May 2019 Minutes Annual Parish Council Meeting
Deeping St James Parish Council
The Institute, 38 Church Street, Deeping St James, Peterborough PE6 8HD
E-mail: clerk.dsjpc@btconnect.com
Tel: 01778 343266
//parishes.lincolnshire.gov.uk/deepingstjames
Parish Clerk: Julie Fortnum
The Minutes of the meeting of Deeping St James Parish Council held on Thursday 16 May 2019 at 7.30 pm at The Institute.
Present: Councillors Blessett, Boreham, Bowell, Dilks (District), Fox, Gilbert, Green, Hall, Halls, Hardy, Hosking, Kornfeld, Shinkins-Hoppe, Stevens (District) and Thomas (District), County Councillor Dobson one member of staff and one member of the public, Tim Stevens.
The minutes were taken by the Parish Clerk.
Open Forum
The recently recruited Maintenance Worker introduced himself to the Parish Councillors. He then left the meeting.
Member of the public Tim Stevens advised that the suggestions for locations for new bus stop poles were now with Lincolnshire County Council for consideration. It is unlikely that they will relocate redundant bus stop poles from other locations it is more likely that they will be cut off at ground level.
County Councillor Dobson’s report had been circulated prior to this meeting. This provided an update from the recent illegal encampments meeting where a document clarifying the procedure to follow had been ratified by the Neighbourhood Police Inspector Martin. He was asked to follow up three outstanding Highways issues within the Parish – replacement bus stop pole and raised kerb on Thackers Way, bus clearway signage on Horsegate and trip hazard/unauthorised gravel on Linchfield Road. Councillor Dobson then left the meeting. District Councillor Stevens mentioned the trees which District Council had recently been felled without prior explanation to the ward Councillors and said that the events committee would consider the organisation of a tree summit and report back to the Council. District Councillor Dilks referred to the recent District Council elections where he and Councillors Stevens and Thomas had been elected to represent the Deeping St James ward and they had all attended training since. Councillor Dilks advised that he will raise concerns about the cuts to the local police team mentioned at the recent Neighbourhood Policing Forum despite the increase in anti-social behaviour in Deeping St James. He will put forward a motion that the District Council lobby the local MP for urgent intervention and increased funding for the Lincolnshire Police force.
He also praised the Love Deepings campaign launch by the Deepings Business Club and he would be encouraging the District Council to support the initiative. Councillor Hosking proposed that standing orders were suspended to allow everyone to introduce themselves for the benefit of the newly elected Councillors. Seconded and Resolved.
1.20 To elect a Chairman of the Council.
Councillor Bowell stated that he did not wish to stand for a third term of office on health grounds adding that he had thoroughly enjoyed being Chairperson. Councillor Hosking proposed, seconded by Councillor Shinkins-Hoppe that Councillor Gilbert should be Chairperson. Councillor Gilbert accepted this nomination. Resolved
2.20 To elect a Vice Chairman of the Council.
Councillor Hosking proposed, seconded by Councillor Halls that Councillor Shinkins-Hoppe should be Vice-Chairperson. Councillor Shinkins-Hoppe accepted the nomination. Resolved
3.20 To accept a written declaration of acceptance of office and undertaking to observe the Code of Conduct adopted by Deeping St James Parish Council (or if not received to agree a date by which they shall be received).
Signed and received.
4.20 To appoint Committees and advisory committees.
Councillor Gilbert recommended that unless a proposal was put forward tonight to debate and discuss a change to the committee structure the current committee structure should remain and the suggestion made by former Councillor Mike Ward to review it should be considered during the year. The committee structure and membership of each committee was agreed as follows:
Allotments footpaths and open spaces committee – to meet a minimum of 3 times a year. Members to be Councillors Bowell, Hall, Hardy, Stevens and Thomas.
Cemetery committee – to meet a minimum of 3 times a year. Members to be Councillors Boreham, Halls, Shinkins-Hoppe, Stevens and Thomas.
Events committee – to meet a minimum of 4 times a year. Members to be Councillors Bowell, Dilks, Fox, Green, Hall, Halls, Kornfeld, Stevens and Thomas
Finance and general purposes committee – to meet a minimum of 6 times a year. Members to be Councillors Blessett, Bowell, Gilbert, Halls, Hosking, Shinkins-Hoppe and Stevens.
Planning and transport committee – to meet every month, if required. Members to be Councillors Blessett, Gilbert, Green, Hardy, Hosking, Shinkins-Hoppe and Thomas.
Youth and community committee – to meet a minimum of 3 times a year. Blessett, Hall, Halls, Kornfeld and Shinkins-Hoppe.
