August 2020 Minutes
Aslackby Parish Council Meetings
Minutes from meeting held on 24th August 2020
Present:
Parish Councillors
Cllr Brian Wilkinson (BW)
Cllr Rachel Stevenson (RS)
Cllr Peter Morris (PM1)
Cllr R Miller (RM)
Cllr J Pickard (JP)
James Leach – Clerk (JL)
District Councillors
County Councillors
Press
James Leach
1 Apologies – Cllr Katie Long (KL), Malcolm Dodds (MD)
Absent – District Cllr Peter Moseley (PM2), County Cllr Martin Hill (MH)
2 The Chairman welcomed all present and members of the public.
3 No members of the public were present.
4 Declarations of Interest – None.
5 Minutes of the Last Meeting – Proposed by RS and seconded by JP.
6 Matters Arising
JP asked JL what we would receive for grass cutting this year as the figure was missing from the last minutes. JL said he would find out and report back at the next meeting.
Action: JL
JP asked whether we had made a decision on maintaining Footpath No 4. JL said he was still awaiting clarification from LCC Highways. BW did say he had maintained it a couple of times as did the adjacent property on the Dovecote.
RM asked if we had a local contact for Gareth Davies MP. JL said he did not he only had the House of commons contact.
7 Planning
No new planning applications had been received recently and all those received since February had been emailed to Councillors and responses sent to SKDC.
Outline planning had been approved on the Dovecote but no full plans had been submitted. RM said that one of the residents had asked if the road would be completed. JL said that the assumption was that once the development had been completed it was usual for the road to be finished an then adopted by LCC Highways.
8 Cemetery
Nothing to report. JL said we had received no income this year from the Cemetery which would have an impact on the accounts.
9 Neighbourhood Watch
Since the last meeting in February there had been a number of thefts, a wheelbarrow had been taken from a garden on Aveland Way and also a set of Solar Lights from another from garden.
A car had also been abandoned in a field on Kirkby Underwood Road. This was abandoned by some hare coursers; the owner could not be traced as it was a pool car and the landowner had been told he was not allowed to remove the vehicle by the Police.
A couple of Quad bikes had been riding across farm land and had been reported, the landowner has since put up additional fencing to prevent any further incidents.
10 Highways
JL & BW gave an update on the work carried out so far since the village walkabout with Highways in March.
• Clearing gulleys on the A15 and throughout the village – this had now been done but BW questioned whether the gulleys on the A15bhad been done properly.
• Clearing the inspection chambers on the A15 between the Village Hall and the Pub. – see above
• Unblocking drains in the village – most of these had been cleared but not all had been done as the contractors had run out of time
• Outstanding pot holes and the general state of the roads, especially on the road up to Temple Wood.& Laughton Road. JL had sent a copy of a response from MH disputing what had been said at the walkaround. BW said he would get clarification on this when he next sees MH.
• Pot holes in the Ford and on the Ford bridge. – these are not a priority
• Clearing out the gulleys at the new head walls just as you leave the village towards Low Park – this is the landowner’s responsibility
• The drains between Seraphina and the Ford require jetting as blocked and over flowing. - Inspection chamber? – in progress
• Response from Highways re possibility of putting up speed signs “Children playing” – still outstanding
• Update on road resurfacing on the road to Temple Wood. MH said he had spoken to Highways and they had agreed that they would resurface an area properly instead of just patching as this would be cheaper in the long run. He will chaise these up to see when it would be done. – MH is disputing this, see previous comments from BW.
• Filling the pot holes on Laughton Road – work orders had been raised for at least 8 of the largest pot holes but both JL and BW had informed MH there were at least 15 that required attention and in one area approx. 200mtrs of road needed completely re-doing.
• Hedge at Jean Parry’s on Kirkby Underwood Road – this had now been completed.
