Ickleshan Parish Council meeting of 12 March 2012

A fairly uneventful meeting but it still over-ran, finishing at 9:55pm, largely because of the unstructured nature of discussion (the Council still does not follow its own Standing Orders). As usual, no one in the audience, including District and County Councillors, lasted until the end.
There was grumbling from Cllr Bronsdon about the number of documents being issued by the Clerk, who is providing briefings on most agenda items. Some councillors find these documents helpful.
After the meeting, a member of the public commented on the fact that both the Clerk and Deputy Clerk attended the meeting and appeared to take notes. They asked why it was necessary to pay for two clerks.  

Diamond Jubilee road closures in Winchelsea

The Council did not, in the end, object to the proposed closures following the withdrawal of the objections made by Winchelsea Farm Foods.

Emergency contact signs

The Council was asked by the Winchelsea Emergency Group to purchase, for the grand sum of £54, three weather-proof signs giving details of key-holders for the Church, Court Hall and New Hall, to be fixed to these buildings for use by emergency services. These buildings are designated under the District Emergency Plan to act as reception or co-ordination centres for emergency services in a local civil contingency. The idea was suggested at a recent forum of village emergency groups because of concern that, if the emergency services arrived at an unsociable hour, they would not know who to contact to open up the buildings.
Cllr Merricks refused to believe that the bodies responsible for these buildings had been asked for permission, despite being told they had. But the Council anyway refused the request on the grounds that “Parish Emergency Plans have nothing to do with the Parish”.

Playgrounds

The Council continues its work on its £110,000 plan for additional playground facilities in the Parish. Of the £110,000, some £80,000 is for two new play areas in Icklesham Recreation Ground. The Council hopes to get grants for 25-50% of this sum. Also in Icklesham, the School is planning to ask the Council for a grant for a games area. A figure of £5,000 was mentioned, although no application has yet been made.

Risk assessment

The Council is required to assess the risks on its property. In most parish councils, regular inspections are done by parish councilors. In Icklesham Parish, most councilors have refused to do this or have claimed not to know how to. Consequently, the Parish Council has paid a professional company £900 to do an inspection and make recommendations. Regular inspections will now be carried out by the Clerk and Deputy Clerk.

Bus shelter at The Strand

It has been agreed to repair this shelter, which has recently been the target of repeated vandalism, by lining the interior with ply. In order to deter vandals, the interior will be opened up to public view by removing the glass panels at the front and some boards.
The Council wishes to put a pitched and tiled roof on top of a bus shelter in Main Road, Icklesham.
It has been promised that bus shelters and benches will be cleaned before Easter. This will be the first time the Council has ever done this (at least in Winchelsea), despite having budgeted for the work every year.

Cllr Glazier

Reports from District and County Councillors brought another complaint from Cllr Glazier about this blog, which he claimed was inaccurate in saying that he was reluctant to do anything for Winchelsea. Cllr Glazier stated that his “delivery” in Winchelsea has been as good as in any other parish.
He reported that he had recently been involved in trying to get something done about flooding in Tanyard Lane, something which Winchelsea ward councillors have been working to get done since 2008. Cllr Glazier has also promised to get something done about the rapid deterioration in the state of Winchelsea’s roads and pavements.
Cllr Glazier raised the issue of the Bexhill-Hastings Link Road and rehearsed the benefits for local jobs and housing claimed by the County and District Councils. His statement may be in response to the recent relevation through a Freedom of Information request, that the County has so far spent some £11 million on the road, largely on consultancy fees.

This blog

This blog also continued to exercise the Parish Council. The Council still dispute the statement in the report of the meeting of 9 January that, “The council now has an Asset Register. It should have had one years ago but only the current clerk has managed to produce one.” The Council claims that the Register was created in 2007. But the Council should always have had an Asset Register and was required to have one by law well before 2007. Moreover, the 2007 document was never finalized and signed off by the Council. In other words, it was still a draft until 2011. It was also still inaccurate (the Council claims it was not but had changed to reflect changes in assets: however, the inaccuracies were not about assets that had been acquired or disposed of since 2007).
It was decided that the Council would not respond to this blog. It will instead record its view in its minutes. Cllr Stanford was particularly forthright on this point, but then she believes that “responses in the public domain would lead to bringing the council further into disrepute”.

Noticeboards
The Council has received complaints --- one from an anonymous resident of Winchelsea, another from an anonymous ward councillor --- that non-community notices have been posted in the Parish noticeboard. The complaints were in fact manufactured. Surprisingly, the Council was not interested. 
Cllr P Turner (Winchelsea Beach) proposed that the Town Map be removed, on the grounds that everyone has SatNav. It was pointed out however that the map is also for the use of tourists and the proposal rejected.

