| The Chairman
welcomed everyone to the meeting. |
| 1. |
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MINUTES OF
THE ANNUAL PARISH MEETING 2004. |
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The Minutes of
the last Annual Parish Meeting, having been previously circulated, were then
duly signed as a true record of events. All agreed. |
| 2. |
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MATTERS
ARISING FROM THE MINUTES. |
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The Chairman
advised that due to changes in the School Governor Appointing System the Parish
Council no longer appointed a School Governor. The Chairman reported that Peter
Bentley was still active as a School Governor butthat he did not have to give
the Parish Council a report, as it was no longer Parish Council nominated
business. |
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The Chairman
reported that Neighbourhood Watch was now active in the village and that Stan
Elgar was the Co-ordinator. |
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The Chairman
reported that Keith Blackburn had taken on the position of Tree Warden for the
village and thanked him for his work. |
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The Chairman
reported that the new Doctors Surgery was now in progress and advised that work
had been delayed due to drainage problems, which had now been resolved. |
| 3. |
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CHAIRMAN'S
REPORT. |
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The Chairman
discussed the following report, which had been prepared and circulated. |
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Council
Membership |
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After many
years as Chair of the Council, Sally Johnson decided not to stand for
re-election at the AGM in May 2004. We are very grateful to Sally for all her
hard work on behalf of the village and I am most grateful that she agreed to
carry on as Vice Chair. |
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Planning |
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The Council
continues to receive numerous planning applications for review and comment.
Under a process called 'delegated powers', some plans are reviewed by the clerk
who seeks the advice of three councillors. However, this year we have adopted
an approach of automatically putting plans, which meet certain criteria, before
the full Council. These include new build and re-build, commercial,
conservation area and green belt. We continue to make comments to Chelmsford
Borough Council in an effort to maintain the village appearance, but are
surprised by many of the developments that end up being approved. |
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Local
Amenities |
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Work to improve
the drainage of The Common has been completed this year and work to improve the
road outside The Almshouses and the car park next to All Saints' church should
commence shortly. |
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A new Council
notice board has been procured for The Square and, subject to Borough Council
approval, new notice boards for Back Lane, The Common and next to the library
should be installed this year. |
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The Council
have been in discussion with The Woodland Trust on the possibility of
purchasing The Larches in Swan Lane to preserve the woods. |
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Keith Blackburn
has kindly volunteered to be our Tree Warden. This Borough Council initiative
aims to improve tree preservation and appropriate planting and Keith has
already been very active in this role. |
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An
order has been placed for new play equipment on The Common, which should be
installed before the summer. |
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The
annual 'bin-it' day is scheduled for Saturday 7th May at 10:00, starting at The
Common. A skip, litter pickers, gloves and bin bags will be provided. Please
come and help tidy the Village in preparation for the visit of the judges for
this year's Best Kept Village Competition. |
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Policing |
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This year we
welcomed PC Adrian Elmer as our community police officer. Adrian has been
active in getting to know the area and his monthly 'surgeries' held in the Tea
Rooms have been very popular and successful. |
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Traffic
Management |
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Progress on
completing the High Street work has been hindered by personnel changes in the
Borough Council and more recently by the complete transfer of responsibilities
to Essex County Council. This has been raised with the leader of the Borough
Council and we have now established links to the new organisation. |
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An
HGV 'origin and destination survey' was carried out last year and we have
reviewed the results. The conclusions showed that the majority of vehicles are
legitimately using the B1007 between the Billericay and Chelmsford areas,
rather than 'rat running' to avoid the A127/A130/A12. |
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PC Elmer has
also been checking vehicle speeds in the area and has warned a number of
drivers, most of who turned out to be local! |
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Our next steps
are to re-visit the original proposition that the new A130 would provide a
significant improvement in the Village traffic situation. |
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Village
Plan |
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We
have been working with the Rural Community Council of Essex (RCCE) on the
process to develop a village plan. This is a natural follow-up to the
Millennium Survey and is intended to be a community led activity to develop
plans for the most important aspects of the village. A planning workshop will
be held on Thursday 12th May at 7PM in Stock Primary School and all
