Minutes

WALESBY ANNUAL PARISH MEETING

Minutes of the Annual Parish Meeting held remotely Thursday 6th May 2021 at 7.00pm.

PRESENT: D. Thurman, J. Sweny, D. Milles, J. Ashton, T Norgrove.

In attendance: V Davies (Clerk, RFO),

2 Members of the public

1. Minutes Of The Meeting Held 13th May 2019:

The Parish Council resolved that they be signed as a true record. Proposed D Thurman, Seconded J Ashton. Unanimously approved by all councillors.

2. Chairman’s Report

Due to time constraints the Chairman gave an abridged report. The full report is found in Apprendix 1.

Briefly during the last 2 years we have kept our finances steady, the precept remains the same despite increasing admin costs and we have continued to support the church with grants.

We have dealt with an increasing number of planning applications, highways issues and footpath issues.

Cllr Sprague resigned and Cllr Ashley and Norgrove have joined. My thanks to all Cllrs for their hard work.

We have set up 2 steering groups- firstly Coronavirus Support Group very necessary and successful last year- our thanks to all involved.- secondly Walesby Better Broadband Group chaired by Cllr Ashton. The group has applied for the Rural Connectivity Voucher Scheme- fibre installation by BT Open Reach funded by DCMS vouchers. The group have put in a tremendous amount of work- great thanks to them- and got the whole village fired up to go. We await actions by BT Openreach and DCMS. We are assured it will happen.

3.Responsible Financial Officer Report:

The RFO presented the accounts as at 31 March 2021. Reserves to be carried forward are £4548.34.

4. Open Meeting:

There were no questions raised.

The meeting closed at 7.08pm

Appendix 1. Chairman’s Report

This report encompasses 2 years activity as due to Covid we were unable to hold an annual parish meeting last year. Even so this meeting is having to be held via zoom; I shall be brief.

During the period Cllr Ashley was co-opted. With Cllr Sprague she took a LALC training course . Later however Cllr Sprague resigned. A few months after that Cllr Norgrove was co-opted. So we are now up to our complement of seven.

We continued to have to deal with an unusual number of planning applications. We have continued to try to protect the AONB which affects a large part of the village. WLDC have not always agreed with our comments; they have however agreed when applications are in the AONB outside the built core of the village.

Highways has continually been an issue. Cllr Sprague put a lot of work in resolving issues- thank you for that. Cllr Norgrove has taken up the baton- thank you and is proving to be very competent.

There have been 2 major issues regarding footpaths. We have lodged an application with Highways for a Definitive Map Modification Order for a footpath across the previously named Glebe land off Walesby Hill. Unfortunately such applications can take decades to process. The second issue concerns the BOAT to Claxby. That has been strengthened by Highways but continues to be a concern with off roaders.

Our talks with the PCC about taking over responsibility for the maintenance of All Saints churchyard stalled because of Covid.

In March 2020 we established a Coronavirus Support Group to help shielders and isolators. It was linked into the relevant national agencies and helped with telephone support, shopping support , prescription support.The framework is still there but is not now as needed as it was.

We also set up a Walesby Better Broadband steering group under the chairmanship of Cllr Ashton. Progress has been excellent to establish a contract with BT Openreach for fibre connections in the village funded by a government

voucher scheme. We are not however getting professional support from BT Openreach. But we are very close.

Our finances are stable. We have been able to support the PCC and the Friends of the Old Church with donations. Increased activity with planning applications and broadband have however increased our clerk costs. We are conscious that our precept comes directly out of villagers’ pockets. Therefore we have decided to keep it constant- no increase. Assuming that clerk’s costs will be higher than before this will impact on our ability to give grants