Pear Tree Marsh allotments

The Council decided that this area should, once again, be made secure by being locked. Cllr Comotto stressed the need to regularise the residents’ parking on this land, which breached the covenant on the Council’s deed of purchase, as no other secure parking was available to residents of Tanyard Lane.

Welcome pack for new parishioners

The Council is to provide a page for inclusion in the welcome pack to be provided by Rother to all new residents. Cllr Sutton (Winchelsea Beach) felt it was vital that Winchelsea should be referred to as a town.

Council meeting of 13 February 2012

The meeting kicked off with Public Questions. A youngster from Winchesea Beach, aged 11, asked the Council for a skate board facility in Winchelsea Beach. The Chairman asked the youngster to consult residents. Not something that elected ward councillors should be doing then!

A Mr Spencer from Winchelsea, who claimed to speak on behalf of the Church Wardens of St Thomas’s Church, said that the Church wanted a grant towards churchyard maintenance. He quoted a figure of £170,000 a year but this is for all outgoings. One hopes that the Church knows what it wants this time around. It currently gets a grant from the Council for grass cutting but used to receive more until councillors from other wards objected to splitting the grant to churches in proportion to the relative costs (they now all get different percentages of their costs). The Church made no objection to the cut. Then, when the Rector approached the Council through a ward councillor for help with the cost of new central heating and with a proposal that the Council take responsibility for the War Memorial in the churchyard, a churchwarden turned up and objected! It is also worth noting that, when the Council was asked by a Winchelsea ward councillor to contribute to a new sign for the Wesley Chapel, one of the ostensible objections was giving money to places of worship.

District Councillor Osborne read out a letter that he had received from the owners of Look Out Cottage claiming that the damaged wall by the Strand Gate belongs to ESCC. The former have just repaired the wall after a delay of over year while they argued about its ownership. The letter was critical of both ESCC and Rother. The latter had threatened to serve a notice on the owners enforcing repairs. ESCC are adamant that they are not responsible for the wall and that it belongs to Look Out Cottage.

Cllr Stanford proposed that “factual inaccuracies” in this blog be included as an item on future agendas. This was seconded by Cllr Bronsdon. Cllr Chishick voted against, Cllr P Turner abstained. On the subject of factual inaccuracies, Cllrs Stanford and Bronsdon were among the principal authors of recent complaints against fellow councilllors which alleged they had made misleading and untruthful statements. These allegations, supported by Rother District Council’s Standards Committee, were dismissed in their entirety by an appeals tribunal.

Icklesham Recreation Ground car park continues to benefit from the Council’s largesse. It was resurfaced by the Council and they will now be paying for lighting. The Council will also buy a padlock to secure the gate. In contrast, the Council refuses to do anything to bring the unofficial residents’ car park at Pear Tree Marsh up to a reasonable standard (no repairs to the surface or further clearance of rubbish and undergrowth) and it has lost interest in regularising the status of this car park (the Council is in breach of the covenant on its deed of purchase by allowing parking). Nor will the Council lock the allotment, as it used to, despite having splashed out on an expensive lock and uncopiable keys. Of course, one car park is in Icklesham, while the other is in Winchelsea.

The subject of the conduct of Council meetings was discussed. There have been complaints of poor chairmanship leading to meetings over-running. Recommended best practice is a maximum of 2 hours, because long meetings dissuade members of the public from attending and deter working people from standing for councils. The Council decided it would limit meetings to 2 hours and 15 minutes, or 2 hours and 45 minutes, if the Chairman thinks a longer meeting is necessary. The big question now is what happens during the meetings.

A proposal to hire a graphic designer at £40 an hour to maintain the Council’s newsletter was surprisingly and sensibly rejected.

The Council adopted a revised complaints procedure. It is difficult to know whether members of the public will give it much credence, since the Council acts as its own judge and jury. And Icklesham Parish Council has yet to deal with its last complaint, lodged several years ago by Mr Jasper of Winchelsea.

The Diamond Jubilee did not receive a positive response from the Council, at least as far as Winchelsea went. Cllr P Turner opposed the planting of a Jubilee oak in Winchelsea. In his opinion, “the oak is a forest tree” whereas Winchelsea is a “suburb”. But if there was little enthusiasm for a Diamond Jubilee Street oak, there was even less for the Street Party in Winchelsea. Several councillors expressed concerns about the impact of the related road closures on local businesses. These included Cllrs S Turner and Stanford (both currently or formerly employed by local businesses). Cllr P Turner on the other hand was worried about the disruption to Winchelsea’s busy bus service, even though the bus stop will be moved only about 20 yards, as it has several times in the past.