May 2024 DRAFT Minutes Annual Parish Meeting
BILLINGBOROUGH PARISH COUNCIL
Minutes of the Annual Parish Meeting held on Tuesday 14 May 2024 at the Sports Pavilion in the Recreation Ground.
Present: Cllrs C. Woodhead (Chairman), M Turner, C Williamson.
In attendance: Mrs. H Beaver (Clerk), and 4 members of the public.
The Chairman opened the meeting at 6.00pm.
1.Chairman’s opening remarks.
001. The Chairman welcomed everybody to the meeting, and thanked those attending for coming, and reminded all that the meeting was recorded
2.Approve draft minutes of the meeting held 16 May 2023
002. it was RESOLVED to accept the minutes as a true record. The Chairman signed the minutes.
3.Chairman’s Annual Report.
003. The Chairman read out her annual report as follows:
Chairman’s Report 14th May 2024
We were having quite an uneventful year until January 2nd, when flooding affected our village. It came fast and furious and it was only thanks to the volunteers who braved the weather to fill sandbags, that no more than two properties were flooded. To those volunteers I say a massive thank you. This deluge of rain highlighted the deficiencies in our antiquated drainage system, lack of maintenance of the Ousemere lode and ditches and also the need for an emergency/flooding response team to be formed. In an effort to address all these matters, we called a village meeting to give everyone the opportunity to voice their concerns. It was well attended by the public but frustratingly none of the relevant agencies we invited attended or even communicated with us. Consequently; we met with our MP on 26/4/23 to outline our concerns re their lack of response and ask for his assistance in getting these agencies to engage with us, which he agreed to help with. He also agreed to look into the issues we have with the debris from the straw delivery Lorries. We will keep you updated of our progress on these matters and assure you that we will be persistent until we get action! The high no of properties flooded in Lincolnshire activated a section 19 investigation, however; it won’t be until September that the investigation team visit our village. We will of course let you know the outcome and recommendations of this investigation when they’re available. On a more positive note we now have a few volunteers willing to be part of an emergency response team but more would be helpful. If you’re interested in volunteering please contact our clerk.
Our total income for the year was £39,935.36, including our precept of £17,750. Our total expenditure was £48,795.23 net of VAT. As always we did our utmost to ensure that the budget, i.e. YOUR money was used wisely and appropriately and that any expenditure offered best value. Our expenditure for the year was mainly on day to day running costs and maintenance with our only capital expenditure being on our new village entry signs which have received so many positive comments, a bench to commemorate the King’s coronation, a new playpark entrance gate and defibrillator for the recreation ground. A usual our full accounts can be viewed on our website.
So what are the main things we’ve been doing? – We secured funding for a traffic officer – lollipop person but unfortunately to date unfortunately no one has applied for the role. Our persistence re Folkingham Rd was successful, with extensive repairs works being undertaken. We also succeeded in getting the jitty between Brewery Lane and Burton lane repaired and have been advised by Cllr Hill that the footpath between us and Sempringham will be repaired. We’ve discussed the abysmal state of our village footpaths with him and requested that they be resurfaced as opposed to patch repaired, consequently; he is currently working towards this goal for us. We installed a new bin on Folkingham Road and secured permission to move the bin on Birthorpe to the allotment entrance. We’ve installed a defibrillator on the sports pavilion, removed the pavilion’s back porch, repaired its roof, fitted a new hot water boiler, showers and undertook works to comply with our recent Fire safety and legionella report. We also replaced the paly park gate, with one to comply with current safety regulations. We painted the posts for the village signs and added gold finials, which further enhanced them and brought lots of positive feedback. We helped in the getting WLG to divert their delivery HGVs away from West Road. We championed the objections of the parish regarding the proposed solar farm and planning permission was refused. Unfortunately to our dismay following an appeal by the developer, this refusal was recently overturned. We started conversations with SKDC and LCC re having some EVCPs installed in the village. We ascertained that the field at the rear of the cemetery can only be used for the internment of ashes, which unfortunately means that at some point in the future when Birthorpe Rd cemetery has no more vacant plots, that the village will not have a cemetery for burials. We commission our three yearly tree survey and plan to undertake the necessary recommendations, we also liaised with Crown Estates re necessary tree work in Low St paddock and remedial work was undertaken.
We’ve secured 6 free trees from Crown Estates that are to be planted in Low St paddock in dedication to our late Queen and we have been granted permission to erect a plaque denoting this. CE will both plant and maintain these for us. We’ve also secured two days free labour from LCC to have necessary painting work undertaken in the recreation ground and weeding etc. on the church verge & wall on Church St, work is due to commence this month. We also secured free sand bags and sand and fingers crossed if the funding bid is successful we will be having a three day free pop up art event in the village in September.
Unfortunately; our plans to develop the ‘Hall Field’ on Low St were aborted as the general consensus at the public meeting on 3rd June, was for us not to proceed.
As the recreation ground has never been registered with Land Registry we appointed a solicitor in July to do this for us, they have since advised us that LR have acknowledged receipt of the application but will not commence work on it until January 2025 – and they say councils move at a slow pace. Keep an eye out when visiting the recreation ground, as our plaque denoting its trust status has arrived and will soon be installed.
