County Councillors report to Somerford Keynes Parish Council Annual Parish Meeting

The year has of course been dominated by the Pandemic and has shown clearly how strong, resilient and community spirited Gloucestershire is as a county. Covid-19 has tested us all, presented new challenges and above all has brought out the absolute best in people.  The offers of support from individual members of the community and organisations have been staggering and proven invaluable to those who have needed help.  The Pandemic has showcased the strength and effectiveness of the relationships between the NHS, Gloucestershire County Council, The police, district councils and the voluntary and community sectors.  By all working together; helping and supporting those wo are most at risk, we have, thankfully seen much lower levels of impact than in other parts of the UK.

That is not to say there hasn’t been loss and suffering as a result of Covid-19, there has, and it is important that we remember those who have sadly lost their lives and we look after those who have they have left behind.  GCC, which has a specific statutory responsibility to look after everybody in the county and will continue to do all, it can to help minimise the pain and grief that comes with losing a loved one.

Gloucestershire, and the Cotswolds in particular, is generally recognised as a great place to live, work and do business.  Most local people enjoy a high standard of living, and our levels of health and well-being are comfortably above the average for the country.  However, there are challenges. Gloucestershire’s population is ageing more quickly than the UK average.  The increasing number of retired people in the county will bring experience, resources and time to their communities, but as they grow older and more frail will also need more support from health, social care and safeguarding services. The county is also seeing increasing number of people with disabilities and long-term conditions in all groups. At the same time, our 18-64 population is expected to remain static. While living standards are high overall, there are some areas of the county which fall well below national averages, as a result, local people are more likely to depend on the services provided by the county council.  19.415 people (3.1% of the county’s population) live in areas amongst the most deprived 10% in England.

Along with councils up and down the country, GCC has declared a climate change emergency.  GCC is already close to achieving carbon neutrality as a council and has made a strong commitment to achieving a carbon neutral county by 2050.

GCC is committed to improving the County’s infrastructure.  97% of premises within The Cotswolds now have an internet connection. The county has made a significant contribution into the A417 Missing Link and it would seem that construction work will commence towards the end of 2022, and also Junction 10 of the M5.  The resurfacing of major routes within the county was able to continue throughout the year, and more is planned and budgeted for in the current financial year.

Lastly, before moving onto Somerford Keynes specific issues GCC’s finances are in excellent order.  Central government has covered all COVID related costs and GCC’s general reserve, there to meet unknown emergencies which might arise in the year is circa £18m. Council tax is one of the lowest in the South west.

Turning now to Somerford Keynes

Somerford Keynes escaped major flooding this winter. However, the risk of serious flooding remains noticeably in Water Lane. The gullies will be once more be cleared however a more lasting solution needs to be found, especially now that heavy and often unpredictable rainfalls seem to happen at any time in the year. 

The totally unacceptable behaviour of visitors to Neighbridge is well known.  Solutions to this problem are not easy.  However, a task force has very recently been established.  Members of the task force include Cllr. Juliet Layton from CDC, Cllr ‘Chuck’ Berry from Wiltshire Council, Ben Welbourn (Cotswold Lakes Trust) Alexis Newport (GCC Parking Manager), and myself. Whilst the task force remit covers all the water park, Neighbridge is recognised as being probably the worst affected location.  The parish council will be kept fully informed.

Residents will be aware of the £150m roads re-surfacing programme which has been rolled out by GCC.  This will continue with a further allocation of £100m planned for the next four years.  Water Lane is scheduled for large scale patching this summer.

Shaun Parsons

Ward Member Report to the Parish Council

APRIL 2020 T0 APRIL 2021

The year has of course been dominated by the Covid Pandemic, and whilst I don’t plan to spend much time talking of this, I would like to say how impressed and encouraged I’ve been by the way our villages have pulled together to ensure that everyone was looked after and the needy helped.  You might wonder sometimes about the state of our society, but when the chips are down there is always a tremendously heart-warming response – ‘Community’ is alive and active here!

March 2020 saw a change in the refuse and recycling operations with the roll-out of new bins, a weekly food waste collection and a reduction of garden waste collection to every other week. The permit is increasing by 33 percent (£30 to £40). Replacement bins/bags will also be chargeable at £5 per container from now on.

Following on from the previous year’s increase in parking charges (+30%), this year brought the news that the option to pay cash at Cotswolds car parks was to be removed (in stages through this coming year) and payment could only be made through an ‘app’ on a smart phone or by card.  Given that some 9,000 adults in the Cotswolds don’t have a smart phone and 72% of all payments in 2019 were cash, this doesn’t seem rational. I have (and will continue to) challenge this decision; so far the only change has been to drop the ‘cost’ argument and replace it with a ‘green’ reason for the change. 

During the year there have been major changes in the senior management at the Council, with Nigel Adams (Head of Paid Service with 28 year’s service) and Bhavna Patel (Monitoring Officer and Head of Legal Services) both leaving (at a cost of £330,000) to be replaced with a new Chief Executive – Robert Weaver and an interim Monitoring Officer.  An additional 8 people have been recruited to fill various positions to deliver manifesto promises, we will wait to see what is delivered and at what cost before passing judgement.

