Annual Parish Meeting Minutes

Minutes of the Ellisfield Annual Parish Meeting
held in the Memorial Hall on Friday 23rd April 2004 at 8.00 pm

Present

Paul Turner (Chairman of Ellisfield Parish Council and Chairman of the Meeting)
41 members of the public (including Parish Councillors Caroline Cazenove, Steven Gould, Tim Guinness & Peter Mitchell and Parish Council Administrative Assistant Katrina Dalziel)

Minutes

Taken by Katrina Dalziel (Ellisfield Parish Council Administrative Assistant)

In Attendance

Cllr Anna McNair Scott (County Councillor)
Judith Carstairs (Member of B&DBC's Conservation Area Appraisal Team)

1.

Apologies for Absence.
Sally Adams (Parish Councillor), Clive & Pauline Parnell-Hopkinson, Heather Kippin, John & Anne Fox, Sally Paravicini and Adrian de Ferranti.
An apology from Mark Ruffell (Basingstoke & Deane Borough Councillor) had been emailed but, due to problems with the borough council's email server, had not been received prior to the Meeting.

2.

Minutes of the Annual Parish Meeting held on 25^th April 2003.
The Minutes had been circulated at the beginning of the meeting but time was allowed for reading. Peter Mitchell proposed and Roger Graham seconded that they be approved as a true record. Agreed and signed as a true record.

3.

Matters Arising from the Minutes. None.

4.

To receive a report from the Chairman of the Parish Council.

Chairman presented his report (Appendix 1), which included draft 2003/4 Accounts and details of the 2004/5 Budget and Precept Calculation. All noted.

5.

To receive a report from the Trustees of Ellisfield Educational Trust.

Bernard Cazenove reported on behalf of the Trust:
The trustees are Bernard Cazenove, Clive Parnell-Hopkinson and Peter Mitchell. Capital had risen from £35,000 to £42,000 because the stock market had gone up. Last year there had been a deficit of £504. This year there is a surplus of £4,423. Income has gone up by £34. So far, the biggest benefactor has been Cliddesden School. Requests for funding are not means tested.

6.

Any other Village Matters. None.

The meeting closed at 8.50pm

Chairman……………………………………………………

Date.……….…………………………………….

The formal meeting was then followed by presentations (Appendix 2) from representatives of Ellisfield Village Organisations, Anna McNair Scott (Hampshire County Councillor) and Judith Carstairs from the B&DBC Conservation Area Appraisal Team.

Due to problems with e-mail forwarding from B&DBC's email server, the apology sent by Mark Ruffell (Borough Councillor) had not been received by the Chairman prior to the meeting. Councillor Ruffell attended the next parish council meeting at which he provided a report (Appendix 3).

The year started with the parish council being unable to function and ended with next year's precept being the lowest since 1996/7. In between, councillors worked hard at being efficient when dealing with the many issues that were put in front of them, helped enormously by everyone being on e-mail which enabled information to be shared swiftly and responses to be seen by all. This council successfully lobbied Basingstoke & Deane Borough Council to start sending its documents by e-mail as well as by post so that, when applicable, they could be easily forwarded on to all councillors for their perusal. This helped not just Ellisfield, but all e-mail enabled parishes within the district.
There follows an overview of the year, sectioned into relevant topics.

Councillors: As only two residents, Sally Adams and myself, stood for the Parish Council in the May 2003 elections, the council was unable to function because at least three councillors have to be present at a meeting. This situation was resolved by the Borough Council appointing Martin Ridgeway, their Parish Liaison Officer, as a temporary Ellisfield parish councillor and I'd like to thank him for giving of his time and for his good advice.
As the only councillor continuing from the previous council, I was appointed chairman, Sally Adams was appointed vice-chairman and we shared out all the previous "councillor special interests" between us, thus ensuring continuity for the three meetings which took place before the specially called by-election on July 10.
At that by-election, the remaining four vacant seats attracted eight candidates and those elected were (in alphabetical order) Caroline Cazenove, Steven Gould, Tim Guinness and Peter Mitchell. My thanks to them and the other candidates for standing.
Although, of course, the council as a whole is responsible for all business transacted, individual councillors are tasked with keeping a watching brief on specific areas of interest. These currently are:

