Parish Council Report

Report of Parish Council Meeting held on 8th December 2015

A glass of wine and a mince pie, as is traditional at the Christmas meeting, were enjoyed by all those residents who attended the meeting.

Beeswax Update
Robert Hall from Beeswax gave a brief presentation on the company’s proposal to erect a new grain store and staff facilities on land between Wasps Nest and Nocton.  Members of the Parish Council and those residents present were the first to be shown details of the proposed development which will include a new farm access road from the MAC complex and some widening of an existing access road (see the Nocton Blog for further details).

It was obvious that a lot of thought had gone into where the proposed buildings, etc would be, so as to minimise any impact on the residents of both Nocton and Dunston.  Plans will be available as soon as Beeswax is ready to go ahead with planning permission, probably some time in the New Year.

Police Report
As all residents who receive the ‘Lincs Alert’ will be aware, over the past few weeks some four or five break-ins and attempted break-ins have occurred in the village.  Residents are asked, therefore, to make doubly sure that they have secured their property, including sheds, when going out.  If anyone should see or hear anything that they are concerned about in this regard, they should call 999 and not the 101 number, so that the police can respond more promptly.

Date for your diary:  The next Community Policing Panel meeting is on Tuesday, 18th January (at 7.00 p.m. in Potterhanworth Village Hall).

Village Hall Management Committee
Councillor Williams reported that some of the time consuming minor problems associated with the maintenance of the building that keep cropping up are, for a trial period, to be dealt with by the Village Keeper.  Residents are reminded that the Committee’s Annual General Meeting is to take place on Tuesday 25 January at 7.00 pm.

The draft VHMC budget for the coming year approved by the Parish Council subject to clarification of a couple of items where projected costs seemed to have increased significantly over those in the previous year.

Village Keeper/Dog Warden
Colin Smith has collected a fair number of bags of leaves that are presently being stored at the back of the village hall.  If anyone would like them for compost, please just help yourself.  NKDC has reported that three of our dog bins are not at the required height!  Councillor Jones and Colin are to investigate and correct where possible.

Nocton Hall
The Clerk informed us that after some two years of asking, a new asbestos survey on Nocton Hall hospital site is to be carried out by NKDC.

Nocton and Potterhanworth Neighbourhood Plan
The analysis of the questionnaires has now been completed and a draft of the proposed aims, objectives and policies for inclusion in the Plan are to be delivered to all households for comment, etc in the New Year.  Particular items on which we will be asked to comment are:  Possible uses other than/in addition to housing uses for the former RAF Hospital site at Nocton Hall; whether there are any areas of land within the villages which might be suitable for small scale housing development; and measures to reduce the speed and volume of traffic through the villages.

Youth Club
The new youth club leader, Spencer, is now in place and although numbers attending have been small, it is expected that once the New Year starts, attendance will pick up.

Village Hall Rebuild
Councillors Kaye and Williams have had three interesting and informative meetings recently - at Phoenix Hall, Collingham; with Sam Smith at Community Lincs; and with Malcolm Smith, the project leader of the Venue at Navenby.  Unfortunately the days of Big Lottery grants are no longer with us and “LN4” does not qualify as a ‘post code’ area that attracts large scale funding.  The Parish Council is to meet in the New Year to discuss the best way forward to progress the project and how to access the necessary funding from other sources.

Village Newsletter
It is hoped to have a monthly local information news sheet available in the new year.

Planning
Councillors are all displeased that a development of two houses at 14 Nocton Road (on which we made no comment on) was not approved whilst the application for housing on the Wellhead plot (which was consistently opposed), was approved.  All the arguments put forward to turn down the application on Nocton Road also applied to the Wellhead site (perhaps more so).  The Parish Council is, therefore, to write to Planning at NKDC seeking an explanation/clarification as to the reasoning behind these two decisions.

Date of next meeting
Tuesday, 12th January 2016.

Councillor MaryAnn Williams
“May Peace be your gift at Christmas and your blessing all year through”