Cllr Bigg declared an interest in WVMP as Chair of LINK.

3. Les Forrest and Rita Boote (CPRE) to present District Large Village of the Year Prize
The Chair welcomed Mrs Rita Boote and Mr Les Forrest from the Campaign for the

Protection of Rural England. Mr Les Forrest gave a brief overview of how the judging of the villages is carried out, explaining that most of the judges marks come from the Community aspect of a village. Mrs Rita Boote presented Cllr Irving with a framed plaque. Mr Les Forrest had previously presented Cllr Irving with a cheque of £50 for the Parish Council. The Chair thanked them for attending the meeting.

4. Public Participation

John Adams from the Twinning Committee addressed the Council and informed Members that the brochure discussed at the previous month’s meeting was now nearing completion. He also made a request for appropriate Twinning signs to be positioned with the Wrington village signs. The Chair informed him that this was already in hand.

Mrs Judith Kinsman showed the semi-completed brochure to Members. She informed Members that a provisional quote for a print run of 2,000 for the folded brochure had been received at £350. A second quote to print the brochure but leave it unfolded had come in at £290. Members strongly urged Mrs Kinsman to let the printers fold the brochures mechanically rather than trying to fold them manually themselves. The Twinning Association would need to check the quality of the brochures before committing themselves.

The brochure would be printed entirely in French, but, as the brochure had originally been written in English, it would be possible for the Parish Council to produce an English version also in the future if they felt they wanted to do this. Cllr Glynn pointed out the need to include a map of the Parish in the brochure, not just the village of Wrington.

The Twinning Association would be contacting advertisers after Christmas with an aim to offset the cost with advertising.

Resolved: For the Twinning Association to arrange for the Parish Council to see the artwork of the brochure before printing.

Peter Maitland, Save our Surgeries,(SOS)

Peter Maitland addressed the Council and asked for their consideration and support on the location of a surgery in land north of the Recreation Field in Wrington, with a branch in Churchill or elsewhere. Peter Maitland reported that the PCT had previously dismissed this site in their business case on the grounds that there was restricted access from the Highway, that it was land reserved in the Local Plan for other uses and that is was in the Green Belt.

Peter Maitland had previously circulated an email listing why he felt that the reasons against the site were without merit and could be overcome. These were:

1. There are two access points to the site, from Silver Street and Rickyard Road, so access from the highway is not restricted

2. The land is in fact designated a safeguarded site for 'Proposed Strategic and Structural Open Space. The designation would not preclude its use for other purposes, although some compensation might be expected in the form of the offer of an alternative site elsewhere or a financial payment. Sport England might need to agree. The fact that the land is still in agricultural use would make it easier to argue the case for some other community-related development. The Rickyard Rd affordable homes were built on land included in the 'safeguarded' designation and a small compensatory payment was made.

3. The land is in the green belt, but part of the site has recently been reclassified to permit low-cost social housing to be built. A similar reclassification would seem reasonable to allow a community related development such as a surgery.

4. Access into and out of Wrington is perfectly adequate and in many ways better than that of Pudding Pie Lane. The site is also on a bus route which Pudding Pie Lane is not.

Members agreed with the above points and confirmed that they were correct.

Resolved: Cllr Yamanaka to attend the PCT meeting on 17th December as a representative of the Council to support the proposal of positioning a possible new surgery on land north of the Recreation Field in Wrington.

Cllr Irving to send an email to Stephen Harrison and Penny Hyndes from the PCT informing them of the Council’s desire to support the proposal and to inform them that Cllr Yamanaka would be attending the meeting for this purpose.

5. The Minutes of the Meeting held on 24th November were reviewed and signed as a true record after one minor amendment was made: to complete the unfinished sentence under Twinning in public participation ‘Cllr Bigg informed Judith Kinsman of the existence of a Wrington footpath map’.

6. Correspondence

a. Email from Debbie Miffin re: Request for grit bin at Church Court, Redhill. Request for a grit bin in Winters Lane from Mrs Bullock.

Members agreed that there was a need for these two further grit bins as both roads concerned were particularly steep.

Resolved: To order the two grit bins requested and to have a clear plan where all grit bins are positioned in the Parish.

b. Email from Graham Berry (URC) asking the Council to consider their request for financial support for an additional sign to the Chapel at Branches Cross.

Resolved: The Parish Council has no objection to an additional sign at Branches Cross but is not in a position financially to support this at the moment. The Council is in agreement with NSC in that when the current sign fails, a replacement one with the words ‘to the Chapel’ or similar should be included.

c. Letter from Mr Douglas House requesting a pedestrian safe haven to access bus stop on the A38, Cowslip Green.

Resolved: Clerk to write to David Bailey, Highways, NSC, to request a site meeting. To write and thank Mr House for his letter and to copy him into any further correspondence on the matter.

d. NSC: Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005, changes to dog control legislation. The Clerk reported that NSC had requested Councils to consider any further locations in the Parish that may benefit from a dog control order. The Recreation ground is currently the only place in the Parish with such an order. Members felt that this was currently difficult to enforce due to the lack of response from NSC to a request for a Dog Enforcement Officer to visit the Recreation Ground in the early morning when most offences were committed.

