Full Parish Council Minutes: Monday 11th January 2021

Minutes of Parish Council meeting held on Monday 11th January 2021
at 8:00 pm via ZOOM

Present: Mr Brown, Mr Dinsdale, Mrs Edwards, Mrs Glasse, Mrs Mallows, Mr Oliver, Ms O’Callaghan, Mr Watterson and, in the Chair, Mr Prince.

1. Apologies for Absence were received from Mr Dalton via email.

2. There were no declarations of interest.

3. The minutes of the full Parish Council on 30th November were approved unanimously. Planning minutes of 14th December 2020 needed an addition to the sentence from “in keeping” to “not in keeping on the Church Lane application. These were voted unanimously following this change. The minutes of 4th January 2021 were approved unanimously, with the exception of the Chair as they had been issued late and he had not had time to read.

4. There were no items for Public Participation.

5. Matters Arising & Clerks Report
a. Light Pollution:
Certain residents have intense exterior lighting which causes disturbance for wildlife and in addition it is annoying after dark reports Cllr O’Callaghan. How do we request that residents with exterior lighting can turn down the brightness, this is not in relation to PIR lighting but more constant exterior lighting? Mrs Glasse suggested an article in Tailcorn about the merits of low level lighting in relation to bat surveys and be sympathetic to wildlife. In past we have asked for conditions on environmentally friendly lighting which we could do moving forward with planning applications. Ms O’Callaghan will write an article for Tailcorn.

b. PC Email Account and Website
The Clerk was tasked with finding new emails for GOV.UK and possible a new website. The Clerk identified Vision ICT who can offer email hosting to migrate the Eversden.clerk@yahoo.co.uk and also set up a website that complies with the Transparency Code for Smaller Authorities. Training is provided along with a helpline. The cost of the package would be £1178. The company have UK backup servers and SSL protected.
The Clerk will contact a colleague of Mr Dinsdale’s who is an independent IT consultant and can advise on whether the above package is good value for money. The Clerk will report back when she has spoken to the Consultant and speak to local Councils for their reviews of Vision ICT.
c. Asset of Community Value
The Clerk has emailed SCDC and now has a new nomination form to resubmit for the Hoops.
d. EWR Update: Cllr Watterson
Awaiting arrival of EWR’s next non statutory consultation on the precise route alignment within Route Option E, probably next month. There was a village meeting in November which resulted in the Eversdens Working Group consisting of about 20-30 residents which has been incredibly busy over the last 6 weeks. The Group has agreed a strategy going forward which is for a positive multi community campaign across several villages in the locality which demands calls for a full and even-handed evaluation and consultation on the Northern approach. To that end we have been raising awareness within Eversden through leaflets to every households encouraging letter writing and the CBR petition.

Provided info about campaign on website, developed a coordinated group of signage, thanks to Micah Edwards and the Chair for their efforts with the signs. These are being made available to other villages and for the efforts of Stephanie Jack in coordinating the campaign across the villages. As a community, the Eversdens have been instrumental in raising awareness to other villages and encouraging them to form their own working groups and work with us to be a united voice. There is a social media campaign which uses Cambridge Approaches Group (CAG) twitter account raising awareness and challenging EWR. We are working closely with CAG through our legal team and CAG have now instructed lawyers with our assistance.

Following on is now fundraising to support the legal challenge again in conjunction with CAG and other villages using a crowd funding page. We have meet with Cllr Nieto to engage her assistance and had a meeting with Anthony Brown MP and hopefully in the near future would like to arrange meetings with EWR and the Mayor as well as a public meeting with MP with other communities. Due to the campaign, there is huge growth in CambBedRailRoad petition and it now stands at around 5.5k signatures.
We now need to think about how, as a Parish Council, we support the work of the group within the village and challenging EWR via a legal challenge. CAG approaches hope the main share met through PC contributions, Haslingfield has pledged £1k then a further £14k thereafter with a proportionate commitment from other communities, David Revell from Cambridge Approaches is trying to raise £50K from Parish Councils to fund.

A member of the public asked regarding the bus route and said there were various routes can they not work together and be less environmentally damaging. The Metro would use the busway routes and be a section of the busway. The railway line links Cambridge-Oxford, however the Metro would not go through Cambridge North. Cllr Nieto indicated she had been pressing for leaders to work together for a coordinated approach and the best use of the resources.

e. Parking at High Street, Little, Junction
Mrs Mallows said this has been discussed several times and made no decision. Cars parking at the top of High Street, Little is making it very difficult to get to the top of the road on the correct side of the road and it is very dangerous. It is also unsafe for pedestrians to cross between the cars at the Junction. Lockdown seems to have exacerbated this problem and it is published on social media that Eversden is a good place to walk and lots of free parking.
The Clerk will contact the PCSO to see if he is on duty over the weekend to monitor. Thereafter we can look at signage to say No Parking Beyond This Point or signpost to the Recreation Ground to park. Mr Dinsdale will speak to Highways about getting the Hatching Road Markings repainted.
6. Village Hall and Recreation Ground Minutes
Unfortunately, due to a technical error the Recreation Ground minutes were unavailable.
With regard to the Village Hall rates this was an unexpected request from SCDC for business rates which Mrs Mullins needs to investigate. The Village Hall is looking to become a CIO and changing their status. This is from a liability status so by changing to a CIO no one is personally responsible and they will become a Charitable Incorporated Organisation. Mrs Glasse said she was very interested in this from a Recreation Ground Committee point of view. Mr Watterson asked about how the Village Hall planned to meet the cost of the transition. Mrs Mullins had not yet costed this although there was contingency to pay for this if necessary. Mrs Mullins will let Mrs Glasse know if the constitution has to change.