A number of Strategies and Reports have been proposed at Council, covering:-

• Ecological Emergency declared (July 2020)
• The Climate Emergency (Sept 2020)
• Corporate Strategy and Plan (Sept 2020)

In addition there have been a number of other changes:-

• A number of changes have been made to the Council’s Constitution.
• The Community Grant scheme has been replaced by ‘Spacehive’, a crowd funding platform (costing £30,000 p.a.).  Details of this are on the CDC website. I question whether this is as effective and would be interested in any feedback.
• Removal of the Ward Member’s ability to automatically refer planning applications to the Planning Committee where considered appropriate.  (This particular decision is causing a considerable amount of annoyance to effected Parishes and is the subject of ongoing discussion.)
• A new additional crest for the Council, designed for use on social media and new road signage including the crest and the parish’s name.  These being part of a £200,000 ‘Civic Pride‘ scheme.
• A new fly-tipping reporting tool has made this a much easier process and there has been a substantive increase in the numbers being reported.  I presented a motion to Council to increase the spending on this bane and I believe this has been given through the ‘Civic Pride’ scheme (to be confirmed).

In February, the revised budget for 2021/2 was presented to and approved by Council.  I was not able to support this vote for various reasons, but mostly due to lack of detail on the £65 million borrowing proposed.

It has been necessary to support the CDC Leisure Centres during the pandemic (circa £650k), some of which we will get back as and when normality resumes.

The Planning Department is currently suffering from large workloads and a lack of Officers – recruitment is currently taking place and I would ask for your patience whilst these matters are being resolved.

You have had a number of contentious planning applications during the year on which I have been deeply involved, sometimes successfully and not on others.  Some of these are still in process albeit as different proposals.

I have also been involved in the Neighbourhood Development Plan (NDP)(which I hope you all vote for on the 6^th May).  My congratulations go to the team responsible for the tremendous effort they put into a successful conclusion.

CDC has organised a joint services working group in an endeavour to resolve some of the ongoing issues at Neigh Bridge, of which I am a part.

The Lake subcommittee consists of 5 members: Chairman (Mike Wilding), 2 parish councillors (Graham Valentine & Michele Rigby), plus Lisa Willis and Nick Cartwright.  We meet at approximately 3 monthly intervals, manage the Lake and carry out monthly Lake inspections, which record the condition of various aspects of the Lake, and deal with any actions required.

• CALOR RURAL COMMUNITY FUND: Due to the Covid 19 epidemic, expenditure of the £5000 grant for ecological, educational & recreational work at our Village Lake, has slowed down and we still have around £750 left in the fund, to spent next year. In addition to 2019/20 items of expenditure, this year we have achieved, despite the epidemic restrictions:
• Purchase (from Marmax) and installation of the pond dipping platform (by James Harris Contracting)
• Purchase and installation of Owl Box (Glos Barn Owl Trust) and camera equipment (by volunteers)
• Purchase, assembling, floating out and anchoring of floating island (by volunteers). Lake is 7m deep!
• Installation of bat box (by volunteers)
• Purchase of gauge board to record ground water/lake water levels, and survey to establish an Ordnance Datum level at the location, so that water level above mean sea level can be read. (awaiting installation)

•  VOLUNTEERS: During the year we had to limit volunteer work to lone working and family groups to comply with Covid 19 restrictions, primarily working on general maintenance such as clearing overhanging branches and undergrowth, mowing the path & installing anti slip strips to the the boardwalk. In September, we applied a protective OSMO coating the boardwalk, making it less slippery in the wet and prolonging its live.

• LAKE SECTION ON THE NEW VILAGE WEBSITE: The Lake has a section on the new village website. It will mean that news, volunteer morning dates, and photos/sightings etc.. can be viewed more easily. We have a blog set up so that sightings of wildlife can be recorded, including those from motion sensitive night cameras. A little grebe nested in a fallen willow tree in the spring and produced two chicks.  We will now be moving over to make use of the new village website.  A whiteboard is still set up at the entrance to the Lake, especially geared at children recording what they see.  Any assistance with posting Lake information onto the new website would be welcomed.

• ROPE HANDRAIL TO BOARDWALK: In September, when Covid 19 restrictions were low, about 20 villagers turned out, suitably masked and socially distanced, to thread the 50mm diameter rope (supplied by Chatham Dockyard Historic Ropeworks), through the oak posts (supplied by Hailey Wood Sawmills), which had already been bolted to the boardwalk’s longitudinal timber beams.  The cost of this was kindly borne by Helen Sweet, in memory of her late husband John.

• WILDFLOWER MEADOW: The idea of creating a wildflower meadow was always in our 3 year plan, and in December we applied for a grant from the Lower Mill Estate section 106 fund, which is administered by CDC. After a period of 3 months negotiation, we understand from CDC that they have a mind to award us the grant, subject to rubber stamping by the other parties who need to give approval.  If successful, the work will be carried out by an experience landscape contractor, who has helped us with our application, but there will be general maintenance work required by our volunteers.

