BEPTON PARISH COUNCIL

Chairman: Mr. Howard Ewing
Clerk: Mrs. Lorraine Grocott, BEM, BA Hons (Local Policy)
23 West Meade, Milland, Nr Liphook, Hampshire, GU30 7NB
Tel 01428 741393… Email: postmaster@milland-wsc-pc.gov.uk
Website – http://www.bepton.org

MINUTES of the Meeting of BEPTON PARISH COUNCIL
Thursday 17 March 2016 at The Park House Hotel, Bepton Road

Present: Mrs. R Hart (in the Chair), Mr G Ryan, Mrs L Milner, Mrs. H Hollowood,
Mrs Alex Cunningham,
Councillor Caroline Neville, (District Councillor)
Councillor Gordon McAra, (County Councillor)
One Member of the Public

451. Apologies – Mr H. Ewing, Mrs C Bower

452. Declaration of Interests of Members on Agenda – There were none.

453. Public Participation –

454. Minutes of Meeting of 21 January 2016 were approved and signed.

455. Report from the District Councillor – Cllr Caroline Neville
a) The government will not be pursuing the northern bypass. Instead, the four major junctions will be upgraded along the current road.
b) Two Syrian refugee families will be settled in the Chichester area in the near future. Hyde Martlet will provide accommodation and there will be social support to help them settle in.
c) All dogs must now be chipped and have a collar showing their name and home details.
d) The Novium Museum has been accredited by the Arts Council.
e) Traffic Regulation Orders – The criteria have changed. Only 3 of the 18 TROs have been accepted. Unfortunately, the speed limit request for the Severals was one of those rejected.
f) All of the 8 possible sand mineral sites in the joint South Downs National Park and the West Sussex County Council mineral site study published in 2014 have been withdrawn.
g) The independent Local Government Boundary Commission for England is carrying out an electoral review of Chichester District. The review will draw new council ward boundaries across Chichester. The Commission has announced that 35 councillors should be elected to the council in future: 12 fewer than the current arrangements. The parish is being asked for evidence about their local area to help them decide a new pattern of wards for Chichester. The proposal for Bepton is to become part of Midhurst Ward and would have two District Councillors. Other parishes in the Ward would be Stedham with Iping, West Lavington, and Cocking. One of the criteria is that they share ‘patterns of community life, represented by transport, community halls and other shared interests’. The councillors agreed with this proposal.

456. Report from the County Councillor – Cllr Gordon McAra
a) Cllr McAra repeated the information about the TRO’s. A Highways Engineer will be at the next County Local Committee meeting at Fernhurst on 21 March and will explain the reasons for this decision. It is likely that there will be a higher requirement in the criteria for the safety aspect. Whilst you can have speed limits the police are unable to enforce them.
b) The Council will be increasing the average tax bill by just under 10 pence a week, to protect the vital services. This means that for an average (Band D) council taxpayer, the charge will be £2.80 per week.
Minutes of Bepton Parish Council meeting 17 March 2016

456. continued
c) Mr D Hudson at New Barn Cottage – His road will be resurfaced and dressed i.e. sprayed with tar and gritted in the coming week.
d) Church Lane/Bugshill Lane flooding. – The silt has been scraped by the Community Support Teams. It is recognised that this will need to be done on a regular basis to stop flooding.
e) Sand Pits – There is still an application for inert sand. Midhurst Town Council will continue to maintain its objection bearing in mind there are still 6 years in the contract to go. Midhurst is particularly concerned as the roads in the town are suffering.

457. Chairman’s item – In his absence
a) The dilapidated state of the notice board on Severals Green had been brought to his attention. The woodwork needs renovating and the paving slabs need clearing of moss and grass so they can serve their purpose as a footpath. Councillors agreed to investigate. It was suggested that perhaps the contractor who mows the grass from time to time may be able to help.
It was also agreed that the mowing contractor be asked to mow the grass to prevent the grass growing and getting out of hand as last year. It is hoped the mowing will continue to be done by Highways within the Midhurst cycle.

458. HM Queen’s birthday celebrations – 21 April – her birthday and 12 June ‘Party in the Park’
An item will be included in the Newsletter to encourage anyone in the local community to come forward to organise an occasion. Chichester District Council has made a grant of £250 available to each parish in the area to support a community event to celebrate this occasion. The idea of Clean for the Queen to tidy up the area was supported but only in so far as councillors or members of the community wished to do so.

459. Annual Parish Assembly (APA) and Annual Statutory Meeting (ASM) Thursday 12 May –
The ASM will be held at 6pm for one hour and the APA will start at 7.30pm. The meeting will welcome Mr Richard Pailthorpe, Weald and Downland Museum as the Speaker. Agendas will be copied for distribution to the households in the parish.

