Singleton Parish
Neighbourhood Planning Steering Group
Minutes of a Meeting held at the Village Hall, Singleton
on 20 January 2015 at 7.30 pm
Present: – Cllrs Bailey and Chew, Mark Clifford, David Kay, Jim Pawson, Chris Simpson, Kath Smith and the Parish Clerk, Verena Henderson, who took the Minutes.
1. Apologies – Cllr Lee.
The Clerk read out a letter from Douglas Goth who, sadly, due to personal reasons and other commitments, felt he must withdraw from a position on the Steering Group.
2. Declarations of Interests
Cllr Chew declared an interest in that she was a member of the Parish Council and the Village Hall Committee and had a small amount of land attached to her property. Cllr Bailey declared that he was a member of the Parish Council and Kath Smith declared that she was a Trustee of Singleton Trust which had land in the village.
3. Election of Chair and Vice-Chair
Cllr Chew put herself forward for the position of Chair as the Neighbourhood Planning process would involve a great amount of work with the Borough Council. As she knew the relevant officers concerned and the processes, she felt she was best placed to steer the group forward in this regard. Cllr Bailey proposed that Cllr Chew be elected Chair, this was seconded by Jim Pawson and Agreed.
Jim Pawson proposed that David Kay be elected to the position of Vice-Chair, and this was seconded by Cllr Chew and Agreed. David Kay duly accepted the position.
4. Minutes of Previous Meeting and any Matters Arising
The Minutes of the two previous meetings that were held on the 20 November 2014 and 9 December 2014, having been previously circulated, were agreed as a true and correct record and signed by the Chair.
Matters arising
The question of keeping sound accounts had been previously raised and the meeting was assured that the Clerk was keeping up-to-date accounts. The amount of £940 had been awarded by the Government to set up the Neighbourhood Planning process and this amount had to be spent by 31 December 2014. The Clerk would be submitting a report and accounts to the Government department by the end of January 2015 to show where the money had been spent. Future expenses would be underwritten by the Parish Council.
5.
Terms of Reference
Cllr Chew proposed that the Terms of Reference be accepted. This was seconded by Chris Simpson and Agreed.
6.
Moving Forward and Timetable
The Clerk distributed documents received from Fiona Riley suggesting a potential Neighbourhood Plan structure. She also distributed copies of an information sheet from the “Clerks and Councils Direct” publication.
The various themes the Group should be concentrating on were discussed, and these were as follows: –
• Transport – a) public; b) highways
• Policing
• Housing
• Heritage
• Economy – small businesses
• Welfare – medical cover (at the moment there are no doctors in Singleton – patients need to travel to Poulton, Great Eccleston and Kirkham)
• Leisure and Recreation – green space – public realm
The LCC Highways Masterplan is out for consultation and will be on display at Poulton Library on 29 January from 2 – 7.00pm. Members were urged to go along to have a look at this and to comment. It was feared that the new road recently mentioned on the news would be cutting right through Singleton and making the parish an island.
In regards to the key points on the Neighbourhood Plan structure, it was agreed that Cllr Chew would work on items 1 and 2, i.e. the Foreword and the Introduction and background and Kath Smith with Cllr Bailey would work on item 3, the Vision and Strategy for Singleton Parish. This work would be brought to the next meeting for other members to comment, add, amend or agree.
We would need to have a Neighbourhood Plan launch event at the Village Hall – hopefully in the Spring – and a lot of work was needed in preparing the necessary information for this. It was also proposed that a further event be held in the Autumn to give residents an update. It may be necessary to hire a consultant when we are ready to formulate our Plan so that the document would be written in the correct planning terminology.
7. Any Other Business
The Group was pleased to hear that another resident – Peter Ellacott – had agreed to join the Steering Group but unfortunately had another commitment this evening. Mark Clifford said that he knew of someone else who was interested in joining the Group and he was asked to invite them to join. Ideally 2 or 3 more members were needed to share the workload.
8. Date and Time of next meeting – The next meeting will take place on Wednesday 25 February 2015 at 7.30pm at the Village Hall.
Signed …………………………………………… Dated ………………………………………………..