Resolved: The Council do not wish to add any more areas in the Parish with dog control orders as it is difficult to enforce the current one at the Rec. The Clerk to write to the Dog Enforcement Officer, NSC, to inform them of this decision and the reasons behind it. Clerk to also request that NSC send a Dog Control Enforcement Officer to the Recreation ground at the times requested by us for maximum effect in tackling the issue.

e. Email from Gill Key re: dog fouling episode. Gill Key had written to the Parish Council detailing an episode she had had with another dog walker and the aggressive scene that had occurred when she had asked the dog walker to clean up his dog’s mess. She had requested the Parish Council to take action on this matter if possible.

Resolved: Clerk to ask for Mrs Key’s permission to forward on the email and accompanying photograph of the offender to the Dog Control Enforcement Officer, NSC and to supply her with the Enforcement Officers details for any future episodes.

f. Local Access Forum – Parish/Town Council Buddies. This was noted.

Resolved: To request contact details for Phil Avery, our ‘buddy’, and to invite him to a Parish Council meeting.

7. Reports

a. Police report: a report was circulated and reviewed. Members noted that there had been a marked increase in unpleasant, opportunistic incidents within the Parish.

Resolved: To report the increase in incidents in the February Journal, as a warning to residents to be vigilant.

b. Clerk’s Report: this was received. The report is available for inspection in the minute book.

c. Financial Report and accounts for October (circulated previously): these were received. The report is available for inspection in the minute book.

The Clerk read out an email from Fay Powell, Area Officer detailing the work to be carried out soon. It was noted that no date had yet been given to repair the pot holes in Westhay Road. Cllr Glynn pointed out that these were now a real hazard, especially for cyclists.

Resolved: Clerk to write to Fay Powell specifically about the potholes in Westhay Road, requesting a date for them to be dealt with as a matter of urgency.

The following accounts for payment were approved:

Tom Vowles – village orderly, November £104.00
AYA Youth Bus – July-September £1,000.00
AYA Youth Bus – October-December £1,000.00
SLCC Enterprises Ltd – Regional Conference £64.62 inc VAT
Clerk’s salary December – to be calculated
Clerk – reimbursement of petrol expenses for travel £80.29
Admin assistant salary December – to be calculated
Admin assistant – reimbursement for postage and stationery £33.46
Admin assistant – reimbursement for Christmas items £2.47
Admin assistant – petrol expenses to noticeboards £9.02

c. District Councillor’s Report: Cllr Yamanaka had circulated a report prior to the meeting and this was received. Additionally, Cllr Yamanaka reported that one of the outcomes from the NSC Executive meeting for the financial settlement was that NSC is £5 million pounds worse off than had been expected.

d. NE Ward Report: The report had been received previously. Cllr Turton informed Members that she would be able to attend the airport related meetings scheduled for January and made particular reference to the Parish Council’s meeting with Bristol Airport on 17th January

Resolved: Cllr Turton to draw up a draft agenda to circulate to Members prior to the Council’s meeting with Bristol International Airport on January 17th.

e. WVMP Report: The report was circulated and reviewed.

8. Working Groups

a. Finance: The report had been received previously, along with a draft budget. Cllr Glynn explained that there was an issue with inserting figures for streetlights in the budget as it is unclear how many of the urgent streetlights can be installed before the end of the financial year. This would impact on next year’s proposed budget figures.

Resolved: To get more specific information on whether SEC could install and invoice the urgent replacement lights before the end of the financial year and to confirm how many of the next set of lights recommended for replacement are considered urgent.

Cllr Glynn asked Members to consider the proposal discussed at the finance meeting of increasing the Clerk’s hours from 12 to 14 hours a week from January 1st 2011, and to increase the Administrative Assistant’s hours by one hour to a total of 11 hours a week

Resolved: Members were all in favour of these proposals.

Cllr Glynn asked Members to consider the proposal discussed at the finance meeting of changing the title of Administrative Assistant to Assistant Clerk and raise her salary by one point on the scale to reflect this change.

Resolved: Members were all in favour of this proposal.

b. Environment: Cllr Bigg reported that two members of the Environment Agency had attended the last Environment meeting and given a presentation on Flood risk mapping in Wrington. The next meeting would take place on 11th January, 4pm.

c. Highways: No meeting had taken place this month.

9. ALCA: To consider the reorganisation of ALCA along with the proposed subscription payments for 2010-11 and to confirm the Council’s membership for next year.

Resolved: To stay with ALCA for one more year to see if they become more proactive as promised.

10. Open Forum

The Chair informed Members that the Parish Office would be closed from 24th December and would reopen on January 4th.

Tom Collinson addressed the Council about various local issues including the NSC Core Strategy and the proposed South Link Road.

There being no other business the meeting was declared closed at 10pm