6 May 2008 - ANNUAL PARISH MEETING
Draft Minutes
of the Annual Parish Meeting of Shenington with Alkerton
Held in the Village Hall at 7.30pm on
Wednesday 9th May 2007
1 Preliminaries
a) Present: Mr. K Hainsworth Chairman
Mr T Dowdeswell Vice-Chairman
Mrs G Crabb
Mr S Mitchell
Ms J Walters
Mrs M Coles
Plus approximately 44 members of the public
b) In the continuing absence of a Clerk, Mrs Coles took minutes.
c) The Chairman asked for sympathy to the husband and kin of Mrs Diane Parker whose funeral had taken place the day before
d) Parish Council meetings for the remainder of the administrative year are:
11th July 2007, 12th Sept 2007, 14th November 2007,
9th January 2008, 12th March 2008, 14th May 2008
Each at 7.30pm in the village hall unless changed by force majeure.
e) Advice had been received that the 7.10am bus service from Banbury to Stratford was under threat. Interested parties to comment please to KA/SM.
f) In view of conflicting opinions on the notice required for an Annual Parish Meeting it was confirmed that this meeting was properly summonsed.
2 MINUTES
Minutes of the Annual Parish Meeting of May 2006 were read and signed.
3 Finance
T Dowdeswell summarised the Draft accounts for the year end to 31/03/07.
Savings had been achieved mostly because of no clerk salary.
Assets
Cash at Bank £7363.30
Bus Shelter and bins £1000
Trough £1500
Notice boards £1284
Mowers £ 786
Document scanner £180
In addition the Council owns the Stonepit and War memorial and is responsible for the Village Green. The Council has no known liabilities.
Mr John Evans was thanked for his work as Responsible Financial Officer.
4 The Chairman read a prepared statement which has since been typed and entered into Parish Council records supplementing these minutes. The statement included a paper agreed by five other members as a response to what the chairman described as a Poisonous Pen Letter widely circulated to villagers.
TD reported that he had heard rumours that PC members had been involved in the Poison Pen Letter. He wanted to place on record that he hadn’t. In this he was joined by five other members. GC admitted that she had co-operated with the author(s) by supplying information.
PUBLIC FORUM
Approx 10 members of the public raised points and queries for members to consider including:
a) Whether the mooted ballot on possible changes to The Green/Kerbing etc were necessary in view of written comments received. NB These are on the agenda for the July PC meeting.
b) A letter from the Conservation Office on the subject was read out.
c) It was acknowledged that both parts of the Green had equal standing albeit that the Main Green had a chance of being more “pristine”. There was lengthy and inconclusive debate about what “pristine” means in this context.
d) Traffic through the village and the number of powered flights were raised and are to be looked into. Also how to influence the number of kart meetings was discussed and previous public expectations repeated.
e) The PC was asked what was on its future agenda other than routine items. The answer is The Local Development Framework, a possible Parish Plan and Possible provision of “Affordable homes”
f) That the possibility of use of the school for meetings to be considered.
g) In reply to a question it was confirmed that the Lime trees opposite the new school were probably to be placed under a TPO
h) There was general inconclusive discussion about Standards and Conduct.
Date of next Annual Parish Meeting, 14th May 2008 at 7.30pm
The meeting closed at 9.20pm.