November 2022 DRAFT Notes
Londonthorpe & Harrowby Without Parish Council
Clerk; Peter A. Armstrong 27 Belton Ave Grantham Lincs NG31 9JE
Tel 07929321426 E-mail londonthorpeharrowby@ntlworld.com
Clerks Notes of the Parish Council Meeting held on Wednesday 9th November 2022 at Belmont school. Meeting started at 7.00pm.
Public Open Session: there were no parishioners present.
22/57 Councillors present: Richard Keeler, Paul Bakker, Roland Wright, Geoff Parnham, Alan Bowling, Avril Gregory, Carol Markwell, Paul Nesbitt, Paul Bavin, and Yolanda Martin. 10 members were present. LCC Cllr L Wootten was in attendance.
Cllr Roland Wright took the Chair. Pete Armstrong the Clerk took the notes.
Apologies: George Chivers and E Stooke both ill agreed as acceptable absence. A Stokes also sent his apologies and asked for any problems requiring his input to be forwarded.
22/58 Declarations of Interest; None declared. The Chairman informed members that item 22/63 on the agenda would be discussed in closed session after this meeting finished.
22/59 Clerks Notes: those of the 28th September 2022 meeting were accepted as a true record and therefore became the minutes. Proposed by A Bowling seconded C Markwell, all members were fully in agreement.
22/60 Clerks Update on Matters Arising: As usual all matters fall within the very full agenda.
22/61 Financial Statement No 4 of 22-23. Councillors as usual now had received the reports taken off the Scribe system prior to the meeting. Payments all now made via NatWest Bank by Bank Transfer, Card or Cheque.
Salaries £1680.58. HMRC £352.20, C/C quarterly Expenses £50, Audit £240 inc. £40 VAT, Litterbin £402 + £80.39 VAT, Office £67.02 inc. Bank Charges: £4.90 VAT£ 3.45. Repairs £42.22, Gardens £12.98. Tom Childs Award/S137 £125 to the Child Bereavement Service delayed from the last Statement. No Grass Cutting Invoices received... Total expenditure for the report period was £5051.95 VAT £332.95. The Clerk then went through the report in the detail explaining all the payments.
All payments made on the card by the Clerk were agreed by and signed off accordingly.
Income was £16501.90Precept £16500 and Interest of £1.90, the Community Cleaner payments are due any day. Items known due for payment before the next meeting are, Grass Cutting, Repairs, BHMS, remainder of the Jubilee Projects, and Salaries plus anything relating to any of the other ongoing projects within the L&O section. Agreement to accept the Financial Statement No 4 for 2022/23 plus the normal expected payments for up to the January meeting was proposed by A Gregory seconded by G Parnham. Agreed Unan. Cllrs C Markwell & A Bowling signed off the account.
The clerk advised members that he had just received the nationally agreed updated pay-scales for all staff.
22/62 Leisure & Outdoor Committee:
The Committee met last month to set a budget for 2023-24 and follow up on items outstanding within this remit.
a. Playground Safety: No major issues. ROSPA Inspection Booked.
b. Community Cleaner: He has been catching up on the outstanding jobs, he has now completed painting the Bus Shelter and cleared the Ruston Road Driveway clearance. He is working extra hours as required.
c. Withambrook Play Area: Litterbin ordered for near the bridge. Costs including fitting approx. £550. All repair work etc to be commenced week beginning 14th November.
d. Belfry: WACS already booked to deal with cutting and clearing overgrown hedge, safety matting and gate spring. Crow damage to the grass surface to be left until the spring.
e. Londonthorpe Play Area: Cllr P Bavin Was thanked for cutting back the Ivy on the roadside tree. Other jobs for possible working party. Replace failed trees, still waiting for contact from LCC.
f. Hills & Hollows: The seat that has now lost it vista, will be moved hopefully week of 14th November to plot near to the opening to the track. The purchase of a wheeled strimmer for use here and around the parish as suggested by the L&O Com. Is on hold due to transporting difficulties.
g. Bridge End Grove: The Clerk confirmed that we had now signed for a £50 increase making it into £200pa for the rent up to 2029. If the Grantham Town Council plan goes ahead, we would remove our equipment. In this case we would no longer be requiring the land and this payment would cease.
h. Working Parties: One will be required for parishioners to work on the Jubilee Mount and BHMS Site along with our normal H&H and other sites as mentioned.
i. Woodland Trust update: the Group continues to do excellent work in the Trusts Woods, the next one will be in the Alma Wood continuing to clear an area of self-set Sycamore etc ready for replanting Beech etc. this will be on Sunday 13th. Members have agreed to sign up for to the Reconnecting Grantham joint project with the National Trust.
j. Jubilee Mount: The Lecterns have now been ordered from Roll& Scroll before we have anymore price increases. Volunteers required to work on improving the drainage and clear back the Brambles.
k. Millennium Garden: It was decided to ask for volunteers from the community in the next Newsletter. We are very grateful for the continued work by Mr & Mrs Parker.
