Agenda and minutes
PDF 56 KBVenue: The Council House, Burcot Lane, Bromsgrove. View directions
Contact: Andy Stephens
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Apologies for absence Minutes: Apologies for absence were received from:-
§ Mrs. C. Limm (Clerk) - Belbroughton Parish Council § Mrs. G. Lungley (Clerk) - Bournheath Parish Council, and Catshill and North Marlbrook Parish Council § Mr. J. Ellis (Chairman) and Mr. P. D. Callaway (Stoke Parish Council) § Mrs. J. Maturi - County Association of Local Councils |
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Minutes of the meeting of the Parish Councils' Forum held on 21st March 2011 Minutes: The minutes of the meeting of the Parish Councils' Forum held on 21st March 2011 were submitted.
RESOLVED that the minutes be approved as a correct record. |
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Electoral Services: Election Results and Casual Vacancies / Co-options Additional documents:
Minutes: Mrs. S. Mould, Electoral Services Manager, referred to the report items enclosed with the Agenda for the meeting which gave details relating to:
(a) the parish council elections held in May 2011, the results and turnout; (b) casual vacancies and the correct procedures for co-option of parish councillors; and (c) improvements made to the District Council's website and the provision of specific parish council information.
She stated that, in terms of the administration and procedures which had to be followed, the district and parish council elections, and the 'Alternative Vote' referendum, had been very successful. She added that the overall turnout at the election was 5% higher than at the previous elections held in 2007.
Mrs. Mould went on to request that the Parish Clerks / Executive Officers in those parishes where elections were uncontested inform her at the earliest possible opportunity of any co-opted Parish Councillors who may be appointed in the future, together with any resignations / retirements from office. She stated that this would enable the District Council to keep up-to-date with the composition of the Parish Councils.
She also stated that work would soon begin on administering the recharges to the parishes, as soon as all of the invoices had been received from the other parties involved; for example, hire of polling station rooms, printing costs and paperwork, etc.
Mrs. Mould then answered a number of questions on the likely costs involved, stating that it would be difficult to estimate an individual parish councils likely recharge cost for a contested parish election. |
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Minutes: In the absence of Ms. F. Scott, Policy and Performance Officer (Equalities), a paper was circulated to Members of the Forum giving details on the Community Consultation Conference and the Bromsgrove "No Barriers" Disabled Access Awards 2011 events taking place on Saturday, 25th June 2011. |
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Problems with public access to the planning system (Agenda item added to the agenda at the request of the Area Committee of the County Association of Local Councils)
Issues raised included failure to notify Parishes of applications and the difficulty of identifying applications within the parish, and the difficulty of reading some of the plans online. Please could performance statistics also be provided for the length of time taken to process applications within the District.
Minutes: Mr. J. Cypher spoke on behalf of Parish Clerks / Executive Officers and raised a number of concerns over problems which had been encountered with their use of the Public Access Planning Application Administration System. Mr. Cypher stated that there were four main areas of concern with the system, namely:
(a) Increased time-load; that is, obtaining / downloading relevant information from the Public Access system, and collating the paperwork in a format which can be presented to meetings of the Parish Council or the Parish Council's Planning Committee. Mr. Cypher stated that the Parish Clerks / Executive Officers work on a part-time basis but the length of time taken in obtaining information relating to planning applications means that, because of Public Access, they are increasingly having to work longer hours. (b) Non-notification of planning applications - where notification of a planning application received by the District Council fails to reach the relevant Parish Clerk / Executive Officer. Mr. Cypher quoted one example whereby an application for a development of 18 new dwellings had not been considered by the relevant Parish Council Planning Committee because the notification had not reached the Parish Clerk / Executive Officer.
A query was also raised in connection with the "Weekly List" which was supposedly meant to notify Parish Clerks / Executive Officers of all planning applications validated during a particular week, even if the Public Access system was unavailable. It was felt that there were failings in the production of the "Weekly List" as well, with the combined result that these notification issues were compounding each other. (c) Non-appearance of Parish Council comments - where parish council's do consider applications and make comments via the Public Access system, these comments do not seem to appear on the website. As a result, this prompts questions from adjacent occupiers, interested parties, villages, objectors and supporters as to whether the parish council had discussed the application, had the comments been communicated back to the District Council, and does the District Council know what was said? Overall, the comments facility does not seem to be operating satisfactorily. (d) Mechanism of submitting comments on the Public Access system - the District Council has encouraged Parish Clerks / Executive Officers to use the Public Access system to record their respective parish council's deliberations and comments on planning applications which they have considered. However, it has been noticed that, having entered the parish council's comments into the relevant field on the Public Access system, and upon hitting the 'Submit' button, two successive error messages appear on screen before the system responds with a "Thank you for your comments" message. Obviously, the two error messages raise the question "Have the comments actually got through; should I email the comments through separately?"
In summary, Mr. Cypher stated that the Parish Clerks / Executive Officers are finding the system unnecessarily time consuming and, whilst Public Access is not deliberately working against the Parish Clerks / Executive Officers, it is not being co-operative in the way ... view the full minutes text for item 5. |
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What next with the core strategy? (Agenda item added to the agenda at the request of the Area Committee of the County Association of Local Councils)
It was suggested that it would be helpful for the District Council to have a reasoned discussion with the parishes (or at least with the larger ones) upon their comments on the draft.
