Annual Parish Meeting
Tuesday 4th May 2010
THE CHAIRMAN'S REPORT
Welcome to the Annual Parish meeting for 2010 and thank you for coming. Welcome to our three Cheshire East Councillors – Thelma Jackson, Paul Findlow and Bill Livesley. I am also pleased to welcome Sgt Mick Warren and PCSO Lisa Cash who will be addressing us later on the subject of Police Community Support Officers.
Apologies from Parish Cllrs Arthur Dicken and Chris Holdsworth who are unable to be here this evening.
I would refer you to the reports of the Planning Committee and the Finance & General Purposes committee.
Two themes have dominated your Parish Council’s activities in 2009 – the creation of our new unitary authority and activity on a number of fronts connected to the implementation of the Plan for Prestbury. Last week a third major issue was added to this list as we learnt of the closure of the Post Office and Spinners tea room. I will return to this important matter at the end of my report.
From the perspective of the Parish Council the creation, just over a year ago, of the new unitary Cheshire East Council has not generally been a comfortable experience. The reorganization was forced through against an extraordinarily ambitious timetable and was inevitably extremely disruptive for all those employed by the two outgoing authorities. The result was that, at the time of vesting of Cheshire East on 1st April 2009 numerous posts were unfilled and this dislocation and the uncertainty that it created lasted well into 2009 and, in some areas it persists. This made for particular difficulties and frustrations for the Parish Council just at the time when we were embarking upon implementation of the Plan for Prestbury and were looking for input and help from numerous parts of the new organization. Of perhaps even greater concern, we are beginning to hear suggestions that, in order to meet cost targets, Cheshire East may be considering either dropping certain “non-core” services or seeking to pass these to town and parish councils – and this before consideration of any further squeeze that might be expected to follow the election.
In an effort to forge links closer to communities, Cheshire East created a number of Local Area Partnerships and we found ourselves grouped, along with Adlington, Mottram St Andrew, Disley and Poynton in the Poynton LAP. It would be fair to say that this birth of this group proved to be a somewhat painful business, characterized by confusion of both purpose and process and a tendency to “big-brotherhood” on the part of the dominant council. It remains to be seen whether this arrangement can be made into something more productive that a mere talking shop.
I recognize that this all sounds rather negative and the difficulties that we and other Parish Councils have encountered are real enough. Nevertheless, I think it is also only fair to recognise that in the main the transfer of day to day services from Macclesfield and Cheshire to East Cheshire worked pretty smoothly. If there are any further questions about Cheshire East we have our councilors here who I am sure will be happy to respond.
Turning now to the Plan for Prestbury, you will recall that the Parish Council endorsed the Plan for Prestbury early in 2009 and undertook to coordinate the implementation of the great majority of its recommendations. Although the Council is taking overall responsibility for the implementations, there are still many other members of the community involved, as you will hear and I should like to record our thanks for their continued interest and commitment. Whilst some of the recommendations have now been implemented in full others remain work-in-progress. Here is a brief run-down of the current stage of the implementation process, area by area.
Community Information
The “Welcome Pack” aimed at newcomers to the village is up and running and in use by the Estate Agents.
Plan for Prestbury suggested a website as a means of village communication and to allow people to find out more about what is going on.
A group of volunteers have now launched www.Prestburyvillage.com and this has been advertised around the village in a number of ways. The website works on most platforms, including iPod/iPhone and Blackberry so can be accessed while people are away from their computers. This phase 1 development includes (amongst other things) a directory of businesses and clubs and societies including details such as opening times, contact information etc. Any organisations not currently included are welcome to apply.
The website team are now considering developments for phase 2. These include enhanced calendar as well as regular update service and more interactive options. Suggestions are welcome!
To show that more prosaic and traditional communications methods are not being forgotten, the Parish Council has embarked upon a programme of refurbishment of the village notice boards. You may have noticed that the Village sign at the end of Bridge Green has also recently been refurbished.
