing at the top of Longforth to make it safer for pedestrians. The one downside of this is that we would have to agree to remove the request for the pedestrian crossing outside the Parish Church as this would adversely affect the timings of the Longforth lights. Both the Town Clerk and Councillor Govier felt that this was a ‘price worth paying’ to sort out the traffic
problems.
10. SPORTS PITCH PROVISION IN WELLINGTON
Members will recall that at the annual parish meeting, following an enquiry from a member of the public, Councillor Andrew Govier agreed to invite the appropriate TDBC Portfolio Holder, Leader of TDBC and officers to meet. He was concerned that a piecemeal, uncoordinated approach was being taken to the provision of community facilities in general and open spaces in particular. He felt that a radical solution was called for rather than just relying on developers to provide land as part of their developments.
That meeting has now taken place and the notes are attached.
11. BMX TRACK, Nr THE BASINS
Councillor Jackie Govier to raise.
12. CIVIC INSIGNIA
Councillor Mitton to raise.
13. MAKING WELLINGTON A DEMENTIA FRIENDLY TOWN
Councillor Mitton to raise.
14. WEAVERS REACH PLAY AREA, TONEDALE
Councillor Copley to raise.
Recently we have received complaints about the condition of the children’s play area at Weavers Reach, Tonedale. Discussions with TDBC have revealed that this play area has not been adopted and remains the responsibility of Barrett Homes Ltd.
15. EVENING BUS SERVICES BETWEEN WELLINGTON AND TAUNTON
Councillor Andrew Govier to raise.
It had been hoped that Webber's were going to introduce a later service but their new timetable indicates that they haven’t. Councillor Govier would like the Council to push for a later service. 8pm is too early for the last bus back from Taunton!
16. THE MAINTENANCE OF THE LAND BETWEEN THE BASINS AND ROCKWELL GREEN
Councillor Andrew Govier to raise
The path between these two points is becoming impassable because of flooding and now nettles etc. Councillor Govier would like to start a conversation with the landowner about this land being made more user-friendly for pedestrians and cyclists. He understands that the fields are no longer used for livestock so he would like to see whether the kissing gates could be removed and the bridges made better. This would then provide a safe cycling route between Wellington and Rockwell Green.
17. REPORTS BACK FROM COMMITTEES, SUB GROUPS AND OUTSIDE BODIES
(a) Reports from Outside Bodies
To receive any reports from Council representatives on outside bodies
(i) Citizens’ Advice Bureau – Councillor Mitton to raise.
18. COUNCIL INCOME AND EXPENDITURE - Report attached
19. ACCOUNTS FOR PAYMENT
(a) HMRC - £919.05 - June deductions
(b) Somerset County Council - £218.91 – Superannuation for Asst. to Clerk
(c) Somerset County Council - £50 – Pension Fund deficit
(d) Councillors Allowances 2014/15:
Councillor R Bowrah - £200
Councillor G Copley - £200
Councillor P Critchard - £200
Councillor A Govier - £200
Councillor J Govier - £200
Councillor R Henley - £200
Councillor J Hunt - £200
Councillor J Lloyd - £200
Councillor T Milton - £200
Councillor D Mitton - £200+ £500 Mayoral Allowance
Councillor J Reed - £200