Other Items: Planters @ Londonthorpe: C Markwell to organise her team. Church Green: Western Power considering taking the tree out on our behalf!
• Grass Cutting: a letter received from Streetwise stating they were no longer going to be doing outside contracts may lead to an increase in costs. Quotes for a new contractor to be initiated.
22/63 Grantham Town Council: as per announcement and agreement at the outset of this meeting this would be covered at the end of the meeting in closed session.
22/64 BHMS Sit: The fully signed licence was received the day before this meeting. The Clerk has informed our contractor, but the job cannot be started until the new year due to his other planned works. The clerk had a verbal agreement from James Morris that we could manage the waste area between our land. He has since left the Council! Cllr L Wootten is to try and find out who we now need to deal with to get our other plans agreed. This includes the planting of a selection of plants along the slopes. Some species likely to be used include, Berberis, Mahonia, Lavender and Ceanothus. See also 22/69.
22/65 Planning: Applications dealt with as arising, these are sent to all councillors with at least five of the most local councillors requested to comment. There are no major items of concern with any of the recent applications.
22/66 Highway Matters: SGRR; Galliford Try’s latest newsletter was passed onto members when it arrived. Members are requested to report any problems on Fixmystreet.com. The Community Speed Watch Team continue with their good work but are desperately short of volunteers. An item to be put into the Newsletter asking for new volunteers. Mention was made of the new parking regulations at the Belmont which parents appear to be totally ignoring. Beat Officer/PCSO to be asked to do a visit. Maybe also to involve the schools Mini-Police.
22/67 Newsletter: This will need to be delivered by the last week of February, due to the Elections due to take place in May. Items to include the Calendar, which needs to indicate the change of date for our May Council meeting due to held on the 11th May. As the Elections take place on the 4th and the Monday 9th is a bank holiday there will not be time to legally send out the agenda for then. It was agreed to put back to the 18th. Other items: raise interest of the vacancies on the council, Speed-watch, BHMS, Jubilee Mount and other Volunteering opportunities. Plus of course all the other usual reports.
22/68 Policies: The group working on the provision of parish email addresses proposed if the Cloud Next information checks out that we would go with them at a cost of £110 domain name for 2yrs Email Hosting £49 per annum for 25 email addresses. Domain name would be if accepted londonthorpeharrowby-pc.gov.uk
This if all goes well be in place ready to be published in the next newsletter. This would be included in our Standing Orders. This was proposed by C Markwell Seconded P Bavin Unan.
22/69 Working Groups: Emails; R Wright, A Bowling, C Markwell, P Bakker, G Parnham & P Nesbitt. This group has also been dealing with the item 22/63 of this agenda. Jubilee Mount, BHMS; these members offered to be involved R Keeler, P Bakker, P Nesbitt, A Bowling, G Parnham, and E Stooke is to be asked to join in with this. Now have the licence planning and work can commence, with the possibility of a working party as soon as possible.
22/70 Precept 2023-24. All members were sent the papers prior to the meeting to study, the Clerk went through everything with the councillors. The Leisure & Outdoor committee had proposed a reduction in their budget of £1000. But since that was done the Grass Cutting contract will end, as per item 22/62. Possibly incurring unknown increase in expenditure. The Clerk suggested that any Precept agreed tonight should be provisional and looked at again in January. Other increases expected are the salary increases in the National Council Workers agreement for 22-23 which has just been published. Overall, with the expected carry-forward from 22-23 of over £4000 the suggested budget of £33000 would suffice. A suggest was made to increase by 2% which would be £660 a 33p increase to parishioners. This of course will be no increase on last year. Proposed A Bowling Sec P Nesbitt that we remain as Status Quo, agreed unan.
22/71 Correspondence: As usual all relevant correspondence has been passed on as it arrived or in this case brought up in the actual agenda heading.
22/72 Matters for the January Agenda etc. Salaries Review, Newsletter, no other matters raised.
Meeting closed 9:05pm
Diary Dates are as per these minutes and the Calendar passed to members and available on the Website and Noticeboards.
Next meeting: @ Belmont School Wednesday January 11th, 2023, at 7.00pm.