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Alburgh Parish Council
Minutes of the parish council meeting held on 4th February 2016 at 7.30pm in Alburgh Village Hall
Parish Councillors present:
Mrs Walton Chairman
Mr Denny Vice Chairman
Mrs Gladden-Fenn
Mrs Davis
Mr Renaut
Mrs Goose
Also attending: Karen O’Kane, NCC ‘Better Broadband’, 9 members of the public
Apologies: Dr .Gray, Mrs Beckett, Mrs Ellis
Minutes of the last council meeting
The minutes of the January 2016 meeting were signed by Mrs Walton, Chairman, as a correct record.
Better Broadband
Karen O’Kane, gave a presentation informing us that she expects fibre coverage to reach Alburgh by the end of 2017. She explained that it is her responsibility to obtain the maximum coverage of broadband in Norfolk for the money provided, and that rural areas such as South Norfolk have therefore been less of a priority.
She said she will be emailing her presentation to the clerk. Members of the public raised questions and also let her know of the problems many residents have been experiencing of their broadband connection ‘dropping out’ She advised each resident to raise a fault with their service provider on every occasion, and in the last resort to inform OFCOM. She also advised the parish council to write again to BT. A list of broadband problems from one resident not present at the meeting was handed to Karen, and she requested others to contact her by email. She was thanked for her presentation.
Public Participation
Mr Donno complained about heavy traffic along Payne’s Lane, which has eroded the 3’ wide grass bank on the outside of his hedge. He is concerned that the hedge could easily be demolished by heavy traffic, and has requested that Highways erect a sign and reinstate the bank. He also reported standing water on Payne’s Lane and on Church Road near his property. Other areas of standing water are along Mill Road and Burnt Oak Lane near Coldham Hall. This will be reported to Highways.
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Update on matters arising from previous minutes
Affordable housing in Alburgh. Richard Bacon MP has responded by advising us to speak to Sally Anderson, financial controller at Saffron Housing, which we have done. She verbally assured us that there are no plans to sell houses built after 2004 in Alburgh.
Hempnall crossroads. Our written request and justification for a roundabout at this junction, which has been sent to the Inspector, was read out.
Correspondence– None
Film Night
The last film ’45 years’ was attended by 86 people. To accommodate the increasing popularity of the film night the village hall and bar will now open at 6.30pm
We have received a request that we make known the benefits to the community of running the monthly film night in Alburgh to Creative Arts East and Councillor Wilby, as there is a risk of cutbacks to funding.
EDP tokens for the community
The EDP is running a scheme whereby a community can apply for a grant for their community if 500 EDP tokens have been collected from their newspaper in one month. The Tuesday group have agreed to collect as many tokens as they can. The village hall committee have also started to collect tokens. Mrs Gladden-Fenn has established after making enquiries with the EDP office, that the applicant must have a formal constitution, which the parish council has. As Alburgh is a small village it was felt that it is not possible to collect more than 500 tokens in any one month. If this is achieved then the parish council and village hall committee should meet to submit the application having decided where any successful grant would be best spent in the village. Mrs Goose and Mrs Gladden-Fenn offered to collect the tokens and Mr Denny said he would approach the Dove farm shop to see if they would have a collection point there.
Footpaths
Mrs Walton visited Norfolk Record Office on 28th January to view the Alburgh enclosure award of 1803. The map and written word state clearly that Rice’s Lane, known as ‘13th publick road’ is a public highway. Mrs Walton has taken a copy, the NRO reference is C/Sca2/2
It was agreed to forward the copy to NCC with a request that they cut the path.
Playing Field
Mr Denny said that everywhere was tidy and that he has tightened the wheel on the ‘boat’ and tightened the goal posts. He reported that the grass is exceedingly long, and that Norse is not due to cut it for about another six weeks. It will cost the parish council an additional £60 + VAT for Norse to cut it before then. We all agreed this needs to be done, and Mr Denny said he would get this arranged.
Planning
Approval with conditions were granted to 42, The Street and Piedbridge Cottage.
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Queen Elizabeth’s birthday celebrations
The village hall committee has invited all village organisations to a meeting in the village hall on 15th March. It is hoped that a committee will be formed to arrange a village celebration. Mrs Walton and Mr Denny offered to attend and represent the parish council. We have been advised by SNC that a £250 grant is available.
War Memorial
The war memorial maintenance handbook has been handed to the clerk for safe keeping. Clerk to diarise for the spring the cleaning of the memorial.
Village Web Site
A website for Alburgh (www.alburgh.org uk) was constructed and set up voluntarily a few years ago by Richard Morris and Richard Gedge. The website included a page for the village hall. Late 2015 the village hall committee set up a website for just the village hall (www.alburghvillage.uk) without any communication with the parish council. When this was discovered it was felt that having the two websites would be confusing. Mrs Walton requested that Mr Renaut and Mr Davis from the village hall committee and Mr Gedge and Mr Morris have a meeting to resolve the matter; they met on 18th January 2016.
Mr Renaut said that the village hall committee had agreed to change the name of the website to www.alburghvillagehall.uk, but Mr Davis said there would be an expense involved, which is unlikely to exceed £20.
Alburgh parish council has asked the village hall committee to change their website name as above, and provide a link to the Alburgh site, which Mr Renaut and Mr Davis said they would do. Mr Gedge said that when this is done, he and Mr Morris will remove the village hall section from the Alburgh website and provide a link to the village hall site.
£200 grant from Dr Gray
At our last meeting Dr Gray offered us this money to be spent in the village. It was agreed to spend the money on having the red frames of the four swings and the blue frame of the old slide refurbished, and to replenish the wood chippings in those areas. Mr Denny said he will make enquiries about getting this done.
Accounts
Payments J. Ellis Clerk’s salary £142.05 and expenses £15.60
Councillor Dr. Gray emailed the following report in his absence (this was not read out at the meeting):
- We are entering a period of change to electoral boundaries. The first will be the District Ward boundaries. A lot of houses have been built in the last few years in Costessey and Wymondham in particular. For example, Old Costessey Ward has 39% more voters than the average number of voters in Wards in the District, whereas the guidance is that all Wards should stay within 10% of the average. So the time has come to reconfigure the District Council Wards and this will be happening over the next 18 months with at least 2 periods of consultation.
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Secondly the government wants to reduce the number of MPs from 650 to 600, so this will mean changes to parliamentary constituencies. Thirdly, a review of Parish Boundaries will start in 2017. Last time we managed to move properties in Burnt Oak Lane from Harleston to Alburgh, so changes to Parish boundaries do happen, and we might like to consider whether we want other changes this time round, but there is no hurry for this.
- Because of the growth in housing numbers, some of the waste collection rounds have become overloaded. So these are being reviewed and this could mean a change in the collection day. We will be kept informed.
- No news yet on what SNC are proposing re their part of the council tax but this will become clear any day now.
Public Participation
An enquiry was made regarding an unlit parked car at night. It was advised that this question be addressed to a police constable.
Items for next agenda
Date for litter pick
Planning, right of appeal by parish councils
Audit charges
Mrs Walton thanked everyone for attending and closed the meeting at 9.10pm
Mrs Walton, Chairman Alburgh Parish Council 3rd March 2016