Progress re the development of the old Aveland School site remains at a standstill, however; this area is now included in SKDC’s draft local plan, which states that 140 properties will be built on it and the adjoining field. This is only a draft plan but if it moves from being so, this large number of properties would place a massive strain on our antiquated drainage system, roads, school etc., so this is something we will be monitoring and welcome your views on.
The two projects carried forward from last year, i.e. developing the cemetery and updating its entrance and looking at the viability of installing a five side facility at the recreation ground are still in the pipeline. Once we have any firm plans/quotes regarding either proposition, we will seek your opinion.
Our biggest problem at present is dog walkers who don’t clean up after their dogs! As usual it’s the irresponsible few who just don’t care, so pleading to their better nature or threatening sanctions just doesn’t work. If you have any suggestion as how to address/resolve this please let us know.
We should be a Council of nine, though we started the year with only five and are now we are only three so we are only just quorate. Jon, Rhea and Roger bid us farewell and Calvin joined us. I’d like to take this opportunity to say a big thank you to them all for all their hard work and dedication and to you I say why not consider joining us? Mull it over it may the calling you’ve been looking for!
I’d like to take this opportunity to thank:-
Andrew, Annette and Jeannie for looking after our village entry planters.
Mr Chapman – for storing our and and bags.
All those that help in our church but especially Geoff who recently retired as church warden after 14 years of service, Trevor for helping out where needed, Georgina for looking after the finances, Judith & Kim for the brass cleaning, Karen for her amazing floral displays, Rebecca for winding up the clock, Kevin for odd jobs & churchyard tidying, Rex & Angie for looking after the boarders.
My thanks and appreciation for all their hard work goes to Kim our dedicated community village cleaner, Mark our recreation ground caretaker, to Jane and Jon our cemetery caretaking team and to Karen our Spring Wells guardian. All of whom do an incredible job! Thank You!!
My thanks also go to:-
BAGS - for managing the allotments on our behalf.
The Cricket Club for providing a sporting opportunity within the village and lending a hand to the Council with odd jobs.
The Village Hall Committee for managing the hall and working diligently to raise funds to maintain and improve it and for organising events that foster community cohesion.
BATS – for keeping us entertained, while raising funds for the village hall.
The Community Gym committee for managing the gym and ensuring it’s continued viability.
All that help deliver the weekly ‘Pop in Too’ coffee/lunch session.
Linkwell – whose volunteers provide assistance to those who may at times need a little extra help.
The Scouts and the Army Cadets for providing the opportunity for our young people to explore and experience different things.
Aren’t we lucky to have so many amazing people that give their time for the benefit of our community? Truly unsung heroes!
Finally but certainly not least, I pay tribute our Clerk and RFO Hayley who has the unenviable task of managing us and all the red tape that bombards her, while working tirelessly for us and the community. Thanks Hayley you’re a star!
My closing words are as always to remind you that this is your village so please do let us know what you’d like to see being developed or initiated, what we could do better or what we’ve done well. We are your representatives here to serve you and will always endeavour to do our best for you. However; we can’t change or do something if we don’t know about it, so please do let us know your ideas and opinions. They are always welcome!
4.Receive reports from the Police County and District councils.
004. Cllr turner reported in his capacity as District Councillor as follows:
That a year had passed since the coalition of the Greens and Liberal Democrats had led the Council, in that year the leisure centre at Market Deeping had been re-opened, clean paper and cardboard recycling had been introduced, and this has earnt revenue helping to keep Council taxes lower. Cllr Turner stated that he had been involved with many issues in the village, and most recently had managed to enable the removal of the graffiti on the vicarage wall, he had also highlighted the problem of damp in many Council houses in the village, and overall felt that the District Council had a much more open and customer focused outlook. He advised that all the District Council owned street lights are to be changed to more energy efficient bulbs. He urged anyone with concerns to raise them with himself directly via email or phone.
5.Receive reports from Community Groups and organisations – None received.
6. Questions and proposals from the public.
006. A parishioner queried what the spending priorities were for the Parish Council. The Chairman explained that a large amount of the precept was spent on maintenance of Council owned areas, earnt a small income from rental of land owned by the Council and from the cemetery, and currently had two projects that were being explored and once information was ready would be presented to the village. There was a brief discussion about the Aveland field and when it would become the property of the Parish, it was thought not until the Aveland site was developed. This raised comments of concern about the number of houses for development on the local plan.
007. Another parishioner queried why the section of road off Chapel Street, in front of the pharmacy end of the Doctor’s surgery, had not been repaired, as there were large potholes and this was dangerous, especially in the dark. As LCC had already stated that it was not under its ownership, D Cllr Turner was asked to ascertain if SKDC were responsible.
008. A parishioner complimented the Council on the new village signs, noted that they were all individually hand painted, and asked if the Council was aware that the one by the recreation ground had the wickets missing behind the cricketer.
As there were no more questions or proposals from the Public the Chairman closed the Annual Parish Meeting at 18.38.