Staffing sub-committee – Councillors Blessett, Gilbert and Shinkins-Hoppe
Emergency planning sub-committee – Councillors Bowell, Hardy and Hosking
5.20 To appoint representatives on outside bodies.
Councillors working on outside bodies was noted as follows:
Deeping St James United Charities – DSJUC request two nominees from the Parish Council. Councillor Shinkins-Hoppe is a nominated Trustee and would like to continue. It was proposed seconded and Resolved that as the second position had been vacant for 4 months it could remain so until the 3 new members of Parish Council had completed the Councillors training. This way all the members of the Parish Council could be equally considered for the position.
Deepings Community Library – Councillors Bowell, Stevens and Thomas.
Deepings First Neighbourhood Planning group – Councillor Shinkins-Hoppe.
Deepings Youth Group – Councillors Bowell, Dilks, Fox, Halls and Stevens.
Neighbourhood Policing Community Participation group – Councillors Bowell and Halls.
St James Deeping Signal Box group – Councillors Bowell, Green and Hall.
Welland Footbridge group – Councillor Blessett.
6.20 To review standing orders and add, vary or revoke as necessary.
It was proposed seconded and Resolved that the following changes should be made:
- the document should be gender neutralised changing the word Chairman to Chairperson
- Any mention of specific legal requirement should be replaced with the word’s current regulations
- The following sentence should be added to point 5 e) ‘A Chairperson and Vice-Chairperson can be re-elected for a maximum of three terms of office. Councillors are required to have completed Councillors training before they will be considered to hold the office of Chairperson and Vice-Chairperson’
- The following sentence should be added to point 4 j) xi) ‘Councillors are required to have completed Councillors training prior to representing or working with external bodies on behalf of the Parish Council’
It was also agreed that throughout the year each committee would review their terms of reference and delegated powers so that they could be amended in May 2020 if required.
7.20 To review financial regulations and add, vary or revoke as necessary.
It was agreed that these should remain unchanged
8.20 To receive apologies for absence.
All present.
9.20 To receive notifications of interest and consider requests for dispensations, if any.
None received
10.20 To approve the minutes of the previous meeting held on Thursday 25 April 2019.
Agreed and signed as a true copy
11.20 Clerks Report
The new Member of staff commenced employment on 1 May 2019 with an induction session from the Clerk and former Parish Councillor, Brian Barber.
The Community rehabilitation team worked in the parish on 30 April and 7 May 2019 helping the Maintenance staff and former Councillor, Brian Barber, with the installation of the replacement railings at the Cemetery.
The Institute of Cemetery and Crematorium Management have been advised that the meeting room can be used as a venue to hold a one day training session on Cemetery management and compliance.
Contact has been made with Market Deeping Town Council to arrange a date and time for the meeting of the joint remembrance group working party.
South Kesteven District Council have confirmed that they will source and fund a replacement piece of springy play equipment in Hereward Way Play area.
Councillor Bowell has completed the entry for the Best kept Village and Small Town in Lincolnshire/South Kesteven District Council Best Kept Community Competition which has forwarded to the Campaign for the protection of Rural England.
Information has been requested from Councillors Halls and Thomas so that they can be approved to become name signatories for the bank account
12.20 To consider financial matters
1. To approve accounts for payment – It was proposed seconded and Resolved that payments valuing £5734.03 should be made.
13.20 Planning matters – to note the representation forwarded on behalf of the Parish Council in respect of planning application S19/0443 for 77 dwellings off Linchfield Road Deeping St James
Due to no extension to the deadline for representations to be made being granted by the planning Authority the following comments and objection were submitted on Friday 3 May 2019 after all Parish Councillors had been consulted by email. ‘The proposal to place 77 dwellings on the eastern half of this development is an overdevelopment leading to the following constraints – In the original discussions with the parish council the developers promised to provide a parking space for each bedroom i.e. 2 parking spaces for 2-bedroom houses and so on. This quantum of development does not allow for this and moreover constrains mostly tandem parking arrangements which are known to be problematic from other recent developments in the parish. This has resulted in chaotic on street parking, creating obstruction on important through routes and restricting access for emergency vehicles. This number of dwellings also constrains the width of the proposed cycle paths running NE and SW to a mere 1.5m. The NS cycle path crosses the primary access to the development which has clear dangers. More-over the cycle path comes to a halt in the SE corner and no thought has been given to linking it up to existing cycle paths.
There is an overhead power cable which bisects the proposed development and no thought seems to have been made to put this underground.
There is nothing in the proposal whatsoever about the energy efficiency measures for example the use of solar panels, triple glazing and so on. The ‘feature square’ in the centre of the development is a good idea but this particular proposal appears to be far too small to be of any relevance.