Community facilities
A separate working group, made up of some of the volunteers who worked on the original plan together with others representing a wide cross section of clubs and organisations is now working on a feasibility study to assess to possibility of creating a new community meeting facility somewhere on the Bollin Grove site currently occupied by the tennis and squash clubs, childrens’playground and football pitch, to meet the demand for improved facilities that was signalled by the Plan for Prestbury survey. Funding for this feasibility study has been secured from Cheshire Community Action and this has been matched by the Parish Council. The outcome will be a professional assessment of potential solutions. Should the conclusion be that a viable plan emerges from this process then this will form the basis of a full consultation with all stakeholders and the wider community. The team is also looking at possible improvements to the surface and the drainage of the football pitch.
Village Green and Events
The principal recommendation was a plan to make certain changes to the site of Parrott’s Field in order to make it more welcoming and practical for the use of the community. This plan, which the Parish Council endorsed, continues to be the subject of opposition from the Preserve Prestbury Action Group and hence no action has as yet been taken by the Cheshire East council, the landowner and responsible authority. The latest position is that a meeting was held last week, under the chairmanship of Councillor Bill Livesley at which the opposing views were presented and Cllr Livesley will now make a recommendation to the Cheshire East portfolio holder, Cllr Andrew Knowles who will decide upon what action Cheshire East should take.
Bollin Valley projects
Initiatives to make improvements to parts of the Bollin Valley Way to enable joint use walking/cycling paths remain on the table but require the consent of the landowner to take them forward. To date we have had no success in establishing the necessary dialogue. This is frustrating and of course also affects plans for the control of Himalayan Balsam and we should like to thank those who volunteered to help with this exercise. We have probably missed the window for this season but will continue to work to break the bottleneck.
Managed Development and Planning
The Plan recommended the production of a new Supplementary Planning Document which would incorporate many of the concerns about planning that were raised by residents in the survey. This has been completed and the Cheshire East planners have conducted public consultation on the document and two drop-in sessions were held to discuss it and general parish issues. We are now awaiting the presentation of the draft final version of the SPD to the Council.
Teenagers and Business Forums
I am pleased to report that, as a result of the Plan for Prestbury recommendations both a Youth Forum and a Business Forum have been established and continue to meet. The Youth Forum is providing valuable input to the Community Facilities Feasibility Team and the Business group, as you will hear, is taking a lively and constructive interest in the search for a solution to the Post office problem.
Traffic and Transportation
This area of the Plan’s recommendations produced a long list of areas for further work – aimed principally at making the roads and pavements safer and more pleasant to use. A group of three councillors has taken responsibility to take this forward. Regrettably, it is this section of our work on the Plan that calls for the greatest degree of input and support from Cheshire East Officers and it has consequently suffered the most from the disruption caused by the reorganisation of the principal authorities. Our experience has been that there are still insufficient officers in place and there is no money to do anything. I would ask you to accept that this is not a case of 'passing the buck'. CEC are the highway authority, not the parish Council and we are very much in their hands. To add to the problems, the exceptionally hard winter stretched the authority's limited highway capacity to breaking point. The after effects of that are still pre-occupying them in trying to deal with all the pot holes that were created. The Local Authorities are desperately trying to get more money out of government to deal with pot holes. Some has been released, but nowhere near enough. We are just one of hundreds of Parish Councils that our principal authority has to deal with and we are all trying to channel in at the moment through the same few individuals, which creates the most impossible bottleneck.
Despite these difficulties, we have done a considerable amount of work checking out the various types of portable speed check devices available and I am hopeful that we shall soon be in a position to consider firm proposals to purchase equipment that will enable us to monitor speeding at various points around the parish. We have also had the support of the Police in conducting a number of random speeding checks as a result of which fixed penalties have been imposed. We expect that this will continue. Finally, we are continuing to work to try to establish an Adopt-a-station scheme aimed at improving and managing the railway station infrastructure.
It is fair to say that we always recognized that progress on roads and traffic, dependent as it is upon the cooperation of the highways authority and other officers, would be the most difficult aspect of the Plan for Prestbury to deliver. So it is proving but the Parish Council remains committed to continue with the task and we hope that we shall be able, gradually, to deliver the improvements that the community wants to see.