• Water on grass bank opposite Moorfiled Farm – in progress
• Village Hall Sign – in progress
Action: JL
BW said that Anglian Water had been working on the pump station for a few days as there had been a burst pipe. This had now been fixed. BW went in to some detail about the history of the pump and gave info on where the sewage was pumped to. He also gave details of the bottle neck at the bottom of the Dovecote which still had not been sorted.
JL said he had received a complaint from a resident about the contractors who had cleaned the drains as some of the liquid used had killed some Ivy on their boundary. No action was to be taken.
JL informed the PC that in the next few weeks hay lorries would start to come through the village to the airfield. They will still use the one-way system they used last year. JL had spoken to the operator who had informed him that each trailer now had a number on the back so if anyone had any complaints, they could ring the contractor and give him the number and he would instantly know who was driving and could deal with any issues. JL said he will ask the administrator if he could put this information on the Aslackby Facebook page. The operator had said that the number of loads would be significantly less this year due to the poor harvest.
Action: JL
JL said he had now received the paperwork to claim the refund for the grass cutting this year and he will get this completed and sent off before the next meeting.
Action: JL
11 Finance
JP went through the PC accounts. He explained that we were not required to have an external Audit as due to our size we were exempt. We have to sign an exemption certificate which is then sent to the External Auditors.
The Exemption Certificate was approved, PM1 proposed and RM seconded, BW and JL were then asked to sign it.
JP said he had asked the Financial Controller at SL Engineering to carry out the internal audit this week and JL will display this on the Website once it is done. These will be displayed on the old website which will still be available until December this year. See AOB for comments on new website.
Action: JL
JP went through the variances from last year’s accounts.
Everyone was given a copy of the accounts and they were agreed and signed off. PM1 proposed the accounts and RS seconded them. JL and BW signed the relevant Governance documents.
RM asked if we still had Insurance through LALC. BW explained that we did but this was not sufficient to cover Public Liability in respect of the grass cutting, which is why we had separate insurance for this.
PM1 thanked JP for his excellent work on the accounts and this was seconded by the rest of the Councillors.
PM1 asked where we were at with regards the AGM. JL explained, and had previously sent this out in an email, that due to COVID 19 the PC were not required to hold an AGM now until next year.
PM1 asked what fellow Councillors thought about the Precept for next year. After a short discussion it was agreed that we should increase it slightly as for a number of years we had had no increase and one year, due to an administrative error we had received a reduction. The Precept will be discussed at the fist meeting in 2021 when JL had received the necessary paperwork. JP said that as a PC we were quite thrifty and did not believe that a small increase would cause any issues.
JL said the Clerks wages were due, these were for a total of £1266.70, including expenses.
JL had received an invoice from Ladywell for £25.00. JL will send payment for this.
Action: JL
JL said a cheque for £250.00 would need to be sent to Ladywell iro the Clerks NI. JL will send this.
Action: JL
12 Correspondence
JL had received no new correspondence in the last few days and anything he received electronically was now emailed to each Councillor when he received it.
13 SKDC Update/Neighbourhood Plan
No one was available from SKDC to give an update,
14 Lincolnshire County Council Update
No one was available from SKDC to give an update
15 A.O.B
It was agreed that BW will organise the village skip for the 19th September.
Action: BW
JL will print the slips and give to BW
Action: JL
JL said he had attended a virtual training session on the new website which will be launched at the end of the year. There are a lot more Government Rules now about how content should be displayed, this included such things as “readability” i.e. you need to make all content easy to read. Also, you are not allowed to attach Minutes as a PDF, they have to be pasted into a tool on the new Website and then re-formatted. This means that adding comments will take much longer. JL asked if the PC wanted all the old Minutes from old website loading on to the new one. PM suggested that this should not be necessary and proposed that we start loading Minutes from this meeting. This was agreed by all other Councillors. PM said that as long as we had a copy of old Minutes that people could view if required that should be fine.
The next meeting will be on 12th October and the last one before Christmas will be on 30th November.
16 Date of next meeting Monday 12th October 2020 – 8.00 pm at the Village Hall. Meeting closed at 21.10 pm