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COMMUNITY TRUST
PARISH COUNCIL
Agendas
& Minutes
Accounts
CHURCHES
LOCAL
GROUPS
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A Parish Meeting was
held on Tuesday 10th. November at 7:00pm in the Craster Memorial
Hall. The following notes summarise what was said at the meeting
rather than being a verbatim report.
The meeting was well
attended with approximately 40 people attending, mainly electors in the
Parish and able to speak at the meeting along with a handful of
observers including County Councillor Kate Cairns and a representative
from the Northumberland Gazette.
The meeting opened with
a chairman’s address in which Bryn Owen gave an overview of how the
work of the Parish Council and the role of the Parish Councillor were
changing due to the governmental policy of localism. Although
more and more work was being passed down to Parish Council level and
Parish Council were being asked to take part in more and more
Consultations, there was little evidence that the voices of Parish
Councils were actually being heard. The increase in the work load
not only made it harder and harder for Parish Councillors to do all
that was required but also needed more and more time from the Parish
Clerk which came as a direct cost to the Parish Council and ultimately
the Council Tax payers. The first question the community had to
consider was whether it still wished the Parish Council to do its best
to respond and try and make its voice heard or whether the Parish
Council should scale back to only doing what was legally required, at
the risk of losing whatever influence it might have. This problem
would be particularly relevant at the next local elections in May 2017
as at least 3 Parish Councillors were likely to stand down. Were
there going to be people willing to put themselves forward to fill the
vacancies, should the Parish Council look to reduce the number of
Councillors or should it look to join with another Parish
Council? The feeling of the meeting was that the Parish Council
should not look to merge with another Council. However, there
needed to be some sort of forward plan in place which would help to
persuade people to offer themselves for election in 2017.
Discussion then moved to
the Parish Council financial reserves. Bryn Owen explained that
the Council currently held £18000. The bulk of this money had
been received from Northumbrian Water when they purchased land from the
Parish Council to build the sewage works at South Acres. When
this money was received the Parish Council resolved that it should be
ring-fenced for community projects and not used for day-to-day running
of the Parish Council affairs. The external auditors used by the
Parish Council made no objection to this level of reserves.
However, in 2016 the Parish Council will be responsible for signing off
its own financial statements. In preparation for this the legal
requirements have been investigated and it was clear that the Parish
Council should not hold reserves so much in excess of its annual
precept of £5000. Retention could only be justified if the funds
were to be spent in the future on a defined scheme rather than held for
any projects which may come forward. The community had to decide
whether the funds should be reduced by not setting a precept
(effectively reducing the Council Tax by about £30 a property until the
funds were reduced to an acceptable level) or should be spent on
projects within a sensible timescale. The meeting felt that it
would be better to spend the money of projects of benefit to the
community rather than reducing the Council Tax payments. Projects
which were suggested as bringing benefit to the community included the
Skiff, the making good of the track leading from Dunstanburgh Road to
Chapel Row, improvements to the Playpark and Kickabout area,
introduction of traffic calming measures on Heugh Wynd and a Residents’
Parking Scheme.
The meeting then looked
at the way that the community in Lowick had managed to retain the Black
Bull as a public house rather than having it converted to
housing. It had done this by making the Black Bull a Community
Asset which gave them 6 months grace period to produce a scheme and
raise the finances to retain the building as a public house.
Among sites which could be said to be community assets were the
Harbour, the Playpark/Kickabout area, the Kipper Sheds next to the
winch house, the Rocket House, Mick Oxley’s Gallery and the Craster FC
football pitch. However, there was disquiet expressed about the
effect such a process might have on owners of the various
properties. Although the concept was not dismissed, a compelling
case would have to be made if it was decide to seek the listing of
anywhere in Craster or Dunstan.
Although it was agreed
that the points raised thus far all required attention, the most
pressing issue was the situation regarding parking in the village and
surrounding area. Bryn Owen explained that the Parish Council had
been working for some time to try and get the area for parking within
the Quarry Car Park extended. It thought it had agreement from
Northumberland County Council to move back the internal fencing and
create additional parking spaces but the County Council had now
back-tracked from that agreement. The Parish Council had also
been working with the County Council to try and get the Turn Field open
for more than 28 days a year as an overspill car park. The Parish
Council were currently trying to get Northumberland County Council to
move the 30mph speed limit back to the foot of the Tower Bank which may
enable the County Council to withdraw its objection to the opening of
the Turn Field for more days than currently. This may require a
20mph speed limit from the existing 30mph signs but the Parish Council
considered that this would be acceptable if it would increase the level
of off-street parking available for visitors. There were mixed
views about the parking in Dunstan. Although application of
double yellow lines along one side of the road might help to reduce the
level of obstructive and dangerous parking, the counter argument was
that this would raise the speed of traffic travelling through the
village which would be unwelcome. However none of this discussion
addressed the issue of those visitors who would not pay to park in any
event but who expected to park on the streets in Craster to the
detriment of the residents.
In the closing
discussion the question was raised about the effectiveness of the
Parish Council. If the Parish Council felt that its voice was not
being heard, what was the point of doing anything but the legal minimum?
Because of the issues
raised at the meeting and the impact that these issues would have on
the precept for 2016/7, it was agreed that a further Parish Meeting
should be held in January 2016 so that the Parish Council could
understand the feeling of the community about how it should set the
precept.
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