18/19

Receive/accept apologies and welcome to the Public

18/20

Questions from registered electors

18/21

Declarations of Interest

18/22

Minutes

18/23

Report from Colchester Borough & Essex County Councillors

• Broadband – The Borough Councillors hope to have some exciting news to announce in a couple of weeks regarding broadband in the village, following a meeting with Cllr Barber, Anne Brown and the Superfast Broadband team.
• Erle Havard Park – CCTV has now been requested for the park near the Doctor’s surgery to help with issues there. Awaiting CBC to allocate funding but Cllr Barber would like Parish Council support before any installation is confirmed. Cllr Stevenson replied that the Parish Council has no problem with CCTV in the area and would support the installation.
• Proposed Housing Developments – Currently there are no updates on any of the proposed housing developments. The Borough Councillors “In Touch” newsletter will discuss these and be circulated to houses in the area before the election in May.
• Repairs to Bergholt Road – likely to be a mixture of surface treatments in the summer following completion of the patching works. Pre-patching will be happening in March along Bergholt Road and in April on the blue bridge. A range of complete resurfacing will then take place in July:
  o   surface dressing at the West Bergholt end of the road;
  o   hot rolled asphalt along Bergholt Road (Braiswick end);
  o   microsurfacing near the station.
  Cllr Stevenson has persistently requested that ECC notify the Clerk of highway maintenance works in the same way that frontagers are warned by letter or leaflet drop, currently to no avail.
• Argent’s Lane – Improved signage application has been put in. Cllr Barber spoke to the farmer, who has now completed a lot of work clearing the ditches, presently waiting for Highways to do their part.
• Chitts Hill – Cllr Barber and Anne Brown are working with Highways on the surface run-off issues in this area. The work was originally meant to be undertaken in December, but Network Rail delayed it. Are now waiting for another date.
• CBC Zone Warden Policy – Cllr Barber is currently lobbying CBC to change its policy on zone wardens and ECC on highways maintenance. He would like to see Parish Councils provided with the funds to take over these roles & responsibilities. It is not the fault of the workers, they are under resourced. There will be trials carried out in a few parishes in the meantime.

18/24

Finance

a)

Statement of accounts for Jan 2018

(Link to P10 Jan Summary)

The final accounts for Jan 2018 were presented as follows:

83% of the way through the financial year. The Parish Council Account showed 101% income, 62% general expenditure, 82% environment expenditure and 67% expenditure overall, when the categories of general expenditure & environment are totalled together.

b)

Payments

c)

Approval by the Trustees of the Village Green of the £800 quote for a survey & management plan of the Heath was noted by the Parish Council.

RESOLVED – To approve the £800 quote for a survey & management plan of the Heath.

d)

To approve the Parish Council’s grant awards to WBFC (German twinning event) & Family Worker (attached to St Mary’s Church) as recommended by the Finance Committee

ACTION – Clerk to arrange payment next month, source the presentation cheques for Annual Parish Meeting and request each party to speak at it about their use of the grant.

e)

To approve the Hall servery refurbishment composite quote for approx. £2,500 as recommended by the Finance Committee

18/25

Council Documents

a)

To approve West Bergholt Parish Council’s Health & Safety Policy

b)

To approve West Bergholt Parish Council’s Lone Worker Policy

c)

To approve West Bergholt Parish Council’s Grant Award Policy

RESOLVED – To approve all three new policies. All in favour. To be reviewed in May 2018.

ACTION – Clerk to make minor amendments and circulate her CiLCA & Local Council Award timetables to Councillors.

18/26

Planning

a)

The minutes from the Planning Committee meeting held on the 21st February 2018 were received and the decisions made on following applications were noted

(Link to Planning P11 Feb 2018):

• 180055 – Orchard Cottage, Chapel Lane CO6 3EF – Support – The Parish Council has no comment.
• 180199 – St Clair, Bourne Road CO6 3EW – Support – The Parish Council has no comment. Cllr Tyrrell re-declared an interest in Planning Application 180199 and took no further part in the discussion
• 180016 – 18 Albany Road CO6 3LE – Observation – The Parish Council supports the principle of an extension, however has concerns over the design and the inaccuracies between the plans and the elevations with regards to the first-floor window? Especially as the drawings provided are of poor quality thus open to misinterpretation when built.
• 180274 – 3 Sackville Way CO6 3DZ – Support – The Parish Council has no comment.
• 180164 – Patterns Yard, Nayland Road CO6 3DQ – Support – The Parish Council has no comment.
• 180380/180381 – Pond Farm, Bures Road CO6 3DN – Observation – 180380 – The Parish Council agree in principle to the conversion of the barn into habitable space, however subject to the condition that the annex is solely for use of only close family of the owners and never sold as a separate dwelling. 180381 – Concerning the alterations to a building of listed status, the Parish Council would defer to the Borough Council’s greater knowledge in this regard.