Sally Adams
Caroline Cazenove

Steven Gould

Tim Guinness

Peter Mitchell
Paul Turner

Memorial Hall
Neighbourhood Watch
Burial Ground
Environment
Swing Safety
Land & Property
Planning, in respect to Communication Masts
Highways
Website
Health & Safety

Clerk: All correspondence to the parish council is addressed to the Clerk and, as Ellisfield does not have "council offices", it's the Clerk's home address to which it is sent. There are also quite a few hanging files (three very full filing drawers), binders for Minutes, accounts, etc., books and manuals and lots of archive storage boxes that need to be kept safe.
Mrs Chilton, the Parish Clerk since 1992, had informed the council of her decision to retire some 18 month previously and, with the agreement of the previous council, was on a one-month notice period. In May, Mrs Chilton informed me that she had decided to retire at the end of June, a couple of weeks before the July 10 by-election.
Katrina Dalziel had agreed to be our Administrative Assistant from the April meeting, primarily to record and produce the Minutes of the meetings so as to alleviate some of Mrs Chilton's work pressure. With only a month's experience she was, understandably, unwilling to consider taking on the Clerk's role.
As no-one had come forward in the previous 18 months whilst the Clerk's post had received lots of publicity, it was felt that it would be highly unlikely that anyone would be found in the four weeks before Mrs Chilton's departure.
So, it was decided that as I had a number of years experience as a councillor, I was the best person to take on the role of Clerk from July 1 onwards. That enabled continuity with all outside agencies and meant that the day-to-day business of the council would be taken care of.
As a councillor, the post had to be unremunerated. Advice was sought about the fact that I was not only a councillor but also chairman. The response was that although it was highly unusual and, in normal circumstances, undesirable for a chairman to also be Clerk, there was nothing in the regulations that stopped us from going ahead.
This situation has continued now for nine months and, apart from preparing the 2003/4 accounts for the District Auditor, I'm now quite experienced in what being a Parish Clerk entails. This knowledge will be used to create a new "job description" for presentation and discussion at the parish council meeting in May. The post will then, hopefully, be re-advertised later on in the month. When a suitable candidate comes forward, it's going to be a very simple task to hand everything over in an orderly fashion.

Land Maintenance: The standard of upkeep of Lower Common, Burial Ground and Gravel Pits by the Ellisfield Volunteer Group was considered to be of a high standard and their 2004/5 quotation of £750 was the same as last year. Accordingly, the group was awarded the contract again for the coming year.
A proposal from the Volunteer Group that they be allowed to create long grasses and wildflower areas within the open space of the Gravel Pits was turned down by the council due to local objections and a lack of independent positive responses.
As chairman of the Volunteer Group, I left the room during these parish council discussions and decisions.

Property Maintenance: The swing on Lower Common was inspected weekly and the only problem encountered was the bird repellent wire which had to be replaced. The two goalposts on the common are in need of some paint and replacement nets and that work will be attended to soon. The four village noticeboards were all cleaned (by councillors) and the old assortment of drawing pins were replaced with new "map" pins which are much easier to re-use; all noticeboards will be refurbished once the weather gets dry enough for painting. The seat in the Burial Ground was repaired by Roy Frankham (my thanks to him) and its replacement can now be deferred for a while.

Burial Ground: Although there is plenty of room left in the consecrated area for new cremated remains, there is some concern about the number of new consecrated full-sized plots available within the Burial Ground. Caroline Cazenove has agreed to be responsible for leading the parish council to a solution.

Highways: It is, of course, Hampshire County Council's responsibility for maintaining our highways. However, this council has traditionally kept a watching brief on the state of the surfacing and drainage channels, reporting anything amiss to the Highways Department and chasing up on any promised repairs. The current council has continued to do this.
During the year, Axford Road was white lined, including the junctions with Bell Lane, College Lane and Green Lane. Also, resurfacing work was done in Green Lane, around the Furzen Lane junction. Further promised resurfacing of Green Lane, between Hill Farm and Farrier's Field, was expected in the week commencing March 22, but we're now told that this work (which will take only two or three days but will necessitate the closure of Green Lane between Church Lane and Furzen Lane) could happen any time in the next two months!

Health & Safety: At the council meeting on June 30, Version 1.0 of the parish council's Risk Assessment document was approved. A revised version (1.1) was discussed and formally accepted at the November 3 meeting.