Before concluding, I must refer to the unexpected closure of the Post Office and Spinners last week. Concerned as we all are to recover the loss of these important services I think it is appropriate to record our appreciation for the efforts that Mick and Michelle Keighton made to make a success of this business. The investment in Spinners showed vision and boldness and it is a great pity that it did not prove to be a success for them. This is all the more regrettable as the creation of Spinners was in large part a direct response to the Plan for Prestbury survey which indicated a strong wish for a tea room and deli in the village. We sympathise with the very real personal aspect this sad episode represents for Mick and his family.
I am pleased to report that the Post Office have confirmed that it is their wish to put some kind of post office service back into Prestbury as soon as possible. The question is how is the best way to do this? In this connection, during the course of last week many ideas and initiatives have come forward both from individuals and exiting businesses in the village and the Business Forum, to which I referred earlier, has played a vital role in coordinating these. We hope now expect to have a meeting with PO managers in Prestbury at which all interested parties can come together to pool ideas. I am optimistic that a suitable alternative Post Office business (if possible incorporating other valuable services such as newspaper delivery) can be established .
I cannot conclude this year’s report without referring to the retirement last month of our longest serving councilor, Cllr Don Goulsbra. Councillor Goulsbra served a remarkable 50 years with the Parish Council serving as chairman as well as holding many other posts in and related to local government. We thank Don for his service to the community and wish him and Elaine health and happiness.
That concludes my report on your councils work over the last year. I shall be happy to take questions on any matter that I have referred to.
4th May 2010
FINANCE REPORT
The Finance and General Purpose Committee have critically reviewed all aspects of the Council’s expenditure to ensure that general running costs are minimised and all project work is supported wherever possible with grant funding.
A detailed budget is prepared showing expected income and expenditure and a comparison made twice yearly with regular meetings between the Chairman of F and GP, Vice Chairman and The Responsible Financial Officer.
The F & GP advises the Council on the annual precept it needs to levy within the Council Tax to fund its activities. The precept for 2009/2010 was £37,767 whilst for 2010/2011 the total precept required is £38,481 which is an increase of £714, which equate to less than 48p increase per household.
Five of the noticeboards have been renovated
Playground equipment has been replaced/repaired
Two black galvanised kissing gates have been replaced at the edge of the Golf Club
The Parish Council Accounts are now going through the first stage of the Government Statutory Audit Procedure. The Accounts are subject to viewing by the general public on 25th May to 28th June after which they will be sent to Accountants who are commissioned by the Government to act as their External Auditor.
Any person wishing to view the accounts may do so by contacting the Clerk who is the Responsible Financial Officer on 01625 260362 or email: parish.clerk@ntlworld.com
Georgina Ryder
Clerk to Prestbury Parish Council
Responsible Financial Officer
PLANNING REPORT
The Parish Council Planning Committee continues to take its duties very seriously in an attempt to ensure that The Village maintains its character and charm. To fulfil this aim all planning applications submitted to Cheshire East Council for our area are considered by the Committee. During the last 12 months we have considered some 77 planning applications a decrease in 64 applications compared to 2009. Again the majority has been for extensions and conservatories to existing properties, but 14 have been for replacement buildings.
The meetings of the Planning Committee take place every 3 weeks on Wednesday mornings,
Date, Time and Agendas are published on the main notice board in the Village, all are welcome to attend. All Plans are available for inspection by the Public every Friday from 10-30 a.m. to 1-00 p.m. and 2-00 p.m. to 4-30 p.m. at The Village Library.
N.B The Parish Council Planning Committee is a “Statutory Consultee” in the planning system. Therefore Cheshire East Council takes note of our opinion but the final decision is always theirs.
The Supplementary Planning Document continues to be developed in conjunction with East Cheshire Council and should prove to be a useful tool to all people involved in the planning process.
Finally after another year we the Planning Committee of the Parish Council hoped to have looked after your interests to the best of our ability and in as professional way possible.
Donald Foden
Chairman ~ Planning Committee.
|