b)

The recommendation from the Planning Committee meeting held on the 21st February 2018 for late planning application was discussed for approval by the Council:

• 180419 – Squirrels, 29B Mumford Close CO6 3HY – Object – The Parish Council has no problem with an extension to this property in principle but feels that the design makes the building too dominant. The current plans contravene DG7 of the CBC approved Village Design Statement, which states that dwellings must be in harmony with the surroundings in respect of proportion and scale. The Council would like to see the proposals re-designed.
• 180428 – Homecroft, The Avenue CO6 3HD – Support – The Parish Council has no comment, except that the drawings provided are of a very poor quality.

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

18/27

Environment and Highways

18/28

Premises and Recreation

The chair of Premises, Cllr Butcher, just wanted to note to the Council:

• Item 3.2 Hall Borders – will be applying to Tescos for a grant for this project.
• Item 5 Hall User Group – first meeting when well.

18/29

Communications

The Communications Working Party’s recent meeting was a catch-up where several items were discussed, those of note:

• Will review the current policy for the Local Council Award and check the Action Plan in the coming months.
• Bulletin – the first all colour edition will be out on the 1st June. Cllr Spencer will be joining the editorial board as a lay member.
• Noted that the Council had gone out of its way to speak to more village groups this year, e.g. Hall Users Group
• NALC have produced a 60-page toolkit for the changes to Data Protection and how to implement it.

ACTION – Clerk to use Action Plan of toolkit as a checklist for WBPC.

18/30

Community Special Constables

Cllr Butcher and the Clerk had a meeting with Les Hawkins of the Police 3-4 weeks ago. There is currently new management in the Police dealing with Special Constables and they are reviewing how to manage them. The scheme is still up and running, although it has stalled whilst some of the practical issues, such as where the Constables keep their CS Spray when not in use.

West Bergholt’s adverts are still up, however there have been no applications so far.

18/31

Annual Parish Meeting 2018

To discuss any ideas for the Annual Parish Meeting on Wed 25th April 2018

A discussion of the full council resulted in the suggestion of a history-themed Annual Parish Meeting. The History Society and the Old Church will be invited to be guest speakers as well as the Bulletin editor and an update from the Police.

There will also be an update from the Neighbourhood Plan Group and the presentation of the grant awards.

18/32

Training

• Finance Essentials for Trustees – 3rd Feb – Clerk
• Councillor Training Days 1 & 2 – 10th & 17th Feb – Cllr Short

18/33

Items to Note

• RCCE Essex Warbler – Vol 6 Jan 2018
• Clerks & Councils Direct – Mar 2018 Issue 116
• Good News – St Mary’s Parish Magazine – Feb-Mar 2018

• Groundwork/Neighbourhood Plan Grant – £4623 remittance received today
• EALC Local Services Fund – £15,000 cheque received for 3-year grant.

Project will begin on 1st April, currently in the recruitment phase of the Village Warden role.

ACTION – Clerk to arrange a contract for the temporary Handyman.

• Mobile Library Consultation – Public Event Tues 13th March Wilson Marriage Centre 7-9pm.

Cllr Short will be attending.

• Essex Highways Stakeholder Survey – complete by 6th April –

ACTION – Cllr Gili-Ross will complete and inform the Clerk.

• CBC Emergency Plans – new resilience officer wants to update all plans.

ACTION – Cllr Stone will work with the Clerk to update this.

• Methodist Church – wish to have a meeting with Parish Council.

ACTION – Clerk to arrange meeting in March with CS, HS & MH and Church.

• Facebook Enquiry – Practice Goal – Environment Committee.

ACTION – Clerk to send a reminder of the different quotes to Cllr Gili-Ross.

18/34

In Committee

18/35

Date of Next Meeting