KIRBY HILL & DISTRICT PARISH COUNCIL
(Incorporating:
Kirby Hill, Milby,Thornton Bridge, Humberton and Ellenthorpe)
A meeting of the above Parish Council was held on 15
September 2008 in the Coronation Hall, Milby, in accordance with the Local
Government Act 1972, due notice having been given. The meeting opened at 7.00 pm.
Present: Cllrs.
Smailes(Chairman), Helliwell, Merson, McKenzie, Parr, Renfrew, Widdows,
Wilkinson, DCllr Brown, NYCCllr Watson (from 8.05pm) and Martin Rae (Clerk)
The Chairman welcomed District Councillor Nick Brown,
recently elected to represent Newby Ward, to the meeting.
1 Apologies: Cllr
Lister
2 Code of Conduct: Cllr
Wilkinson expressed an interest in agenda items 7c and 7e
3 Minutes of the
Meeting held 14 July 2008 had
been distributed and were accepted as a
true record and duly signed
4 Finance
Balance stood at £2,653 (incl
£500 grant from NYCC J. Watson fund, not yet spent)
Rent of
room to pay
James Wilkinson (ironwork-war
memorial) £470 inc VAT paid
5 Correspondence
a)
NYCC Harrogate Rural Safety Bids Confirmation
of £1000 grant towards 3 Thornton Bridge signs. HBC bids for 2009/10 needed by 1 December 2008. Any suggestions
to be put to clerk by that date. On a
related matter Cllrs reported that the old 30mph signs still had not been
removed in Church Lane and near the Blue Bell. Cllr Widdows mentioned the
disappearance of the red road markings outside the pub. The Clerk would pursue these matters, along
with continuing road marking issues at Burton Cottages, with Ken Major at NYCC
Highways.
ACTION CLERK
b) HBC Parish
Council Training 8 Oct Cllr Renfrew
expressed interest. Clerk to book her into evening session. ACTION CLERK
c) HBC Rural
Affordable Housing coach tour 4 Sept
No Cllrs had joined this tour.
d) HBC
Consultation Meeting with Parishes Group 2 No items had been submitted for the agenda by 12 Sept deadline.
Cllr Merson agreed to attend the meeting at Aldborough Village Hall on 1
October. ACTION CLLR MERSON
e) HBC Budget
Priorities Questionnaire Cllrs agreed that the Chairman and Clerk would
complete this, along with any other councillors who might be able to join them
at an agreed date/time. ACTION CLERK/CHAIRMAN
f)
Mencap request for donation A majority
of councillors was not in favour of making a donation, arguing that the council
had some time ago agreed which charities it would support and might only make
exceptions for truly local charities.
Cllr Helliwell would mention to Dave Allon of BB Communicare that,
unusually, no request had been made to the Parish Council for more than a year.
g) Army
Foundation College Harrogate Offer of group of young soldiers
to be present at village’s Remembrance Day service or Act of Remembrance. Cllr
Helliwell had discussed this with Canon Norton and it was agreed that since
there was no actual service, just a short act of remembrance, and that a
contingent from the Dishforth base would be present, it was hard to justify
bringing soldiers from some distance in those circumstances. The Clerk had replied to the College
accordingly.
6
Clerk’s/Councillors’ Reports
a)
Police Liaison –
Cllr Wilkinson had been unable to attend the last meeting.
b)
Coronation Hall – Clerk reported on satisfactory completion
of extension, plans for kitchen refurbishment and inaugural concert on 27
September. Cllrs were not happy with
new meeting room as a venue for parish council meetings. It was regarded as too
noisy and too small for a large group and generally very unsatisfactory. Clerk
was asked to explore different arrangements for a meeting venue. ACTION
CLERK
c)
Joint Parish Council – next meeting 25 Sept, at which
the Milby Waste Transfer site, the proposed MSA and proposals for a hydro-power
plant at the weir would be on the agenda. Cllrs Smailes and Helliwell would
attend.
7 Ongoing
matters/updates
a.
106 monies War Memorial – Sean
Wright of HBC had confirmed that around £340 would be available from Kirby
Hill’s 106 monies account towards the cost. Clerk to recover this. ACTION
CLERK
b.
Milby Lane Waste Site proposals NYCCllr
Watson hoped that the Milby Lane location
might be dropped from the list of preferred sites even before the NYCC
Executive meeting on 24 September. He
would be in a position to let the clerk know sometime on 16th
Sept. Cllrs welcomed this news and also
hoped that the numerous protest signs might then be able to be removed.
c.
Kirby Hill MSA proposals– The clerk reported that the public exhibition
and consultation above BB Library would end the next day and urged those who
had not yet completed responses to do so before the 7 October deadline. The Parish Council had submitted a council
response. DCllr Brown reported that he had met DCllr Windass and both were
horrified that such proposals should be submitted yet again. He said that he
was not a member of the planning committee at HBC so was in a position to
support fully and vigorously the campaign by the RAMS and the Parish Council to
fight the proposals. He and NYCCllr
Watson would be joining a protest which was being planned at the B6265 motorway
bridge.
d.
Thornton Bridge Signs The three
village signs were now in place and it only remained to settle the account with
NYCC, allowing for the grants already received from NYCCllr Watson’s fund and
from HBC Village Road Safety Scheme.
e.
