Home

Present: Cllr. J P Rich (Chairman), Cllr. F J Day (Vice-chairman)

Cllrs. Mrs. F M Butt, Mrs. R M Rich and A A Spiller.

Before the official agenda was opened the Chairman welcomed Mr. Whittington from Community Action who gave a presentation on Transport Needs Assessments.

He described the need for the assessment, as, although the bus services were good through the village centre, it was not easy for the disabled and elderly to get to the centre from the outlying areas. A need assessment would highlight these problems and suggest to the village the kind of community transport required. The job can be done by questionnaire (he left a sample) or by meetings etc. - but both would be ideal.

The Chairman thanked Mr. Whittington for his time.

There were no questions or comments.

1. Minutes of an Environment Committee meeting held on 27th June 2005

These minutes, which had been previously circulated were taken as read, agreed a true record and signed by the Chairman. There were no matters arising.

2. Correspondence

a). Provisional Joint Local Transport Plan for "old" Avon

b). B&NES. Local Transport Plan - Annual Progress report

c). B&NES. Streetscape Manual - final published report

All placed in the Parish Office library

d). Transfer of Licence, Prince of Wales

Noted

e). B&NES. Parking of large vehicles

Letter asking for comments on whether there are facilities within the parish and if not is there a problem. Members asked the Clerk to inform B&NES that there are no official large vehicle parks but there are two lorries parked in Orchard Way every night and they cause traffic problems. Although not in this Parish, the parking in the lay-bye on Radstock Flat is well used and can hold up to four lorries and causes no problems.

f). B&NES. Grass cutting on roundabouts and verges

This committee is very interested in entering into agreements to do this work as long as the funding follows the job.  

3. Motion

Cllr. R W G Butt asked to put:

"that the Amenities Committee shall take over the full functions of the Lighting Committee and the Recreation Field Committee and in addition take over the responsibility for the POS and the Village Green (i.e. facilities that are owned by the Parish plus oversight of the BANES lighting).

The Environment Committee shall continue to progress and maintain all floral displays in the village, including the hanging baskets and all the others that are at present on BANES land"

The motion was seconded by Cllr. Day.

Cllr. Butt felt that the motion was self-explanatory but was needed to clear up a difference of opinion between committees during the last round of meetings. Following a question of explanation asked for by the Clerk as to which jobs were expected to be dropped from the duties already laid down for the Amenities Committee in its Terms of Reference, the motion was put and carried unanimously. It was also agreed that the Policy and General Purposes Committee should confirm the new Terms of Reference and put to full Council.

At this stage of the meeting the Chairman allowed an extra agenda item to be raised by Cllr. Mrs. Butt.

4. Financial Controls - this financial year

Cllr. Mrs. Butt, speaking as Chairman of the Finance Committee, read from a letter sent recently to the Clerk, and copied to the Internal Auditor and Chairman of Council, suggesting that caution should be taken when paying any bills for the Council which did not cover payroll or contracted payments. She said that the Council needed to tighten its belt and budget for the extra expense involved in moving the parish office and the employment of extra staff to man that office during the period up to the Clerk's retirement in November.

5. Capital Projects 2006/2007

It was felt that this item should be delayed to next meeting following the statement made in the previous item.

Meeting closed at 8 p.m.