You can download a copy of these minutes here (PDF file).
Broomhaugh & Riding Parish Council
Minutes of the Parish Council meeting held on 8th December 2008 in the Supper room of the Parish Hall at 7.45pm.
Present: Councillors Tulip, Williams, Mills, Reid, Eakins, Dunhill and Stephenson. Also present were County Councillor Dale, 3 members of the public and one member of the Press.
1. Apologies were received from Cllr Heslop and Cllr Latham.
2. Minutes of last meeting: The minutes were agreed as a true record.
3. Matters arising:
Trees at the Wellington: Cllr Dale had ascertained that Tynedale owned the land along the road to the station behind the Wellington and were therefore responsible for the trees. The Clerk would write about the dangerous state and copy the letter to Cllr Dale.
School Travel Plan: Cllrs Dale, Tulip and Reid met with Jen Stephenson at the school to discuss the school plan. The School has major concerns about their walking bus crossing the main road and this would be an integral part of their plan.
4. Minor Maintenance Matters:
a) Safety mirrors: These need fixing and assessing. Cllr Mills offered to take this on with the help of Cllr Reid. She would liaise with the Clerk over collection of them.
b) The No –Smoking signs for the bus shelters. Cllr Tulip volunteered to fix these. The new stone shelters had space on the lintels that would be suitable for the signs.
c) Play park: Cllr Dunhill would look at the work needed in the Playpark when the evenings began to draw out again as there was no urgency. The Clerk would chase up the quote from the fencer about replacing the wooden roofs on the small climbing frame.
d) Lights in the bus shelters: Cllrs Mills and Reid would check the level of existing lighting before considering special lights.
5. Correspondence:
a) General.
b) Tyne Valley Community Rail Partnership: A letter had been received concerning a request for permission for the TVCRP to site an information board on one of the bus shelters in the village. Whilst agreeing in principle to this, there was concern expressed that the boards were very large and it might be better to have a smaller board in all four bus shelters, especially if they were aimed at visitors rather than residents. The Clerk would write accordingly.
6. Finance:
a) The financial statement and receipts were accepted by all Councillors.
b) The following payments were authorised by all councillors:-
MF Anderton / Salary / November – £391.00
MF Anderton / Expenses / November – £31.01
Photocopier – £18.28
Marchburn Lane Res. Assn/S.137 – £30.00
NCC/Bench in Playpark – £575.75
SLCC/ Subs for 2009 – £94.00
Playdale – £15.28
Northumbrian Water – £15.52
c) Budget: Cllr Tulip had held two informal meetings with Councillors to go through the budget for the precept, explaining the reasoning behind some of the changes. Some items had gone up, some were expected to rise and the budget had been held low for the last two years. By deferring some repayments to the Capital account such as the repayments for the new bus shelter and by trimming some of the maintenance figures, a figure of – £24,500 was arrived at. It was noted that a special provision was having to be made of – £3500 to pay the Audit Commission as a result of an investigation. At present the exact cost of this is unknown, but it must be borne by the public purse. A proposal to round the precept down to – £24,000 by Cllr Eakins was defeated. The original proposal to set a precept of – £24,500 was carried unanimously.
7. Minor matters: Cllr Stephenson raised the matter of the saplings between the tennis court and the Playpark. Cllr Dunhill agreed to have a look, with Cllr Tulip if possible, and suggest alternatives.
Cllr Eakins has expressed an interest in getting the Parish website more up to date with its information and he had already held a meeting with Dave Porter, our Webmaster. Cllr Eakins will have a meeting with the Clerk, who, it was agreed, should continue to act as the ‘gatekeeper’ for information to be filtered through to Mr Porter. He will also then meet with the various village organisations to encourage them to be more current with their information and to get into the habit of forwarding events in particular. This will take some time to develop. It is also important, as was raised by a query, to be able to put bits of news onto the website which might appear in the Parish News for instance, but it is important not to try and replace the Parish News in any way.
Cllr Reid attended the AGM of the Tyne Valley Community Rail Partnership; one of the main issues discussed was the lack of late trains. It was noted that Malcolm Chainey (Chair of the Partnership) now lives in Riding Mill.
The date of the next Parish Council meeting will be the 19th January to allow for holiday arrangements.
The meeting closed at 8.50.
