18/82

Receive/accept apologies and welcome to the Public

18/83

Questions from registered electors

• From the 1st June 2017 Creffield Medical Centre (based near Abbey Fields) merged with the North Hill Medical Group and the Layer Road Surgery, having previously been approached by both due to the lack of doctors/partners at these organisations.
• Group now spread over four sites; Creffield, North Hill, Nayland, and West Bergholt. A fifth site at Layer was closed in 2017 as the practice moved in to Creffield.
• Challenging times – inherited issues have come to light combined with changes in NHS funding and training.
• The numbers in the workforce has deteriorated due to retirement and moving, creating a dire situation with the number of available doctors reducing month on month.
• In a bid to rescue what’s left, a plan has been put in place. The North Hill site has a two-year tenancy, it is currently 6 months’ in. There is not going to be an option to renew the lease in 18 months’ time so the plan would be to use another site for the North Hill contingent of patients. Will engage with the patients prior to this, but the natural split could be between Creffield and West Bergholt.
• There are issues with getting an appointment as there are not enough doctors across all sites. There are two types of appointments:
  • Pre-booked appointments with specific doctors;
  • Emergency appointments with those available.
• The proposal is to run a pilot scheme between Nayland and West Bergholt:
  • Nayland – would have the elective appointments, up to two weeks in advance with some slots for on the day if possible
  • West Bergholt – would be an acute hub for urgent and emergency queries
• The reasoning behind it are practical:
  • West Bergholt’s geographical position nearer to North Hill and central to the practice area
  • The broadband is better, Nayland only gets 2MBs of broadband which fails if more than 4 computers are using it at once.
  • There are more clinical rooms at West Bergholt in which to see patients
• The trial started this week and for example today, there were 3 Nurse Practitioners and 1 Doctor taking emergency appointments at West Bergholt. Many calls can be handled with telephone-based triage & contact. Today, there were 65 people on the telephone list, out of which the doctor saw 15, which is just about do-able.

Need to get the news out to residents. It is in all our interests for the surgeries to survive, but until the Department of Health can find and train more doctors things need to be kept going as best they can.

A resident then raised concerns that many people are worried about how they would get to Nayland.

Cllr Stone informed the Council that the Care Network is aware that more people will need to be given lifts to Nayland. They are lucky that they now have more than 20 volunteer drivers available, but need to get the message out that the Care Network can help.

The chairman then thanked Doctor Chowhan for coming and reiterated that the Parish Council is happy to get the information out there.

ACTION – Clerk to contact surgery to get their summary of the changes out on the parish website, Facebook Hub and noticeboards.

18/84

Declarations of Interest

18/85

Minutes

18/86

Report from Colchester Borough & Essex County Councillors

• Planning Application 180733 (Armoury Road) – the councillor expressed his astonishment at the Planning Officer’s decision with regards the Armoury Road application. He thought that was very clear that Colchester has a 15-year plan and a 5-year land bank, it is outside the Village Envelope and not part of the Neighbourhood Plan or the Local Plan and cannot comprehend why they would let it go through.
• Bus stop in Colchester Road – the escalating price of moving this bus stop from its present position to the grass verge outside the Maltings has now reached an astonishing £41,000. This needs to go back to the melting pot for re-justification and would refer to the Parish Council for guidance.

ACTION – Environment Committee to look for alternatives at their next meeting.

Borough Councillor Barber reported:

• Planning Application 180733 (Armoury Road) – again cannot see the logic of the Planning Officers who were about to approve this application until he “called it in”. This will now be brought to the CBC Planning Committee meeting at the Town Hall on Thursday 5th July at 6pm for discussion in the public. Residents are invited to attend. Cllr Barber will be speaking in opposition to the plans and one other person may address the committee. Representatives from the Parish Council will be in attendance.

ACTION – Cllr Barber will find out who is going to speak from the residents, if not the chairman of the Parish Council, Chris Stevenson, is happy to stand up and talk.

• Mumford Road Parking – following on from his recent street surgeries, Cllr Barber is looking at utilizing the Colchester Borough Homes garages in Mumford Road for more residential parking and would seek the PC’s approval.

Cllr Stevenson replied that the Parish Council would approve of anything which improves parking for residents.