For all of these reasons the parish council would wish to object to the proposed development.’
14.20 To receive and agree the Council’s response to correspondence received since the last meeting.
- The Deepings School had requested that tighter security measures should be jointly investigated at Woody Heights and the School playing field after the fencing had been damaged on a further occasion. Councillor Shinkins-Hoppe agreed to deal with this.
- The Parish Councillors had been invited to The Deepings Literary Festival launch evening on Wednesday 22 May 2019 at The Deepings Community Library. The Clerk was asked to advise the organisers that 7 Parish Councillors would be attending
15.20 To receive and consider minutes and recommendations of committees, reports from advisory committees, members reports from external bodies, members reports of meetings, seminars, training and events attended on the Council’s behalf:
1. The Deepings Lions Charter Dinner held on Saturday 27 April 2019 – Councillor Bowell’s report was noted.
2. The Duke of Cornwall Safety Awards Presentation held on Wednesday 9 May 2019 - Councillor Bowell’s report was noted.
16.20 To consider whether to continue sending a meeting report to the press
After a discussion which mentioned when the decision to do this had started (minute 12.14 in January 2014) and issues about the circulation of the newspaper, the difficulty of getting volunteers to write the reports, the importance of impartiality when report writing and the fact that the minutes can be viewed electronically on the webpage or in paper form at the office it was proposed seconded and Resolved not to continue to send a monthly report to The Stamford Mercury. Councillor Bowell voted against this motion and said he would continue to write a brief report which was a right any individual attending the meeting had, whether they were a Councillor or not.
17.20 To consider hiring a self-storage container
Councillor Green advised the Members that the need for additional storage space for the Parish Council’s equipment had been acknowledged by the Allotments Footpaths and Open Spaces Committee but due to the issues around security of siting a purchased unit at the Allotment site on Hall Meadow Road he had investigated options to hire a self-storage unit on a secure site locally. He proposed that a unit should be hired at a cost of £7.50 per week from 1 June 2019. This was seconded and Resolved.
18.20 To consider purchasing and installing a new Springy to replace the Motorbike Springy at Jubilee Park
After receiving several complaints about the play equipment in this park, some of it owned by the District Council and some by the Parish Council, and the Clerk informing her that on more than one occasion the Parish Council’s Maintenance Staff had been required to repair the motorbike springy Councillor Stevens proposed that this piece of equipment is replaced with a new one. She also added that avenues of funding should be investigated to replace the rest of the equipment in the park. This was seconded and Resolved.
It was proposed seconded and Resolved to suspend standing orders and continue the meeting after 10pm in order to deal with the remaining agenda items
19.20 To receive an update and consider alternative options regarding the Summer 2019 play-scheme
Councillor Shinkins-Hoppe informed the members that neither of the Primary Schools within Deeping St James is able to run the playscheme in the summer holidays this year. Along with the Clerk she had investigated alternatives which had included discussions with a private company running holiday sports days, the Manager of 1Life at The Deepings Leisure Centre and the Manager of Madcaps out of School club based at Market Deeping Community Primary School who had run the scheme in previous years for the Parish Council within that School and at Deeping St James and Linchfield Community Primary Schools and who was running the play-scheme for Market Deeping Town Council this year. She was very enthusiastic to help and as everything was in place for the Town Council’s play scheme all that was needed was permission to use the school in the afternoons as well as the mornings of the fortnight commencing Monday 29 July 2019. She offered to investigate this option for the Parish Council. Councillor Shinkins-Hoppe proposed that the Parish Council accepts the Madcaps Managers offer, which was seconded and Resolved
20.20 Parish pump – items for information or inclusion on future agendas
Councillor Dilks thanked Councillor Bowell for his two years of service as Chairman
Councillor Green reminded everyone about the first footpath walk at 7pm on Thursday 6 June 2019 from The Deepings Lakes and long public right of way 909 by the river finishing with a walk round and refreshments at The Exotic Pet Refuge
Councillor Stevens advised that The Dog Show would take place on Sunday 16 June 2019 on Jubilee Park off Thackers Way
Councillor Hosking encouraged everyone to promote, and attend, the Exotic Pet Refuge open day on Sunday 19 May 2019
Councillor Bowell asked the Clerk to ensure that the strategic plan is added to every committee agenda.
Councillor Bowell also asked for an item to be added to the June agenda to provide an update on the open spaces audit.
Councillor Shinkins-Hoppe confirmed that all the open spaces within the Deepings had now been listed and included in the Deepings First Neighbourhood Plan
Meeting closed 10.15pm