Minutes
WILDMORE PARISH COUNCIL
Clerk: Mrs Angela Appleyard
Marlborough, Old Fen Lane, Scrub Hill, New York, Lincoln, LN4 4XD
Tel: 01526 342512 or 07879044667 Email: angela.wildmorepc@outlook.com
Minutes of the Annual Parish Meeting held on Monday 9th May 2022 at 7.00pm held in New York Lecture Hall
Cllr A Everard, Chairman of the Parish Council, welcomed everyone to the meeting.
Present: Cllr A Everard, Cllr R Kirk, Cllr P Bargh, Cllr J Lawes, Cllr A Harrison, Cllr M Foster, District Councillor and Mrs M Casey, Churchwarden.
Apologies: Cllr S Avison, Cllr M Jones and Cllr M A Jones.
Minutes of the previous Annual Parish Meeting
The minutes of the Annual Parish Meeting held on Tuesday 4th May 2021 were accepted as a true record.
To receive a report from the Chair of the Parish Council
Cllr Everard thanked everyone for carrying out their roles over the last twelve months. There haven’t been many controversial issues this past year, but the same items appear on most agendas; Speeding/Highways/Potholes. Once highway problems or potholes have been reported on Fix My Street they have been repaired quite quickly. Everyone was reminded to use this method of reporting problems to Highways.
Cllr Everard thanked the clerk for looking after everything and thanked Cllr Avison, Cllr Foster and Cllr Ashton our District and County Councillors for their help and support.
Crime levels in the area remain low, but some hare coursing and thefts have been reported.
Cllr Everard laid the poppy wreath on behalf of the Parish Council at the War Memorial on Remembrance Sunday. The War Memorial is still in need of repair work and grants will be investigated to get the work done.
The Parish Council continue to help with the maintenance of the Churchyard.
The Parish Survey sent out, had a good response from Parishioners with most respondents expressing concerns over the state of the roads, potholes and broadband. They were however quite happy with the school, church, and war memorial.
Cllr Everard thanked the hall committee for their continued hard work in raising funds to keep the village hall open for Parishioners to use. The car park has now been resurfaced, thanks to a very kind donation, a new sign has been erected on the front of the hall and a flagpole has been installed.
Events to mark the Queen’s Jubilee are to be held at the hall on Thursday 2nd June with the lighting of a beacon to mark the event. A newsletter has been sent to all residents of the Parish advising them of the events.
The newsletter was also used to ask Parishioners if they would be interested in Community Broadband.
Cllr Everard closed by once again thanking his fellow Councillors.
To receive a report from the Village Hall Committee
Cllr Lawes reported that the hall committee have been holding successful bike nights, the last one raising £411 for hall funds. These bike nights as well as a money earner are a good way of bringing people from the local area into the village.
There has been a good response for vehicles for the road run for the Jubilee and plans for the event are well underway.
The next meeting of the hall committee will be on Saturday 14th May to arrange future events.
To receive a report from the Headmaster of the School
Cllr Bargh, headteacher, gave a report on the school. The past year has been just as exciting, diverse, challenging and emotionally draining as the previous year. Despite being open since last June there have been pupil and staff absences due to Covid. Staff have been outstanding in their professionalism and commitment. They have been supportive in everything the school has tried to do.
Support from parents and carers has been wonderful and has kept the staff going over these difficult months. The school have a very good, open relationship with the parents/carers and communicate with them daily, if needed, at the start and end of each day.
Academic Year 2021-22 has been extremely positive in terms of pupil numbers, with the cohort increasing by nine since September, four of which are in reception. This gives a total number of pupils of 46. There are another four children to join reception in September but 11 leave in July.
It has been difficult to recruit staff this year. The school have been advertising for TAs since September and have only just managed to fill the places.
The new build was completed in December and has given a new classroom, meeting room, toilet, and storage area.
The school is inclusive in everything it does and the reputation for SEND provision continues to grow.
The curriculum provision has been rewritten this past year and this can be found on the school website.
Unfortunately, the pandemic has hit the recruitment of volunteers. The school does not currently have an active PTFA and are always on the lookout for governors.
Thanks were expressed to Cllr Bargh.
To receive a report from the Churchwarden of St. Peter’s Church Wildmore
During 2012/222 St. Peter’s Church at Wildmore continued to serve the community within Wildmore Parish.
The church is fortunate that the local community is supportive when fund raising activities are held as it is getting increasingly difficult to find the resources to keep going when all the bills keep increasing.