18/87

Finance

a)

Statement of accounts for May 2018 (Link to P2 May Summary)

The final accounts for May 2018 were presented as follows:

17% of the way through the financial year. The Parish Council Account showed 45% income, 13% general expenditure, 10% environment expenditure and 12% expenditure overall, when the categories of general expenditure & environment are totalled together.

The back of the summary sheet also shows a running total of the Earmarked Reserves and the Projects agreed for 2018-19, for information.

b)

Payments

c)

To approve Section 2 – the Accounting Statement 2017-18 of the Annual Return

RESOLVED – Cllr Savage proposed to approve Section 2 – the Accounting Statements 2017-18 of the Annual Return. Cllr Butcher seconded. All in favour. Section 2 was then signed. The Public Rights Notice will be put up on the notice boards on Friday 29th June until the 10th August 2018.

d)

To approve the recommendation from Finance Committee for an additional £554.99 payment for linings to the Hall Curtains from the outstanding monies in the “Upgrading Orpen Hall 2017” Reserves.

The Hall Administrator realised that the curtains on order for the Orpen Hall (approved at March PC meeting item 18/41e for £1764) did not include linings. Have since received a quote for an additional £554.99 to line all the window and door curtains (stage not required). Cost will come out of Earmarked Reserves, specifically “Upgrading Orpen Hall 2017”, making a new total figure of £2318.67.

RESOLVED – To agree the Finance Committee’s recommendations for an additional £554.99 payment for linings to the Hall Curtains. Proposed by Cllr Savage, seconded by Cllr Butcher. All in favour.

18/88

Planning

a)

The minutes of the Extraordinary Meeting of the Planning Committee meeting held on 30th May and the meeting of the 20th June 2018 were received and the decisions made on following applications were noted (Link to Planning Extra. May & P3 June 2018):

• 181303 – 3 Albany Road, CO6 3LB – Support – The Parish Council has no comment.
• 181123 – 18 Moss Way, CO6 3LJ – Object – Whilst the Parish Council does not fundamentally disagree with the proposal, the plans for the first floor in combination with the existing Planning Application (Ref 88-0740 on proposed drawing) would lead to the overdevelopment of this site, with the bulk of the property being easily visible on a very busy street corner. The Parish Council would be content with the latest proposal, if the existing PA was withdrawn (removed by a section 73 agreement?). However, on a separate note, it is almost impossible to take a view of what this will look like from the current proposed drawing and the council would recommend clearer plans to be drawn up by an architect.
• 181124 – 22 Bradbrook Cottages, CO6 3JW – Support – Prior to meeting on the 20th June, the Planning Committee of West Bergholt Parish Council would like to submit the following provisional comment: Any domestic extension needs to be subservient to the existing property to comply with CBC and Village Design Statement policies. This means the front wall should be setback about 200mm at first floor and the ridge should be lower than the main roof, by a similar amount, so it looks like an extension. The extension will therefore need to be subservient to the main house and the gap sufficient to prevent it looking like a continuous row of terrace properties.

• Colchester Skip Hire –  ESS/09/18/COL– proposal for 24 HGV Movements between 07:00- 16-30 hours on Good Friday’s. Parish Council has objected on grounds of:
  • Removal of Conditions – which should be retained in order to prevent disturbance to residents on Good Fridays.
  • Additional Traffic Movements – 24 HGV movements between 07.00 and 16.30 on Good Fridays will not only diversely affect the direct neighbours and residents of Wormingford, but also the 3,500 inhabitants of West Bergholt parish as the skip vehicles mainly travel through the village.

County Councillor Anne Brown has contacted the chairman of the PC and is equally upset, she will make representations on our behalf. If this is does go through, then we may want some speed indicator devices installed in Colchester Road as compensation.

• 181313 – Lealands, Chapel Lane, CO6 3EF – Observation – The Parish Council has no problem with the extension in principal, however it will result in the loss of one of the two parking spaces. The Council would therefore defer to Colchester Borough Council’s policy and their need to satisfy themselves with regards the loss of parking.