B6265 Lay-by Following
years of complaints to NYCC from the parish council and requests to prevent
overnight HGV parking Ken Major of NYCC Highways had now proposed complete
closure of the lay-by through a traffic regulation order consultation
process. The lay-by would still be
accessible to NYCC for their chippings dump and access to fields would need to
be secured. Cllr Wilkinson, who farms
the adjacent land, had earlier declared an interest in this item. Cllr
Helliwell proposed and Cllr Parr seconded that Ken Major’s proposal be
accepted. Remaining councillors unanimously agreed subject to satisfactory
solutions being found to the problems of field access and access to PIC
premises. ACTION CLERK
f.
Grass Cutting and treecare – the clerk
was still trying to obtain a quote from HBC for the village green grass
cutting. Aidan Foster had experienced
difficulty cutting under the lime trees and it was agreed the clerk should
obtain a quote for pollarding these again. Regarding the narrowing state of the
footpaths on the green it was proposed that this work could be offered to the
prisoners’ community workforce team, whose manager had contacted the council last
year.
ACTION CLERK
The chairman mentioned the poor
state of one of the benches on the green and also suggested paving underneath
it to make it easier for grass cutting.
Cllrs were not in favour of the paving.
Cllr Smailes agreed to find someone to repair the bench. ACTION CHAIRMAN
g.
Litter Picking Group The clerk reported
that this joint parish group (Langthorpe and Kirby Hill/Milby) had now formed
and had its first meeting. He had received two quotations for the equipment and
protective clothing (£250 and £90) and recommended accepting the lower. Cllrs
agreed to the proposal that each council should contribute half. The clerk had also checked the insurance
position with regard to volunteers working under PC auspices and was told that
cover would be provided under existing public liability clauses as long as
protective and ‘hi-vis’ clothing was provided by the parish council to
volunteers. ACTION CLERK
h.
School out-of-hours deliveries A letter had been received from ‘Cool Milk
at School Ltd’ explaining that steps had been taken to ensure that drivers from
DFOB (Dairy Farmers of Britain) reduced the noise and asked that the council
continues to monitor the situation until a longer term solution could be found.
i.
Weight Limit Signs Cllr Parr had raised this
issue at the last meeting and considered that large vehicles, often foreign,
were ignoring these signs at the entrance to the village green area. The clerk would contact NYCC Highways to find
out if more prominence could be given to the signs. ACTION CLERK
j.
Obstructive Parking behind Church View Complaints had been received about a resident
who regularly parks a 4x4 vehicle in the middle of this public road, completely
blocking it for other users. While this
was properly a police matter it was agreed that the clerk should write to the
occupiers of the property in question in an attempt to resolve the
problem. ACTION CLERK
k.
Planning Application procedure The clerk
raised the matter of applications that needed council attention/comments
between meetings, when they could not be discussed by the full council. His present method of dealing with this was
to take the application individually to 3 or 4 councillors, to achieve a
quorum, always including the councillor who represents the parish relevant to
the application. This did not give the
opportunity for councillors to discuss the application together. Cllrs said they were happy to continue
thus, with the proviso that a full meeting would be called for discussion of
applications for major developments – should these fall between scheduled
council meetings.
l.
A168/B6265 Roundabout The clerk
reported that NYCC had now passed responsibility for the maintenance of this
roundabout to Boroughbridge Town Council, who were seeking sponsors. The parish Council had previously been given
the opportunity by NYCC to take over the roundabout’s maintenance but had
declined.
m. Future
meetings Cllrs were in favour
of continuing with Monday evening meetings at 7.00pm. The dates chosen for 2009
appear at end of the minutes.
8. PLANNING
a. 6.57.6.1.FUL
08/03557/FUL
Mell – Four Alls, Tinkler Lane Milby YO51 9HQ
Erection of single storey rear extension and
conversion of roof space to create
additional living accommodation with insertion of 3
rooflights.
Comments were from 4 councillors
obtained before the 5 Sept deadline and the clerk submitted a response of ‘No
Objections’
b. 6.57.5.E.FUL 08/03835/FUL
Newby Hall Estate/JC Lister Farms Farm Shop Leeming Lane Milby
YO51 9DE
Erection of single storey rear and side
extension to provide café and single storey
front extension to form office.
The council had no objection but wished
to comment that access to the farm shop
site was currently difficult and would need to be improved, especially I
view of
extra parking facilities being created.
HBC DCllr Nick Brown
Before the meeting closed DCllr Brown informed councillors
that HBC was imposing a moratorium on spending, largely because of increased
energy costs and the high costs of the concessionary fares scheme. This meant a marked deterioration in HBC’s
financial position and that a freeze on existing budgets would last at least
until the end of 2008 but probably longer.
DCllr Brown also commented that having himself been a parish
council chairman he appreciated full well what a parish council does. He is on the Communities and Parties
Scrutiny Commission, holding the HBC Cabinet to account, and is happy to raise
issues for scrutiny, such as relationships between parish councils and the
District Council. He is also involved
in work on issues such as teenage drinking and the promotion of plain English
in local government. Cllr Renfrew said
that she would be happy to become involved in projects related to the teenage
drinking problem.
[Cllr Renfrew also asked that the issue of Helperby Road
speeding be reinstated to the agenda since not all of the promised road-markings
had been completed.]
Meeting closed at 8.55pm
NEXT MEETINGS Monday
10 November 2008 7.00pm
Monday 12 January 2009 7.00pm
Monday 9 March 2009 7.00pm
Monday 11 May 2009 + AGM + Parish
Meeting (times tba)
Monday 13 July 2009 7.00pm
Monday 14 September 2009 7.00pm
Monday 9 November 2009 7.00pm
All in Coronation Hall unless advised otherwise
SIGNED……………………………………………………………. DATE……………………