7. Budget and Precept for 2020/2021
The Council voted to include the following items in next year’s budget:
• Harlton Road Bus Shelter with approx. cost of £3k; Clerk to check if we can spend S106 money on?
• Funding for EWR Judicial Review Challenge would be capped at S137 which equates to £5549.44 for this year and next.
• Signage for EWR will come out of this year’s S137 budget which is currently approx. £1k
• Allotments Committee would like to build a community shed and collect water for the allotments; £2.5k was set aside for this.
• The Clerk requested to revamp the budget for next year as it was inherited;
• Add S137; EWR and Surplus column;
• Village Sign Seating: £500 for refurbishment of seat;
• £25 per visit was agreed for Mr Mallows to manage the Village Sign hedging and grass cutting;
• Clerk to obtain quote for Meridian Line plaque;

The Council agreed the Precept for 2020/21 for £29,000.

8. Reference: 20/05116/REM
Proposal: Approval of matters reserved for appearance, access, landscaping, layout and Scale following outline planning permission S/2399/19/OL (Demolition of a single dwelling & outbuildings and construction of two dwellings (S/3499/18/OL Previous App)
Site address: 26 Wimpole Road Great Eversden Cambridgeshire

This is Plot 2 from the demolition of 26 Wimpole Road. Mrs Mullins is the owner of Plot 1. Mr Dinsdale asked if No 22 were consulted and the applicant said No 22 are happy the house is more in line so the garden has more privacy. The ground footprint is similar to that approved in the previous application. The applicant said they were aiming for adaptive living and sustainability. The applicant indicated that one of the conditions was that there should be low level lighting. The application was unanimously SUPPORTED with the condition of low impact lighting.

9. Finance
VH Grant £2000.00 LGA 1972 s.124
VH Insurance £1092.59 LGA 1972 s.133
Fossey Charitable Trust £1704.80 LGA 1972 ss.127
K Easey: Clerks Salary £438.48 LGA 1972 s.112.2
Tailcorn £250.00 LGA 1972 s.142

Three further invoices were authorised for Mr Prince; Mr Edwards and 10 Creative Ltd for approx. £1k for EWR signage and leaflet from the current S137 budget for these invoices. It was agreed unanimously to fund further EWR print runs to a cost of £150.

All items were approved for payments. All items were approved for payments via BACS. Fossey Charitable Trust was paid using Cheque No 22254. Cheque numbers 22255 to 22262 are signed by the Chair and still available to use.

10. Correspondence received
a) Village Sign Area – Mr M Nicholson
Mr Nicholson had written regarding the Village Sign tree work together with various suggestions. Mr Mallows had drafted a response which the Clerk read to the Council. The response was approved to send to Mr Nicholson.

11. Aiden Van De Weyer – District Councillor Report
External review of planning advisory service which was largely positive. Perennial issue of how planning applications get referred to planning committee by Parish Councils. Director of planning rather than Chair of planning makes final decision about a referral; this is working well but it is not set up as transparently as it could be so will be looking at that again over the next few months. The Chair stated that the Planning Portal was regularly closed on a Sunday which proved difficult as our meetings are on a Monday. Cllr Van de Weyer said he would feed this back.

25,000 houses proposed between Shepreth, Meldreth and down to Whaddon. There is an action group, South West Cambridge action group. A development of this scale would change the whole function of the wider area. Cllr Van de Weyer confirmed this would be added to the Local Plan if submitted.

Controversial busway between Cambourne and Cambridge, there is no a lot of consensus about it. It has been agreed to have a review of the assumptions and constraints that guided the process from the start and this is helpful to understand the proposal and helping those that are unhappy with it to challenge it.

Cllr Lina Nieto – County Council
Had meeting with Domestic Abuse network organisations and a discussion on suicide and would like to bring to our attention www.stopsuicide.org and to be mindful of this and talk about this openly and look for signs that individuals need help. Domestic abuse is also on the rise given the current lockdown situation and there is also a lot of help available.

Community help working very hard and offering food as well as sanitary products or vouchers for bills.

Cllr Nieto asked if we had had any flooding issues in the Village. The Chair informed Cllr Nieto that the fields where EWR wish to build has been flooded as these are flood plains. We had had flooding in Wheelers Way but this was due to drainage to the drainage ditch. The Chair said that legislation should be changed so that ditches cannot be filled in as they are there for a purpose.

Several burglaries across the Division and Cllr Nieto asked if a PCSO meeting would be helpful on how to protect their properties. The Chair asked Cllr Nieto to send an email for us to promote this to the residents.

12. Next meetings: Planning, if required, Monday 25th January & 8th February 2021 and Full Parish Council on Monday 22nd February 2021.

The meeting was closed at 22:10 pm.