Present Cllr. E J Derrick (Chairman)

Mr. Provest mentioned the fact that the Clerk had said that he had received a letter from B&NES asking this Council if they wished to place the Parish Design Statement onto the B&NES web site. As a co-author of the document he felt that it should have greater publicity and agreed with the idea although he did ask if the suggestion would effect the sales of the document. The Clerk informed the meeting that the Council had only ever sold one, as all the others had been donated to various departments of B&NES at no cost. He informed the meeting that the PDS was already displayed in full on this Council’s web site. It was agreed that B&NES should be asked to set up a link to our site, thus encouraging further hits.

1. Minutes of a Planning Committee meeting held on 1^st July 2002

These minutes, which had been previously circulated were taken as read agreed a true record and signed by the Chairman.

2. Matter arising from the minutes of 1^st July 2002

The Clerk informed the meeting that although he and the Chairman had attended a B&NES planning committee meeting and supported the application for a house in Lower Peasedown for Mr. and Mrs. Cosh, the committee had eventually refused the scheme. The area concerned is in the Draft Plan as being outside the village boundary and the refusal was given for that one reason.

The Clerk had now written to the Planning Policy Office asking if, even at this late stage, they could accept a change to the Local Plan to bring the area back into the village as a development was allowed in the area last year. The Forward Planning Policy Officers have refused to take the alteration, because it is out of time, but are willing to look into the permission given next door to the Cosh site to see if a precedent exists.

3. Correspondence

The Chairman has received a letter from the office of the Deputy Prime Minister assuring all Parish and Town Councils that their input into the planning machine was being protected. Noted.

4. New Applications

There were five and four carried the no objections label. The fifth was for a development on the Ashgrove Motors site put in by Michael Gould Property. The scheme is for 5 shops with 6 flats over with service and parking areas. Members agreed that the scheme was the best ever submitted for this site and in order to gather further information on his intentions to improve the street scene, the Clerk was asked to invite Mr. Gould to a meeting of this committee on 28^th October.

5. Progress on the new POS

Cllr. McInnes reported that the contractor has now spent two whole days on site and the new profile suggested by the amended plans was now very visible. He was pleased to report that the entrance from Eckweek Lane was well within the 1in12 specification. The Clerk has supplied the contractor with plans of the sewers, both foul and flood, which had been provided by Wessex Water for guidance.

6. Planning decisions made by B&NES

These were scanned by the meeting and noted.

Meeting closed at 8 p.m. with apologies to the next meeting.