Council Meeting 16th October 2023
Minutes
MINUTES OF THE MEETING OF TANGLEY PARISH COUNCIL
HELD ON MONDAY 16 OCTOBER 2023 AT 7PM
AT THE PARISH HALL, WILDHERN
25/23 OPEN FORUM
2 members of the public were present.
Stella Turner of Fowlers Architects accompanied Nicola Plumley of Littywood, Wildhern to talk through their planning application and she provided the parish council with a full set of drawings to review.
26/23 PRESENT
Charles Haswell (Chairman), Rebecca Lawrence, Matt Nicol and Alex Raworth were present and Cllr. Kirsty North (HCC). The Clerk was in attendance.
27/23 APOLOGIES
There were apologies from Catherine Morton and Cllr Phil North (TVBC). Nigel Bull (Vice-Chairman) and Tim Strong (retrospective apologies) did not attend the meeting
28/23 DECLARATIONS OF INTEREST
There were no declarations of interest.
29/23 MINUTES OF THE LAST MEETING
The minutes of the meeting held on 4 September 2023 were proposed by Alex Raworth and seconded by Charles Haswell. The minutes were then signed as a true record by the Chairman.
30/23 PLANNING
23/02329/FULLN Littywood, Wildhern – demolish rear extensions/annex/erect new 2-storey extension. The parish council fully support this application.
23/02459/PDQN Hatherden House – change of use of agricultural building to one dwelling.
Although this application comes under Q Planning, which allows for the conversion of agricultural buildings to houses without the need to apply for full planning permission, the Chairman and the Clerk had attended a site meeting with Jon & Sarah Capes and, having explained to the meeting what their intentions are, the parish council fully supported the application despite not being officially asked to comment by TVBC.
31/23 HIGHWAYS
Regarding the recent accidents at Pill Heath, Mayur Patel, who is the Principal Engineer for HCC covering our area, had e-mailed the Clerk prior to the meeting outlining his intention to submit a proposal for improvements around the junction in the coming week.
Cllr Kirsty North advised that the 20’s Plenty scheme review is on-going. She will update us as and when the scheme progresses, but it has met with a degree of opposition.
Matt Nicol again asked if the 30mph signage around The Fox could be improved as the 30mph sign opposite Paradise House is often obscured by the hedge.
32/23 FOOTPATHS
The footpath clearing day on Saturday, 7 October 2023 was reasonably well attended with 8 volunteers agreeing to walk specific footpaths and report back on any issues which need attention.
Many thanks to Brian & Sue Comley and Matt Sommerville who have cleared the Roman road from Chalk Pit Cottage to the Conholt Road. Thank you to Matt Morton who cleared the footpath behind Hatherden School recently and regularly cuts back overgrown paths and clears fallen trees. Thank you to James Lloyd and the Dennis’s who continue to keep the footpath between Wildhern and Charlton Down passable and James has also agreed to keep clear the footpaths which he walks regularly around Doles Farm, which is a great help.
Other volunteers who turned out to help on the day were Robert Smith, Nick & Joy McAndrew and Terry Holtt. Their feedback has been greatly appreciated, although any work that is required to be carried out by our landowners or HCC may take time as all parties lack the labour and physical resources to undertake the work. There is no magic fix to keeping footpaths clear and the help of volunteers has become increasingly necessary over the years.
Alex Raworth said the footpath between Hatherden Lane going out towards Little Goddards is very narrow and needs cutting back. Jeremy Dunning will be notified.
Any reasonable expenditure required to get footpaths cleared has been given prior approval.
33/23 DEFIBRILLATORS (AEDs)
A full refund for 4 of the returned LifePack AED pad packs has been received.
A couple of the AED cabinets are leaking badly and going rusty so will need to be replaced. The worst are at the Wrays in Hatherden and The Hare & Hounds. The cabinet at the village hall also gets very wet inside. The cabinet at The Fox may not need replacing immediately and the one outside Tangley Estate is not too bad. The LED sensor light does not appear to be working on approach. The Clerk will investigate this.
A Comedy Night fundraiser has been organised for Saturday, 2 December at The Old Dairy, Hatherden to cover the cost of replacing the AED cabinets and over 100 tickets have already been sold. There are still some tickets available. Huge thanks once again for Peridot and Jeremy Dunning for offering the free use of their venue, which is extremely generous.
34/23 FINANCE
The Parish Council has received a donation of £750 from the Tangley Flower & Produce Show to go towards the parish improvement fund. Hugest thanks once again to Sue Warren and her team for a thoroughly enjoyable event and the very generous donation, which is really appreciated.
A request has been received from the PCC for the parish council to pay for the Christmas tree outside Hatherden Church. The Chairman had asked how much this was likely to cost but the amount is unknown so it was agreed that we would approve expenditure up to a limit of £200. This expense was proposed by Alex Raworth and seconded by the Chairman.
HCC have advised that it will be ceasing to provide free e-mail provision for the Clerk and Chairman from 31 December 2023. The renewal of our domain name for the parish council website is also due for renewal soon and it was agreed that it would make sense to upgrade the parish website at the same time as moving our e-mail provision to Parish Online, who are a company who have stepped in to provide such a service to parish councils locally. Our existing website is run on WordPress and is getting outdated. It also needs to be a secure site, which it currently is not. The annual cost for hosting a new website and providing up to 10 e-mail address will be £360. This expenditure was proposed by Charles Haswell and seconded by Matt Nicol. The Clerk will implement the switch over through Parish Online.
The Clerk prepared a bank reconciliation prior to the meeting and advised that the bank balance is £24,849.62 after all payments had been reconciled to the last statement, which was available to view at the meeting. £4,051.39 is held on behalf of the Sports Group leaving PC funds at £20,798.23. The amount we are holding in the account is interest bearing and considerably higher than normal due to the on-going plan to purchase the land in The Close. The parish precept will be significantly reduced next year.
The following online bank payments were then proposed by Charles Haswell and seconded by Alex Raworth:
£400.00 Paul Cox, Epic Comedy deposit (50% of fee)
£587.16 Simon Nightingale re. SLR Management (50% reimbursed by HT/VD)
£ 26.99 Clerk’s expenses – Curry’s re. black ink printer cartridge
£ 11.40 Clerk’s expenses – Comedy Night Posters x 12
£438.18 Clerk’s salary (October)
£ 18.00 Hysons re. PAYE administration (October)
£ 41.76 Sarah Haswell re. tennis court mould treatment (sports group funds)
35/23 CORRESPONDENCE AND ADMINISTRATIVE MATTERS
A D-Day Anniversary event will be held around the 6 June 2024 as the date falls on a Thursday. The parish council will liaise with the village hall committee over the format.
The Close land purchase had progressed to the next stage of negotiations and the Heads of Terms had been drafted by Aster back in August and sent to Mr Tye’s solicitors for approval, although there has been no update regarding these negotiations since our last meeting in September. The Chairman had e-mailed Daniel Rhind-Tutt of Aster prior to the meeting for an update but the situation remains on-going.
The meeting closed at 19.57
The next meeting of Tangley Parish Council will take place on
Monday, 4 December 2023 at 7pm in the Parish Hall in Wildhern
