Cheryl Kavanagh gave an insight into the service that can be provided: - hot meals, tea time, week-end, frozen food, welfare check and referral form. The cost which currently varies from £2.00 for the teatime service to £2.60 per meal for the frozen service is reviewed on an annual basis. There are competitors but they do not provide hot food or the welfare check- in this regard the team is primed to look for problems and report as appropriate. The NSC Community Meals Service liaise with Hospital discharge liaison team, social workers and GP’s. Cllr. Gallop confirmed that the service is good and the welfare side works.

Cllr. Thorn will put details of the service on the Wrington website.

Cllr. Clements thanked Ms Kavanagh for her time in presenting the service to the Council.

Public Participation.

Mr. Halper read a prepared statement seeking the Council to make a statement of its opposition to the BIA link road as set out in the Greater Bristol Transport Study. The Council would consider this under the agenda item “Highways”.

The Minutes of the Meeting held on 26th January were approved with the following amendments:-

P.7- heading “Consultations” 3rd. paragraph insert 7th March after “URC Boulevard from 2.00 pm to 4.00 pm.”

P.7- heading “Consultations” 4th paragraph delete the entire sentence from “who organises….. to benefits” and insert “who organises community plastic waste collections; she had visited Towens and had explained to her the environmental and economic benefits of dealing with waste and recycling locally and the means whereby larger national waste organisations contract to local authorities”.

Clerk’s Report.

1) ROSPA- waiting to hear of the outcome of the re-inspection.

2) Standards Committee- papers received for a Complaints Hearing on 15th February 2007.

3) Community Safety and Drug Action Team- Community safety Event to be held on Saturday 24 February from 1.00pm to 4.00 pm at the Winter Gardens Ballroom, Weston-Super-Mare.

4) Publications- Voluntary Action (including details of courses being run), Local Council Update January/February Edition. Also DE Matters from NSC which had articles on the Regional Spatial Strategy Examination in Public, BIA Master Plan, Rubbish or Resource, 2007/08 Transport Settlement, Traffic |Management Act 2004, “Need help to understand the planning application process”, and “Improving our communities”- North Somerset Partnership Annual event.

Highways Matters –

1) - Streetscene- January edition received and available for circulation.

2) – School Travel Plan. The Clerk had received the minutes of the Working Group Committee meeting held 18th January, a further meeting was held on 15th February but no minutes to hand. Cllr. Glynn mentioned that the Plan was scheduled to be with NSC in April and it would be best if the Parish Council had this available prior to the March meeting to review. The Clerk to take forward.

3) Decriminalised Parking Enforcement- this is being pushed forward by NSC and will be the subject of a consultation in due course. It is effectively taking the responsibility of all parking, waiting and loading restrictions from the Police to the council. The Council will employ 15/16 personnel throughout the district to implement the scheme.

4) Downside Road- Cllr. Atkins reported that whilst swift action had been taken to identify the problem with the grating near Melody Cottage and bollards put round they are still there after 3 weeks. Clerk to chase NSC.

5) Speedwatch. The Clerk was instructed to send details of the proposed locations throughout the Parish to the Police liaison officer.

6) BIA link road. Cllr. Glynn proposed that the Council should make a resolution stating its opposition to the road along the lines: - “As a Council we are unanimously committed in opposition both to the proposed new road shown as a BIA or Airport link road in the recently published Greater Bristol Strategic Transport Study and to any alternative major new road construction within the Parish”. The resolution was seconded by Cllr. Phillips and passed. GOSW and Cllr. Crockford-Hawley at NSC to be advised of the resolution. Cllr. Glynn made the point that this was a North Somerset Council initiative and Cllr. Thorn said that the Council would need to plan a sophisticated strategy against it.

7) Other outstanding matters being considered by the Transport and Highways sub-committee have been put on the backburner due to other urgent issues.

Police – PC Tacchi, in his absence, had submitted a report on incidents from 21st January to 16th February. Of the 7 incidents 3 were directly related to loss of property during air travel to BIA.

PC Tacchi has also stopped 2 Slovakians driving from Gatcombe Farm and is awaiting production of driving documents. With regard to the unauthorised use of a vehicle on a bridleway he is tracing the owner of the vehicle registration number provided.

Comment from the Council was that the parking in the Village, and in particular around High Street, was worsening and asked that the Community Police Officer take note.

Lighting- No report

The Clerk mentioned that in relation to the Audit that the Audit Commission proposed to reinstate Mazars for this year pending going out to tender.

Memorial – request for alcohol

Nil

Bristol International Airport –

The Clerk made reference to the BIA Consultative Committee minutes of 24th January which included the resignation of the Chairman, Peter Hutchings, on health grounds.

A “Sustainable Aviation Progress Report 2006” has been received and is available for circulation.

Various papers received from the PCAA including minutes of a Meeting held 23rd January, a Transport Committee report and a letter referring to the NSC full Council meeting to discuss the BIA Master Plan.

The Clerk made mention of a request from BIA to advertise employment opportunities at the Airport. It was agreed that the leaflet should be displayed on the Parish Notice boards.

Cllr. Glynn mentioned that notwithstanding the outcome of the NSC meeting to discuss the BIA Master Plan it was likely that a planning application would be submitted in March/April followed by an application for the proposed hotel, the management are already talker to 5/6 bidders. Cllr. Irving stated that she is totally opposed to the Hotel as it has already been proven that BIA is under pressure for space.