The Church Council is grateful to the Parish Council for keeping the grass cut and for organising essential work on the trees. Extremely strong winds this year caused damage to a property next door to the church. Unfortunately, due to poor drainage, still unresolved, the ground was waterlogged and when the trees were felled large ruts were caused due to the heavy machinery. Once the area dries out soil will be brought in, levelled and grass resown.
Although very few local people attend the services, the churchyard is visited by many people who have relatives there, evident by the number of wreaths at Christmas and the laying of flowers at other times on the graves.
Financially the books were just balanced this year, paying quota of £2000, utilities, insurance, and sundry items. Most of the income came from the fete held at Willow Farm, the Harvest Supper held in New York Village Hall and donations from the Music Festival at Willow Farm.
The Church of England has found itself in dire financial circumstances and cannot fund its current system. Over the last few months churches have been discussing the way forward under the title of ‘Resourcing Sustainable Churches’ Basically, it means unless you can contribute significantly each year towards the Local Partnership Group, who will organise ministers to lead services your church will have to close. Churches will no longer have a priest allocated to them, the current vicar is retiring, and his last service will be on 9th October at Sibsey.
Various options were put to the churches, and it was obvious that St. Peter’s only had two options open to them:
To close. The church is a ‘Fen Chapel’, built and paid for by the Government under the ‘Fen Chapel Act’ when the fens were drained. Currently the Church Commissioners are under an obligation to maintain the exterior of the church whilst it remains open. If it closes, they would be under obligation to sell the property.
To become a ‘Festival Church’. This is what the Church Council have opted for. The church is covenanted to pay £2000 a year to the Local Partnership Group which will be run from Holy Trinity church in Boston. As a festival church the entitlement could be for between one to five services a year only. The leadership of those services would be dictated by the availability of the priests and lay readers in the group. It will be a case of those who pay the most will get the most services. The Brothertoft Group have decided that they would like to continue to work as it has been and it is hoped that the total number of services will be shared equally between the five churches. There may also be three lay readers and one retired vicar who will supplement these allocated services if allowed. It is all very complicated and there are still a lot of decisions to be made and therefore nothing has been finalised. Until 2025 the church is in a transitional period so individual churches can change any decisions if they wish.
To receive a report from the District Councillor
Cllr Foster reported. During the past 12 months the District Council have managed to keep essential services going. Refuse services have managed to keep going with all rounds being carried out. This has been very difficult at times with many of the staff being ill.
There has been a lot of bad press about the increase to forty pence at the public toilets and the increase in the green waste collection. ELDC do not want to stop services but if they don’t get the revenue in this is what will have to happen.
Currently ELDC are going to car parks/parks/sites which need tidying and cleaning the sites including using steam cleaners and removing chewing gum to clean the district up.
The Towns fund has seen fifty million pounds pledged to Skegness/Mablethorpe/Boston to improve the area. The money will be available once Government receives detailed plans of how it will be spent.
There are currently many planning applications going through, with developments in Coningsby and Tattershall increasing at an alarming rate. Facilities such as doctors and schools cannot cope with the numbers in the area now so the new developments will have a massive impact on the area. There are currently 7800 patients on the books at the Coningsby Surgery and one doctor should be responsible for 2000 patients. There are currently only 1.09 full time doctors at the surgery.
Tedder Hall is open once again with limited access, reception services are open but there is not full access to officers.
The new council offices at Horncastle are at the internal fitting stage. Boston College will be hopefully moving in in September with ELDC in December/January.
To receive a report from the County Councillor
Cllr Ashton joined the meeting.
He apologised for being late, but he had been at another meeting.
LCC have a big obligation to repair 5,500 miles of roads in the County on a reduced budget from Government. They are doing the best they can and are hoping to maintain the Highways budget.
Every penny increase for LCC on the council tax will be used for Adult Social Care or on road repairs.
Funding won’t be cut in these areas; the Council will have to find other areas to save money. Local Government is under severe financial pressure.
There are currently 150 Ukraine’s settled into Lincolnshire with 335 approved matches so far.
Questions and Comments from the Public
Cllr Ashton asked people to chase him up for answers on any pothole repairs which aren’t being fixed under the Fix My Street system.
Cllr Kirk asked Cllr Foster if he could look at the car parking at Huttoft. The car park is pay on a phone call basis, but it needs to be either cash or card or ideally both. He will investigate this.
Councillors were advised that there are ongoing issues at the animal sanctuary. There is currently a legal battle going on and animals are allowed to be kept there until the decision of the appeal.
An accident had taken place at the crossroads on Sunday, but no details were available.
Cllr Everard thanked everyone for attending.
The Parish Meeting closed at 8.10pm.