• ANNUAL BUDGET:  We work on an annual budget of about £1050 per year from SKPC

Mike Wilding                                              Chairman – SKVL Management Subcommittee      April 2021

Chairman’s Report 2021

Last summer seemed to be dominated by problems arising from an influx of visitors to Neigh Bridge Country Park. Neigh Bridge acted as a sort of safety valve for the rest of the Water Park as the lakes nearby tightened their controls. Parking, litter and anti-social behaviour were the three main problems, none of which have easy solutions. During the winter I attended three multi-agency online meetings to explore the problems in the Water Park as a whole and to try and come up with some ways of ameliorating them. It was helpful to know that the problems at Neigh Bridge were widely known although as yet I haven’t heard of any neat solutions.

Recently the Parish Council heard some proposals from the rebranded Cotswold Lakes Trust about how they planned to be more of a presence at Neigh Bridge. This included employing someone to work weekends during the “season”, a new children’s playground, a pop up cafe, portaloos, 30 minutes free parking. We were heartened that the Trust had given so much thought in trying to improve the culture at Neigh Bridge. Time will tell, I guess!

When the first lockdown occurred last year and we could no longer hold meetings in the Village Hall, the Parish Council held weekly teleconferencing meetings. This was before we became aware of Zoom. As the year progressed we turned to Zoom and held monthly meetings once again. By taking out a subscription we could increase the number of participants and the length of the meetings. This was particularly useful when considering the planning application for the development of the land to the South-East of Ashland House. There was a very strong feeling in the village that this development should not go ahead and many people attended the January meeting to express this. It was gratifying to see the expertise within the village put to good use when formulating the objections. The Parish Council was able draw on all this when submitting its own objections. We are still awaiting a decision.

One of the achievements last year was the refurbishment of the telephone box and the installation of the second defibrillator. Several people helped but the driving force behind this achievement was Karen and Lynton Mogridge, to whom we owe a debt of gratitude. A small team was formed to do the required weekly checks and their involvement is much appreciated.

Another achievement which has recently taken place is the creation of a new website for the village. We are very grateful for the work that Peter Watkins did in developing and maintaining the previous website for many years. It was great that Mike McKeown and Jon Lunn volunteered to create the new website. Migrating everything over took some doing and involved consulting with different groups in the village. The end result is very eye catching and user friendly. Several people have been trained to update the website so that every change does not have to go through one administrator.

The Village Lake has been a blessing for many people during the lockdowns by providing a safe space to walk and commune with nature. Mike Wilding (Chair of the Village Lake Committee) will report on all the developments there during the last year. On behalf of the Parish I would like to thank the committee for the work they have put in to make the lake such a special place. I was involved in helping to acquire the £5,000 from the Calor Rural Community Fund and I’m pleased to say that money has now been spent on such items as the eco island, the pond dipping platform and the shed to name just a few.

Although this is the second year that the village has not been able to convene the early Spring litter pick, thanks to several people who regularly pick up litter on their walks etc., the verges and footpaths are not looking too bad at all. Of course it’s frustrating to see the wanton throwing of cans and bottles in hedgerows and ditches but I think it would be so much worse if we just left it, so please help if you can.

We are very close to the completion of the process for the Neighbourhood Development Plan when the referendum takes place on May 6th. Although Ron Monroe and Sarah Powell stepped down from the Parish Council at the last election they volunteered to continue to see the NDP through to its conclusion. At times this has involved quite a bit of work for them and this has been much appreciated. I’m sure they will be relieved once the referendum has taken place and the result known.

I took over from Roger Sleeman as the Chair of the Parish Council in October. We lost so much experience at the time of the last election that it was really helpful that Roger, with his 40 years experience on the Parish Council, took on the role of Chair until the rest of us had a chance to find our feet. There are still many occasions when we are catching up to know the historical context of issues that arise but I think we make up for some of this with the enthusiasm of newcomers.

We eventually managed to get much of the footpath in The Street resurfaced. I have come to realise how important it is for the Parish Council to continue to exert pressure to get things done. However, there are different ways of doing this and I think we have seen the benefit of our Parish Clerk, Wendy Cartwright, forming positive working relationships with key people in the District and County Councils. Having said that we now have to face the fact that Wendy will be stepping down from this role, to focus on her music teaching, in a couple of months time. We are in the process of finding her successor. I’m sure the whole village would like to thank Wendy for what she has achieved and the manner with which she has done it.

I will end by saying that we plan to continue with Parish Council meetings via Zoom for the time being. While the health advice continues to identify the risk, in relation to COVID-19, as people meeting indoors it seems sensible to use Zoom. Anyone can attend these meetings. If any of you need help with how to use Zoom please let me know. Also you can approach any of the Parish Councillors if you wish to make a point or highlight a problem.

John Whitwell

April 2021