ALCA – The Clerk reported on the contents of the February Newsletter and inserts

Annual Parish Meeting- this is to be held on April 27th commencing 19.30 hours at Redhill Village Hall.

Parish Plan.

Cllr. Irving enquired the current position and also what can be done to push it forward.

Newsletter.

The Clerk made the Council aware of an e-mail received from Cllr. Matthews indicating that it was felt politic in this local council election year not to have an article from the District Councillor on the basis that it could be a platform to canvass support. This view was supported by Cllr. Glynn. Cllr. Gallop made the point that the review was of the year gone by and that it would be seen as that. Cllr. Thorn also supported the view that the District Councillor’s report was an integral part of the newsletter, as Cllr Yamanaka always produces a report for the Annual Parish Meeting, and the newsletter was produced with a view to cutting down on presentations at that meeting. The Council moved that the District Councillor’s report would remain in the newsletter. The Clerk will now produce a report on planning, Cllr.Thorn on highways and Cllr. Atkins on BIA.

Patient Practice Partnership.

Cllr. Thorn indicated that the inaugural meeting of “The Rurals”, the name given to rural partnerships by the Primary Care Trust, is to be held in Winscombe shortly.

Consultations

The Clerk advised the Council of the following consultations:

- A revised Model Code of Conduct for Local Authority Members.

- Draft Freedom of Information & Data Protection (Appropriate limit and fees) Regulations 2007.

- North Somerset Play Strategy.

- The Commons Act 2006-Protection of Common Land in England.

It was agreed that these should be noted.

District Councillor’s Report -

Airport - The motion to Council on the Master Plan is coming to the NS Council meeting 20th Feb, the same night as Parish Council. In brief, the motion is that since there is no business case or environmental assessment, and then any expansion should be delayed pending these, to include CO2 emissions, noise & light pollution, water run-off & biodiversity. Actual planning applications from BIA for a hotel, car parks and new terminal are not expected before the summer.

Cllr. Bigg added that NSC commissioned and have reports on “Climate Change aspects” and “The Catalytic Economic Impact of BIA”. The climate change report shows there is more work to be done on this by BIA for their Master Plan. The economic report recognises the speed of expansion and suggests the development impacts will be considerably more.

Council Tax - Last Tuesday the NSC Executive recommended a 3% council tax rise to Council on 20th Feb when the budget vote will be taken. There are two amendments to this, one from the Conservatives, also proposing a 3% rise but made up differently, and the other from Cllr Tom Leimdorfer, proposing an extra 0.23%, i.e. a 3.23% rise.

The main Conservative amendments are: cuts to Adult Social Care, Housing staff (for the homeless, affordable housing provision, adaptations for disabled etc), Town Hall education spending, NSC staff car allowances; additional spending on bus subsidies, Children’s services, scrutiny panels.

Tom’s amendments are: spend more on respite care emergency budget, free or subsidised charges at leisure centres for foster children & carers, day care for disabled children, educational music equipment, toilet repair & maintenance, footpath maintenance.

Downside Rd bus to Nailsea - There was until last week a weekly Blue Iris bus to Nailsea running from Chew Magna via Felton and Downside Rd. Passengers have decreased & were down to 9 or 10, when the bus company announced that it was losing money and ended the service. I was told that all the passengers had concessionary bus passes, and the bus company does not receive the full amount of the fares from NSC.

(NSC receives a fixed amount from the Govt for these fares, and the amount passed to bus companies was negotiated by the 4 ex-Avon authorities jointly. The number of concessionary passengers over all routes has increased considerably since these fares have been free under the Govt scheme.)

The Winford minibus stepped in to replace the service (this is actually the Blagdon minibus). The service might be replaced by the Nailsea community minibus later.

Holiday Inn/ Briar Bank - On the morning of South Area Committee on Wednesday I had a message on the answer phone from Mr. House of Cowslip Green, about Briar Bank, the house next to the Holiday Inn. (I think that Mr. House’s daughter lives there, although there is nobody on the electoral register at Briar Bank and Deborah House is registered at Brook Lodge with her parents.) I went over to look at it, and the flooding had subsided although there was a steady stream of water running from the field, along Briar Bank’s yard and down a drain.

It seems that Alvis have been spraying slurry on the fields behind Briar Bank, which is lower than the fields and was flooded. According to Mr. & Mrs. House there have been problems for 18 months, since a pipe or pipes were put in these same fields for the Holiday Inn. The Environment Agency and NSC’s drainage engineers are all now involved, so I hope that the problem can be sorted out, whatever the cause or causes.

One of the conditions for the Holiday Inn extension is that drainage details must be agreed before work starts. I raised the flooding problem at South Area and emphasised that, if the Holiday Inn is a contributing factor then this must be sorted out as part of the drainage details.

Cllr. Glynn made comment on the drainage and flooding issues in that he has spoken with Mr. House and introduced him to the management of the Holiday Inn. The Holiday Inn has given an assurance that they will do whatever is necessary to resolve drainage issues as it is in their own interests bearing in mind the intention to have an underground car park. The recent flooding was more likely caused by work being undertaken on land that was already close to saturation and the drainage pipe located in the bottom corner of the field, was partly blocked and couldn’t take the volume of run-off.

Open Forum

Cllr. Glynn made one observation in that if a Councillor missed a meeting it would be helpful if the Minutes of that meeting were made available sooner than is the normal practice.

There being no other business the meeting was declared closed at 21.20 hours.

Mr. T R Clements
Chairman