RESOLVED – It was agreed by the Parish Council to accept these recommendations as Decisions. Proposed by Cllr Tyrrell, seconded by Cllr Butcher. All in favour

With regards the outstanding Planning Applications from NEEB and Gladmans:

• Planning Application 180732 – NEEB Holdings proposal for land adjacent to Colchester Road – has been refused.
• Planning Application 173127 – Gladman Homes proposal for land adjacent to Hill House Farm – haven’t heard officially yet but are expecting it to be refused.
• Planning Application 180733 – NEEB Holdings proposal for land adjacent to Armoury Road. Planning Officer has produced a 49-page report (available on the CBC Planning website) and recommended approval, however as stated earlier, Borough Cllr Barber has “called it in” meaning that instead of automatic approval it will now be debated and decided by the CBC Planning Committee at the Town Hall on 5th July in front of the public.
  Cllr Stevenson informed the residents in attendance that the application is completely premature, if they wanted to argue with the agreed siting of new houses then the proper time to debate it was during the Local Plan consultation or the Neighbourhood Plan approval process, not now.
  ACTION – a resident of the Maltings will send the Clerk a copy of his deeds to show the date of the easement which will run out very soon (has been in operation for 21 years).
  A debate then took place – Have all the arguments and logic behind us, it undermines the Neighbourhood Plan and the Local Plan (including the 5-year housing supply). If CBC Planning is policy-led, then why approve? What is different with this application?
  In the wider context of the Local Plan and the delays with the Garden Communities proposals it makes CBC’s position weaker. It may only be 26 houses, but it will buy Colchester another month of time.
  A resident asked if it was approved by the Committee could it be appealed against, the Council confirmed that it could, but only by using a legal argument and it would be very expensive.

18/89

Neighbourhood Plan

An update was received on the Regulation 14 stage of the Neighbourhood Plan and feedback from Exhibition of 23rd June 2018.

A resident had several points to make with regards the Local Green Spaces policy section of the plan. He felt that there was insufficient back-up text to support the policy and had difficulty in seeing how the sites were selected. He drew the council’s attention to a successful legal challenge on the use of the policy in the Bristol area recently.

Cllr Stevenson replied that the point of the recent Neighbourhood Plan exhibition and consultation is so that the Steering Group can receive such comments and any input from residents is helpful. Cllr Stevenson & Cllr Savage will be going through the whole document following the consultation having received residents’ comments.

ACTION – resident to supply his comments to the Clerk, who will forward them to the Steering Group.

Next steps following the exhibition are to check the feedback forms, postcard comments and attendance figures. Received some good feedback, engaged with the residents of Colchester Road who will be affected, however the majority of comments were to do with the cemetery. There is more work to be done on the Plan document, some of which can be begin even before the end of the consultation.

18/90

Environment and Highways

The minutes from the Environment Committee meeting held on 14th June 2018 were received. (Link to Environment P3 Jun 18)

• The new spring rocker has been fitted to the Lorkin Daniell Playground. It works and is proving very popular.
• The eco survey of the Heath will take place on the 4th July.

ACTION – Cllr Butcher wished an amendment to made to the minutes, specifically item 5, the Premises Committee have not asked the Environment Committee to look at the cherry trees at the front of the Orpen Hall.

However, everyone understood that these trees, having been planted for the Coronation in 1953 are therefore reaching the end of their lives. Cllr Spencer will be making an inspection and recommendation of them in the near future.

18/91

Premises and Recreation

If there was a major incident, then the Borough Council has a team of volunteers which it would parachute in to run the premises. Coincidentally, Cllr Stone is currently working on updating the Parish Council’s Emergency Plan and list of contacts.

18/92

Training

• No training was undertaken this month.

18/93

Items to Note

a)            Correspondence Log – June 2018

• Litter Picking on Saturday 30th 10am -11am
• Attended Freighter on Saturday 30th 11am -12 noon
• Open Gardens on Sunday 1st July 11am – 5.30pm – on this, the Council should be in a good position to put in for Village of the Year again next year, however we need people to take plenty of photos of all the good things which happen in the village throughout the year.

ACTION – Clerk to ask Tony Morris if he is going to the Open Gardens & if so, can he send us copies of his photos.

• Colchester Community Policing Team – wished to put the Colchester crime figures in the Parish magazine – decided by the council that it was too general for West Bergholt containing too many crimes not relevant to the parish.
• Special Constable – have heard from the Special Constable Coordinator – we have had two applicants, however one did not turn up for his assessment so now down to one, now waiting for the second applicant’s assessment. The Special Constables will not be able to attend the village fete to advertise as there is a Police award ceremony that day.

b)            Crime Statistics – May 21st – June 17th 2018 – 1 Crimes Reported

c)            EALC – County Update, Special Local Services Fund Edition

18/94

In Committee

18/95

Date of Next Meeting