parishioners are encouraged to participate. |
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If we are
successful with this plan, we can then move on to a Village Design Statement,
which has the potential to be adopted by the Borough Council as a planning
guideline for the area. |
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In closing, I
would like to thank Lorraine Green, our clerk, for all her hard work; the
council members for their efforts and support; Ian Grundy for representing the
constituency as a Chelmsford Borough Councillor; Roger Watling, for managing
the Village website; and the members of the public who attend our
meetings. |
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The Chairman
reported that in the near future there would be a Parish Councillor vacancy and
that the Parish Council would be discussing the matter with Chelmsford Borough
Council in order to start the official process. |
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The Chairman
commented on the endless amount of building work that was taking place in the
village and also discussed the procedure for discussing planning applications
to the parishioners. |
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The Chairman
advised that a new noticeboard would soon be erected outside the
newsagents. |
| 4. |
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TWEEDY
CHARITY. |
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The Chairman
read out the following report that had been prepared by the Trustee, Mr Barry
Woodgate. |
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Again, as in
the previous year we have had full occupancy of the four cottages. |
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The hedges to
the roadside of the houses were ruthlessly trimmed but as expected have fully
recovered and it is hoped to keep these to the same level in the future. It not
only helps to keep the cost down but we feel improves the view of the
cottages. |
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The road
fronting the houses is in desperate need of repair and I understand that the
Parish Council has this in hand. |
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The accounts
for previous years and also up to March 2005 have been completed and after a
long search Mr Alex Smith has kindly offered to oversee the accounts. The
previous auditor did not wish to continue but his contribution has been much
appreciated. The overall financial position of the Charity is sound but thought
needs to be given to refurbishing the bathrooms and kitchens, which clearly
will be an expensive undertaking. |
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The continued
support of the Parish Council is much appreciated. |
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Barry and Eija Woodgate are to live in Portugal and therefore are
unable to continue as Trustees. However, Tony and Diane Barker have most kindly
offered to take over and this is much appreciated. The handover will take place
at the end of April 2005. |
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The Chairman
said that the Parish Council were extremely thankful to Barry and Eija Woodgate
for their help in being Trustees of the Charity and expressed thanks to Tony
and Diane Barker for agreeing to take on the role. It was agreed that the Clerk
should write to both couples thanking them. |
| 5. |
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ANY OTHER
BUSINESS. |
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A parishioner
asked when P.C. Elmer held his surgeries. The Chairman advised that it is
advertised in Stock Press and in the newsagents but that he would get the
information for the parishioner. |
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It was reported
that Essex County Council appear to be completely negative on the whole traffic
issue for the village. It was suggested that a public meeting be called with
the traffic engineers in attendance so that the matter could be discussed. The
Chairman said that the time may now be right to get the new people at Essex
County Council involved with the matter especially if sufficient momentum could
be gained from the community through the Village Plan to show the support of
the village. The Chairman discussed the recent traffic matters and explained
his frustrations on the lack of progress. It was reported that the village
cannot have gates as buses go through the village but a parishioner advised
that other villages had gates that were on a bus route. The Chairman advised
that these were unclassified roads with bus routes going through. |
| The Chairman
discussed the Village Plan and advised that RCCE have confidence that Essex
County Council and Chelmsford Borough Council will take notice of it once
implemented. The Chairman advised that having a Village Design Statement and
Village Plan would hopefully be very effective in engaging local government,
but that it needed sufficient community support and adoption to drive through
the plans. |
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Keith
Blackburn, the new Tree Warden, reported that he had written an article in
Stock Press regarding value of trees to the environment. Mr Blackburn reported
that there was a tree planting/hedge planting scheme in place and that he would
welcome suggestions where trees/hedges could be planted to improve the
environment. Mr Blackburn also reported that the Neighbourhood Environmental
Action Team (NEAT) were giving a grant to plant bulbs in public places. Mr
Blackburn suggested planting them on grass verges outside houses and asked for
parishioners to give him any other ideas they had in order that he could take
advantage of the grant and improve the look of the village. |
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Cllr. Johnson
thanked the Chairman for his work over the last year and said that there had
been a number of practical improvements to the Council since Cllr. Peacock had
been Chairman. |
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The Chairman
thanked everyone for coming; the meeting closed at 8.31pm. |
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