Singleton Parish Council
A Meeting of the Parish Council will be held at the Village Hall, Singleton on Thursday 19 June 2014 at 7.30 pm.
Your presence is requested.
A G E N D A
1. Apologies for Absence
2. Declaration of Interests
3. Minutes of Previous Meeting held on 15 May 2014 and any Matters Arising
4. Open Forum – Members of the Parish are welcome to raise any issues
5. Police and PACT Report
• Policing in Singleton Parish
6. Traffic Issues
7. Correspondence
8. Planning matters and decisions
9. Parish Council’s position on contentious planning applications
10. Neighbourhood Plan
11. Auditor’s Report
12. Accounts and any Cheques to Pay
13. Consideration of grant to Village Hall Committee for provision of a defibrillator for the village.
14. Any Other Business
• Thank you for provision of bench for Puzzlewood by Glasden
• Agenda items for next meeting with Trust
15. Date and Time of Next Meeting
• 31 July 2014
Verena Henderson, Clerk to Singleton Parish Council Tel: 01995 670455
Singleton Parish Council
Minutes of the Parish Council Meeting held at the Village Hall, Singleton
on 19 June 2014 at 6.30 pm
Present: – Cllrs Lee (Chair), Bailey (Vice Chair), Chew and Smith and the Parish Clerk, Verena Henderson, who took the Minutes. Towards the end of the meeting 3 residents also attended.
Note – Due to the absence of one councillor on holiday and the unavailability of another councillor later in the evening, it was decided to move the meeting forward to the earlier starting time of 6.30pm. Open Forum was therefore moved from item 4 to item 13 of the Agenda to allow members of the public to take part towards the end of the meeting.
1. Apologies – Cllr Gallagher
2. Declaration of Interests – None
3. Minutes of Previous Meeting and any Matters Arising
The Minutes of the previous meeting, held on 15 May, were agreed as a true and correct record and accordingly signed by the Chairman.
Matters arising
The grass-cutting contract had been awarded once again to PDQ Garden Contractors who had submitted the best quotation of the three received. These quotations had been circulated to councillors and a unanimous decision had been reached on 20 May 2014.
4. Police and PACT Report
A report from the Police had been previously circulated showing that between the periods 1st May to 18th June they had received 118 reports concerning Singleton, most of which were highway related. 6 crimes had been reported which included failing to pay for fuel at the Crossroads garage, a domestic incident at the same garage, an assault at Windy Harbour, which was never pursued, a break in at a farm and another at the council depot at Grange Road and finally the theft of 6 hens from a shed. Cllr Chew had earlier complained bitterly to the Police about their lack of contact since they went to Blackpool and Andy Hill came to see her and spent 2 hours going over 10 issues she had raised, including an incident of them not pursuing a complaint because the post code was not known. Cllr Chew was pleased to report that these issues had now been resolved and she feels we are now on a better footing with the Police and hopefully can go back to working together and supporting one another.
5. Traffic Issues
Cllr Chew brought along a publication concerning the M55 and plans to create a Junction 2 to meet the demands of British Aerospace and the creating of a new enterprise zone in the Bartle area. This was a huge plan which would be 20 years in the making. They are currently asking for views from local areas, including Singleton, and they have forms to complete on their web site.
Cllr Bailey reported the dangerous driving of a Range Rover along Lodge lane at 4.40pm the previous day, when the vehicle came round a blind bend on the wrong side of the road whilst overtaking a cyclist. The grass verges were very overgrown in that area again and this was exacerbated by the overgrown hedges causing pedestrians to walk in the road. The clerk was asked to write to the highways authority requesting the removal of the nettles. The area that was particularly bad was between the south entrance to Singleton Lodge up to the village boundary.
Correspondence
• Email received from Chief Executive at Fylde BC asking if Singleton would host the next District Parish Liaison Meeting on 30 September from 7pm. The Parish Council was happy to do this and the clerk would check the availability of the Village Hall with Yvonne Coop.
