Denton a village in South Norfolk, England

Denton Parish Council

Minutes of the Meeting of the Council held on Tuesday 13th February 2018 at 7.30 pm in Denton Village Hall.

Present: Councillors: Kay Wiltshire (Chair), Terry Hanner (Vice Chairman), Zoe Brown, Peter Grant, Roger Gibson, Kerry Norfolk, Christine Kerr.
Also present: Dr. M. Gray, (District Councillor), Mrs M Stone (County Councillor), Jackie Ellis (Clerk).

1. Welcome by the Chair.

2. To receive and accept apologies from members unable to attend:
None.

3. To receive any declarations of interest from members on any item to be discussed:
None.

4. To approve and sign the minutes of the last meeting:
The minutes of the January 2018 meeting were approved and signed by Kay Wiltshire, Chair, as a correct record.

5. The meeting was not adjourned as no member of the public wished to make any comments.

6. Reports from County and District Councillors:

Dr. M. Gray, District Councillor, reported:
• South Norfolk Council’s part of the council tax will increase by 3.66%.
• Hedge removal at Vale Farm. Robin Taylor; the Landscape Officer has been out but since his visit the work has now stopped.
• Community Awards system – nominations open on the 19th February. Further details are available on the SNC website.
  Mrs M. Stone, County Councillor, reported:
• Norfolk County Council plans for Council Tax: 3% Social Service increase for Adult Social Service only and 2.9% increase for general purpose services to maintain all other services.
• Castle Museum, Norwich are offering fun events, activities and talks to Norfolk residents through a series of family events in the next couple of months.
• Norfolk Fire and rescue service and recruiting across the county.
• Police and crime commissioner has been asked to look at bringing fire services as well as police services under his scrutiny rather than NCC. Suggestions of improved collaborative work explored.
• Outstanding adoption service: improved support for vulnerable children sees council removed from intervention.
• NCC will continue to subsidise bus routes without changes at the moment following public consultation.
• Community Services have asked a Task and Finish group to look at Road Traffic accidents and review prevention tactics.

7. To discuss matters arising from the minutes of the last meeting:
The AED cabinet has now been installed and registered. Access code key fobs are being distributed.
£200 has been received from both Denton Village Hall funds and Tuesday Lunch Club towards the cost of the cabinet. Our thanks to both of these groups for their very kind donations.
A very successful Hedge cutting working party was held on Saturday, 3rd February. Thank you to Terry Hanner for organising this and to everyone who came to help.
Fenland Leisure re: playground equipment maintenance and repair revised quotation to take account of the items we removed (tunnel and fort roof). The revised cost is now £3,425 plus VAT of £685.00. The work is due to be carried out end February/first week of March.
The Tuesday Lunch Club has been ‘In Good Company’ approved.

8. To discuss and comment on any planning applications received and related matters:
Rainbows End Enforcement Appeal was dismissed, decision date 5.2.18. The Enforcement notice now comes back in to force and the compliance period starts again.

9. Joint training with Alburgh parish council. Discuss our possible participation:
Alburgh parish council have arranged a date for training and this is Tuesday, 1st May 2018 at Alburgh village hall.
Training will be on the new General Data Protection Regulations which will come in to effect on 25th May 2018.

10. Playing Field Report – Zoe Brown:
All was in good order, excluding the equipment to be repaired/replaced. Zoe hoped to be able to prune the willow structure in the near future.
Norse Grounds Maintenance Contract:
The price quoted for 2018 is £1,076.17 Plus VAT. This is an increase of 8.5% from last year.
Kay Wiltshire has been in contact with Norse to ask if they could put glysophate or something similar around the wooden poles to kill off the grass on their first visit of the season, thus reducing the need to strim around the poles. Strimming has caused some damage to the posts in the past and possibly accelerated the rot. Norse will look into this and will produce a revised quote if appropriate.

11. Broadband in Denton:
Kay Wiltshire has been in contact with Karen O’Kane, the programme director for Better Broadband for Norfolk.
There are three more fibre solutions to come:

• A second cabinet. She expects this cabinet to be live by the end March 2019.
• There is a Fibre to the Premises solution planned in the same timeframe. This is used where some properties are too far away from the nearest fibre cabinet to receive good speeds. SNC are trying to fill some gaps by putting up some masts.
• Then a final Fibre to the Premises solution planned for early 2020

12. Greater Norwich Local Plan:
The public consultation runs to 15th March 2018.
From Land Availability Assessment – 2 sites north of Upland Terrace and land surrounding Upland Farm have both been considered inappropriate.
As there is nothing planned for Denton, no parish councillor had any comments.

13. South Norfolk Police Briefing Meeting, 10th January – brief report by Kay Wiltshire:

• Harleston Police Station is the only police station in the area open 5 days a week for at least 4 hours a day.
• PC Jim Squires said that if the data from SAM2 speed detection units is given to the police which shows evidence of persistent speed problems the police will react to that and come out and carry out speed detection.
• Drones with thermal imaging have been acquired.
• 12 community speed watches in South Norfolk and 45 Neighbourhood watches.
• 6 police officers are on duty at any one time in South Norfolk.
• Our local police officer is PC Heather Field and speeding issues were discussed.

14. Parish Directory:
Our Local Directory was published in 2009 and has not been updated or reprinted since. Much of this information is now on the Denton website and is regularly updated. After discussion, it was agreed that it was not necessary to update/re print the directory.
It was mentioned at our December meeting about the idea of wall mounted leaflet display unit for inside the porch. The village hall committee have agreed that this would be a good idea.

15. Correspondence:
We have received a letter from Alburgh parish council regarding Homersfield Picnic Site. NCC is proposing to sell this site by auction and Alburgh parish council wish to challenge this decision requesting that this site remains the community asset that it already is. They ask for a letter of support which was agreed that we would do.

16. To approve payments to be made and record money received:

Payments:
• Clerk salary and expenses £99.50.
• Denton PCC £230.00 for graveyard maintenance. Receipts:
  
• £200 Denton Village Hall,
• £200 Tuesday Lunch Club.

17. Any other matters to be brought to the attention of the parish council and for the next agenda.
To confirm the date and time of the next parish council meeting as Tuesday, 13th March 2018:
TThe BT phone box was removed on 1st February 2018.
There are some drains in the village which need looking at. Roger Gibson will write a list of works that need looking at and get together with Terry Hanner who will contact NCC.
For next agenda:
Date for April/May 2018 Meeting.
SNC Community Award Nominations.

18. The meeting was not adjourned for public participation as there were no members of the public at the meeting.

19. Close of Meeting:
Kay Wiltshire thanked everyone for attending and closed the meeting at 9.20 pm.

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