Minutes: The Chairman informed the Forum that Mr. M. Dunphy, Strategic Planning Manager, was to give a presentation to the District Council on the Core Strategy, essentially aimed at the new District Councillors following the election in May. He asked if this would be of interest to the Parish Councils and whether they would wish for a similar event to be arranged and the ensuing consensus around the table was very favourable. It was agreed that arrangements be made in order for Mr. Dunphy to give a presentation to the Forum on the Core Strategy, ideally to the next meeting.
In response to the statement on the Agenda for the meeting in respect of discussions between the District Council and the individual parish councils on any comments made on the draft Core Strategy document, Councillor Taylor asked the Forum if the Parish Council's would be able to form a small Steering Group to consider representations made. He considered that consulting with each Parish Council separately would lead to a fragmented approach which may ultimately lead to the views of the smaller parish councils being stifled by the larger ones, especially in terms of where parish councils shared common ground / similar interests.
Mrs. S. Baxter, in attendance at the meeting both as a member of Wythall Parish Council and as the Chairman of the Area Committee for the County Association of Local Councils [CALC], stated that the Core Strategy was already due to be discussed at the next CALC meeting, inasmuch as seeking areas where the Parish Councils have a consensus, and where they can work together given the different sizes, coverage and issues involved. She considered that it may be possible for a small Steering Group be established to work on the common areas. It was noted, however, that the Core Strategy does not impact upon all parishes to the same degree and some of the larger Parish Councils may have their own views in respect of larger development sites within their respective areas, which may require a certain element of neighbourhood planning to take the Core Strategy forward.
The Chairman, however, reminded Members that the most important consideration was to ensure that a Core Strategy is put in place in order to act as a defence against developers / uncoordinated development. Furthermore, he added that the Localism Bill will not act as a defence against development, but will determine how development is to be handled within an area; the premise is development, not protection or against development.
Mrs. R. Bamford then addressed the Forum to inform Members of the current position of the Core Strategy process. She reported that, since the end of the consultation in April 2011, the 3,000+ responses received were currently being processed with a view to presenting a report to Cabinet, and then Council, in early 2012. Following this, a new version of the Core Strategy would be produced, based on the decisions of Cabinet and Council as to which policies should be amended ... view the full minutes text for item 6. |
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Travellers (Agenda item added to the agenda at the request of the Area Committee of the County Association of Local Councils)
It would be very much appreciated if the District would take a lead in providing parishes with an action pack setting out what to do, who to contact (with numbers) in the event of either the arrival of travellers on a piece of parish owned land or in the event of travellers starting to put in infrastructure for a "permanent" site outside working hours.
Minutes: Mrs. S. Sellers - Senior Solicitor - addressed the Forum in connection with this item on the Agenda, submitted on behalf of all Parish Councils within the District by CALC. She stated that issues concerning travellers could broadly be divided into two categories:-
1. Travellers who arrive on private land for a temporary period of time before moving on again; and 2. Travellers who move onto a private area of land at the start of, for example, a Bank Holiday weekend, and then start construction of the infrastructure for a 'permanent' site, outside of normal office hours.
Mrs. Sellers stated that in the case of 1. above she would ask her colleagues in the Legal Services Team to collate some information and basic guidelines, including a list of local solicitors who specialise in dealing with 'short-stay' travellers on private land, in order that the Parish Councils know what to do in case areas of their land are occupied in this way. She added that, unfortunately, the District Councils Legal Services Team was not large enough to offer a service involving the making of Court Applications, etc., so each Parish Council would have to take it's own independent advice.
In the case of 2. above, Mrs. Sellers stated that, should such activity commence during office hours, the Customer Service Centre should be informed as soon as possible in order that action can be taken as soon as possible.
However, Mrs. Bamford added that, where such activity commences outside office hours, the Council's 'After Hours Emergency Service' should be telephoned (available via a recorded message from the Customer Service Centre - 01527 871565) in order to inform the 'on-duty' member of the Corporate Management Team who would then respond accordingly, if it was found to be appropriate Council activity to be followed up.
In response to a question raised by the Forum, it was pointed out that both Bromsgrove and Redditch needed more travellers' sites to which temporary / transient travellers could be moved, but no land for potential sites had been identified. Furthermore, a question was raised in respect of the approach West Mercia Constabulary may take now that a new Chief Constable had been appointed. The Chairman responded by stating that the Local Strategic Partnership could be asked to raise the issue, as well as making an approach to the Chairman of the West Mercia Police Authority. This was noted. |
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Date of next meeting Please note that the next meeting of the Parish Councils' Forum has had to be put back a week due to a clash with a meeting of the Standards Committee on the same evening.
The meeting was due to take place on 21st September 2011 but, instead, will now be held on 28th September 2011 at 6.30 p.m., in The Committee Room, The Council House, Burcot Lane, Bromsgrove.
Minutes: It was reported that the date of the next meeting of the Forum, originally scheduled at the January 2011 meeting to take place on Wednesday, 21st September 2011, clashed with a meeting of the District Council's Standards Committee. Therefore, it was suggested that the Forum meeting be put back a week.
RESOLVED that the next meeting of the Forum be re-arranged for Wednesday, 28th September 2011, commencing at 6.30 p.m. |
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