Planning: The council is sent a copy of all planning applications by the Borough Council and is asked if we have any objections. Any objection (or comment) that we may have to an application is treated by the Planning Department in the same way as if the objection/comment had been made by a resident.
During the year, we reviewed eleven applications (including one regarding trees within the conservation area) and we objected to two (both of which were applications for new antennas on the Ellisfield Mast.

Environment: In June, two dung heaps (1,000 cubic metres of solid human excrement mixed with straw!) were placed in a field off Bell Lane by Thames Water for later ploughing in on College Farm land.
The council spent a great deal of time resolving this matter (the summer heat resulted in both smells and flies) and keeping Bell Lane residents fully informed (all were on e-mail, so that helped).

Community Website: With the website already in place when the new council took over, all the hard work had been done, mainly by Tim Sullivan and Edna Chilton.
During the past year, the main task has been ensuring that the site was kept up to date, especially with the latest News, details of every village Event and the regular updates of pages such as Council Meeting Minutes, Neighbourhood Watch Bulletins and the Ladies Club. Also, the home page was amended to provide one-click access to most village organisations and to two new pages, one for the Fox Inn and the other for Local Information.
Recently, another new page entitled What's New was added so that visitors can see what structural changes have been made to the site. The original idea of keeping people informed of changes via e-mail will be dropped.

Quality Council Status: The government are making great efforts to persuade parish councils to apply for Quality Council Status, whereby a council has to fulfil a number of conditions.
This council has reviewed the list of conditions and, having made a few procedural changes, now conforms fully to what is required. However, for the moment, we cannot apply for this accreditation because we need the Clerk to hold an AQA Certificate in Local Council Administration.

Broadband: BT had set a target of 150 pre-registrations for broadband access on the Herriard 381 exchange. A joint effort with the parishes of Lasham, Herriard and Winslade to publicise this campaign resulted in this target being reached on March 24. We are now awaiting BT's announcement of the date when the exchange will be upgraded.

2003/4 Accounts: Please note that these accounts (see Section 2 below) have not yet been presented formally at a parish council meeting, nor have they yet been checked by our internal auditor.

2004/5 Budget and Precept: The budget for this year is in Section 3 of this Report. Once the budget had been discussed and agreed at the December meeting, the council then had to decide on the actual precept.
As you'll see, last year the amount required was estimated to be £6,764 but the actual precept requested was reduced to £5,838 using £926 of the council's bank balance. This year, the amount required was estimated to be £6,760 but this was reduced down to £2,260 because £4,500 of the council's bank balance was used.
So, where did this £4,500 come from? The answer is that there were a number of savings and two major "windfalls".
The first windfall was the saving in Land Maintenance (both last year and the previous year) and the second windfall was the saving in Salaries last year, mainly because the Clerk's post was unremunerated for nine months.
It was very pleasing to request a precept that is the lowest since the 1996/7 year.

Summary: With only 120 houses and an electorate floating around the 240 figure, Ellisfield has been lucky in always having enough public spirited people prepared to give of their time as parish councillors. It was especially heartening to have eight candidates for the four vacant seats in last July's by-election.
My colleagues are a great team of people, we all work well together in our common goal of looking after the interests of the village and I'd like to thank them all. First, Sally Adams, for her unswerving support as vice-chairman, especially in the first few months when we were the only elected councillors! Secondly, Peter Mitchell who, as a previous chairman, excellently fulfils the role of "elder statesman". Lastly, a big thank you to Caroline Cazenove, Steven Gould and Tim Guinness who, without previous council experience, all found their feet very quickly and are great assets to the parish.
I'd also like to pay tribute to Mrs Chilton whose experience was invaluable during the difficult first few months and to Katrina Dalziel for her Minute taking skills and her patience with my sometimes erratic working practices! Lastly, my thanks to Anthony Cecil for giving of his time in completing the Internal Audit of the 2002/3 Accounts.
It has been a privilege being Chairman for the past year.

Paul Turner
Chairman, Ellisfield Parish Council

St Martin's Church:

Peter Chilton, Churchwarden, reported:

Congregation numbers are up. At least 90 people attended the Christmas service. However, the struggle for funds continues.