• Consultation notice received from Lancashire County Council on the subsidised bus services. They will be using criteria which states that 40% of the cost of a service must be met through passenger revenue. It is currently costing them £7 Million to subsidise bus services and they simply cannot sustain this.
• Information received from Cuadrilla on the planning application for the Preston New Road exploration site. Both Cllrs Bailey and Chew had attended a workshop a couple of weeks ago run by Cuadrilla and Arup, which they had found to be very informative. The Parish Council remains committed to gathering as much information as possible about the fracking process.
7. Planning Matters and Decisions
• 14/0319 Grange Farm, Grange Road, Singleton FY6 8LP – Prior notification for proposed erection of steel framed agricultural building – No specific observations.
Planning Decisions
• 14/0234 – Skippool Service Station – Advertisement consent for internally illuminated signage. Granted
• 13/0671 – Briarfield, Lodge Lane, Singleton – Two storey dwelling – Granted
• 13/0733 – The Swallows, Garstang Road, Singleton – Detached garage and 2M high timber fence – Refused
• 13/0774 – Millers Arms, Weeton Road, Singleton – Externally Illuminated signage – Granted
• 14/0004 – Game Farm, Station Road, Singleton – portal framed building – Granted
• Certificated of lawfulness granted for existing use of dwelling at 109 Mains Lane Singleton.
8.
Parish Council’s Position on contentious planning applications
Cllr Gallagher had requested this item be placed on the agenda following abuse received by both him and Cllr Chew concerning fracking. The Parish Councillors are not there to represent their own personal views. They have to represent the parish as a whole and have to listen to all points of view. It is not the Parish Council’s role to be an Action Group. The Clerk read out the item she placed on the website in March 2014 stating that in the event of a planning application being received by the planning authority – which in this case would be Lancashire County Council – the Parish Council would only be invited to comment on a visual or noise impact or on any highways difficulties. Any other views that might be expressed would be ignored and discounted. The Clerk was asked to add to this statement that any sort of verbal abuse by members of the public would not be tolerated.
9.
Neighbourhood Plan
Cllr Chew and the Clerk had got together and looked into the forming of a Neighbourhood Plan which would re-establish the parish boundaries of both Little Singleton and the Village and the Clerk had completed a lengthy form for grant funding for the completion of this. This would be a time-consuming and complicated procedure but would be a substantial tool for us to use when planning applications come in both in the village and elsewhere. Fiona Riley, a Planning Officer from Fylde Borough Council had offered to come to the Parish Council meeting in July to speak to the Parish Council about what needs doing. The deadline for grant funding to be spent was December 2014 and the Clerk would advise the Government body that this money would be extremely useful in the initial setting up of this Plan and the necessary meetings and printing costs and would be spent by December 2014.
The Parish Council looks forward to meeting Fiona Riley in July when the next course of action would be decided.
10.
Auditor’s Report
Mr Ray Cottam had kindly once again audited the accounts and found that all receipts, remittance advices, payments and bank statements were correct. He noted that the grass-cutting contractor is paid every month of the year and had not found that this had been approved in the minutes. The contract for 2013/14 had been repeated from 2012/13 and the decision to make twelve equal payments to the contractor had been taken in that year and was recorded in Minutes dated 24 May 2012, item 11.
An expression of thanks was made to be passed on to Mr Cottam and Cllr Chew proposed that a cheque to the value of £50 be gifted to the Great Eccleston Cricket Club as a mark of gratitude to Mr Cottam. This was seconded by Cllr Lee and agreed.
All the appropriate forms had been completed and sent off to the Audit Commission and the end-of-year balance sheets had been displayed on both notice boards and would be put on to the web site.
11. Accounts and Cheques to Pay
• T A Pawson – mounting of SPID in 2 locations – £60. Proposed Cllr Smith, Seconded Cllr Lee. AGREED.
• T.A. Pawson – Grasscutting to Pool Foot Lane (this would now be included in the whole contract and in future would be added to the monthly BACs payment) – £72.00 – Proposed Cllr Smith, Seconded Cllr Lee. AGREED.