The east wall is falling down and getting worse. Therefore, it has been decided to underpin the wall. The estimated cost of repair will be £20,000. Fund raising has already begun. So far a bridge evening has been held and Chris Kippin is doing a sponsored bike ride. Work on the wall will start next Wednesday and take about 4 weeks.

The roof in the chancel needs spraying for woodworm. This will cost about £700

At the annual general meeting, Rev. Clive Parnell-Hopkinson gave a report on issues confronting the church. The report will be produced this month. Please could everyone read it and provide feedback.

There has also been some consideration as to whether the churchyard should be opened as a burial ground.

Memorial Hall:

Hilary de Ferranti, Chairwoman of the Memorial Hall Committee, reported:

It has been a satisfactory year and everyone is encouraged to come to the meetings and functions. Thanks were made to Roger Graham for arranging the successful "Hog the Limelight" evenings.

Neighbourhood Watch:

Nigel Wilson, Neighbourhood Watch co-ordinator, reported:

This scheme started some years ago and was adopted by the parish council. The watch area covers 90sq miles. There are 4 teams in Ellisfield with one co-ordinator, Nigel Wilson.

Recent changes that will effect the village is the retirement of PC Bob Such. His replacement is PC Andrew Reid who will soon be moving into the police house. The contact telephone number will not change.

Everyone was reminded that they should always ring the police to report incidents You will not be wasting police time. All information is important.

It was raised as to whether the village was giving PC Such as a farewell gift. It was reported that, so far, individuals had sent cards.

Horticultural Society:

Meg Freeman, Horticultural Society Village Representative, reported:

The society includes members from all three villages. The cost of joining is £5.00 per household. This entitles you to attend meetings, garden visits and enter shows.

Volunteer Group:

Seumas Foster, Volunteer Group Committee Member, reported:

The Volunteer Group was started three years ago. The aims of the group are to maintain Lower Common, the Gravel Pits, Burial Ground and to help with the upkeep of footpaths, rights of way and kissing gates.

The annual wild bird survey is supported by the volunteer group. Ideas for future projects would be gratefully received.

Parish Paths Group:

Peter Hopwood, Parish Paths Group Leader, reported:

Kit Lane is in a bad condition and it is hoped that this will be levelled out soon.

Hampshire County Council have offered the Group more kissing gates. It is currently being investigated as to whether or not they are required. Scalpings have been put around the existing kissing gates.

There will be a Bluebell Walk on 9^th May and an Autumn Walk on 26^th September. Last year the Bluebell Walk attracted 75 people as it had been advertised in the "Discover Hampshire" booklet..

The "Three Castles Walk", which includes Ellisfield in its route, is also publicised in this booklet.

Ellisfield Ladies:

Celia Lunn, Ellisfield Ladies Club Secretary, reported:

Events this year would include the Race for Life and the Flower Festival in June. The Harvest Supper may have a "last night of the proms" theme and it is hoped that the Christmas carols gathering will include a nativity scene in the churchyard. These events are for everyone to enjoy. Please come along.

Anna McNair Scott, Hampshire County Councillor:

Have the church council asked for a grant to assist with the cost of repairs to the east wall? There might be funding available.

SEERA (the South East England Regional Assembly) had intended to remove all planning responsibilities from county councils. Is this a pre-cursor to regional government? Regional government without elected representation is a concern. In the south there would be 35 representatives for 7.8 million people.

It is hoped that speed prevention on the A339 will be self enforcing.

PRESENTATION

Judith Carstairs, Member of B&DBC's Conservation Area Appraisal Team:

The parish council had been given 5 copies of the Ellisfield Conservation Area Appraisal, which had been adopted last July. It includes information about listed buildings, protected buildings and buildings of local interest. Additional documents on tree protection and the historic environment have also been produced. All documents would be available for viewing after the meeting.

In 2006 changes to planning are proposed and it is intended that a number of controls will be put in place for buildings in the conservation area. However, this may not go through. Additional information was requested by the Chairman.

At present, if there are any planning applications within the conservation area then the Appraisal Team are automatically consulted. There is usually an objection only if a building were to be removed, greatly extended, or if the materials used were to differ largely from the original building.

Trees outside the conservation area are not protected without a preservation order.
The Appraisal is re-evaluated every three years.
If the Conservation Area Appraisal Team objects against a planned mast, this only counts as one objection.