• John Chew – planting of summer tubs – £345 + £50 as agreed (ref Minutes dated 15 May 2014, item 11). Proposed Cllr Smith, Seconded Cllr Lee. AGREED.
• The Clerk – reimbursement for Insurance Policy paid 30 May 2014 – £648.22. Proposed Cllr Chew, Seconded Cllr Lee. AGREED.
• Clerk, Salary and expenses for May/June 2014 – £275.50. Proposed Cllr Chew, Seconded Cllr Lee. AGREED.
• Great Eccleston Cricket Club (see item 11 above) – £50.00. Proposed Cllr Chew, Seconded Cllr Lee. AGREED.
• Singleton Gala Committee would be sending a letter to the Clerk in respect of expenses incurred at the Gala. It had been previously agreed (minutes dated 27 February 2014, item 10) to award a sum of money to the Gala Committee and this was agreed at £200. A cheque for that amount was duly signed by Cllrs Smith and Chew and would be forwarded to the Committee on receipt of their letter.
12.
Consideration of a grant to the Village Hall Committee for the provision of a defibrillator for the village
This matter had previously been discussed at the Parish meeting in May with County Councillor Paul Hayhurst. The cost of the defibrillator, to be kept in a case at the Village Hall, would be £1,500 which included the case. So far the following grants had been pledged –
• Singleton Trust – £400
• History Society – £200
• Cty Cllr Paul Hayhurst – £300
It was suggested that the Parish Council would give a grant of between £300 – £400 and Cllr Smith would approach the North West Ambulance Service to see if they could help. Ideally, the Parish Council would like to see a defibrillator at each end of the village and the possibility of siting one at the Shell Garage was considered. This would be looked into. Cllr Bailey would see if Wendy Swift could assist with the purchase of a defibrillator.
It was proposed by Cllr Lee that, in principle, a grant of £400 be given towards the purchase of a defibrillator. This was seconded by Cllr Smith and AGREED.
13. Open Forum
Three representatives attended from the Singleton Against a Fracked Environment and they asked what had been the Parish Council’s response to the latest planning application from Cuadrilla at their Grange Road site, which had been on the LCC’s website. The Parish Council had not been formally consulted on this planning application, which was an extension of planning consent formally awarded.
Lancashire County Council is the planning authority who will make the decision on any planning application to do with the extraction of shale gas. Both Fylde Borough Council and Singleton Parish Council will be consulted should a fresh planning application be made but the Parish Council will only be asked to comment on a visual or noise impact or on any highways issues.
The Parish Councillors all have their personal views but were not coming down on one side or another. They have to adhere to a Code of Conduct and cannot become involved in pressure groups of any kind. The Councillors continue to attend events to gain as much information about fracking as they possibly can. As well as events arranged by Cuadrilla, Fylde Borough Council has organised information events which have included representatives from agencies such as the Environment Agency. Councillors have also attended meetings organised by anti-fracking groups. Unfortunately recently, however, two councillors in particular have suffered from unpleasant incidents of verbal abuse and this cannot be condoned. The Parish Council is there to represent everybody in the parish, which includes people who do actually want fracking to take place.
The three representatives were advised to lobby their County Councillor and MP whose voices would carry far more weight than those from the Parish Council in this particular case.
14. Any Other Business
• A letter of thanks would be sent to Glasdon UK Limited for their kind donation of a bench for Puzzle Wood. This has been sited in a lovely spot overlooking open countryside.
• Complaints have been received about a noisy late-night function at the Village Hall with lots of swearing and fighting. This event had taken place about 5 or 6 weeks ago.
• Could the August meeting be moved to 14th August? Cllr Chew is unable to attend on the 21st August and the Clerk would have difficulty also.
• The next meeting with the Singleton Trust will be on August 6th.
15. Date and Time of next meeting
The next Parish meeting will take place on 31st July at the Village Hall at 7.30 pm.
As there was no further business the meeting closed at 8.45pm.
Signed …………………………………………… Dated ………………………………………
Verena Henderson
Clerk to the Parish Council
Tel: 01995 670455