460. Spring Newsletter – Carey Bower was thanked for the Spring Newsletter.

461. Website problems – The Clerk reported on the Milland Clerks email address which is used for Bepton. In about the year 2000 Chichester District Council (CDC) rolled out a programme for parishes in the district providing the Clerk with a laptop computer and an email account. For Milland the email address was postmaster@milland-wsx-pc.gov.uk. CDC used Claranet as the Domain Host for the various domains; that for Milland being milland-wsx-pc.gov.uk. The conditions for the use of a .gov.uk name, as defined by the Naming and Approvals Committee (NAC), which is run by the Cabinet Office, state that the web address must lead directly to the Home page for their organisation on the .gov.uk domain. As a website with an address of milland-wsx—pc.gov.uk doesn’t exist, Milland was deemed to be in breach of the regulation.
In October 2015 JISC, the Domain Registry Service used by Claranet, wrote to Claranet drawing attention to this breach of the Regulations, and said that failure to rectify the issue within 60 days would result in the domain being closed down. Subsequently the ‘drop dead’ date became the 16 February 2016. Claranet failed to inform the various people concerned of this deadline. On the 9th February the Clerks emails stopped working. Some urgent phone calls to Claranet quickly established the problem and we were told that the only way to get emails working again was to set up the relevant website. Contact was made with Fernhurst PC and with the help of one of their councillors who works in IT we were able to set up a new website which now conforms to the regulations.
The Clerks husband had been, by default, heavily involved in resolving the situation and as this website serves Bepton PC the Clerk asked if Bepton would make a nominal payment to him. It was agreed to make a payment to him of £50.

Minutes of Bepton Parish Council meeting 17 March 2016

462. Finance report – Mrs Grocott RFO

The above payments were approved by the council.
a) The VAT of £365.78 has been reclaimed from HM Revenue & Customs.
b) Letters of thanks for donations were received from MAC, Bepton PCC, Midhurst Community Bus, RVS , Outset Youth Action, Rother Valley Together, CAB.
c) ONLINE BANKING – The council agrees to move to Online banking which will require the signatures from the current signatories and approval of the council. The Financial Regulations will be amended to include “or electronic bank transfer” after “cheque” in Para 6.3. The Clerk will become the authorised signatory on the account. All payments will continue to be approved by two councillors. The authorised signatories will be Lorraine Grocott, Rosalind Hart, Carey Bower, Gerard Ryan. Shirley Fay is to be removed.
RESOLUTION – the authorised signatories in the current mandate, for the account detailed in section 2 of the NatWest Community Organisation Mandate, be changed in accordance with sections 5 and 6 and the current mandate will continue as amended. This was AGREED.

463. Planning Report – Mrs Hart

COUNCIL’S RESPONSE TO APPLICATIONS: –
SDNP/15/05369/FUL & SDNP/15/05370/LIS
Mr. Mark Bisland of Padwicks Farm requests permission to convert and extend the Grade 2 listed barn to create a two bed holiday let. This is a resubmission of SDNP/14/03133/LIS & SDNP/14/03131/FUL. Await decision.
SDNP/15/06208/LDP
Mr. Jermaine Campbell of Langwith request permission to build a single storey rear extension. Refused.
SDNP/15/06243/HOUS
Mr. Ian Lawless of Minching Lane Cottage request permission to build a single storey rear extension. Permitted.
SDNP/15/06373/HOUS
Mr Michael Steele of Woodlands Cottage request permission to build a recreational outbuilding alongside an outdoor swimming pool. Await decision.
SDNP/16/00410/HOUS
Ms Helen Bryant of Bepton Boxes request permission to build a single storey rear extension. Await decision.
Minutes of Bepton Parish Council meeting 17 March 2016

465. Highways & Byways

a) Damage to verge on Bepton Road opposite Frogmore has been caused by a heavy lorry gouging out the verge. The verge is saturated from the wet winter and there is concern that further accidents could occur. This has been reported to Highways.

b) Community Support Teams – WSCC have been consulting on Highway services. They are reviewing the way they currently primarily deliver on areas of discretionary service. One of these is the Community Support Teams. These teams undertake small scale street scene improvements including the following: –
• cleaning vegetation overhanging paths
• some hedge trimming
• siding pavements and clearing unsightly weeds
• sign cleansing
• removing unlawful signs
• simple street furniture repairs and removal of sign clutter
• hand clearing drainage grips and some ditches
• clearing debris away from gully tops and small culverts.
Councils have been offered 4 options. The Clerk believes that the Chairman has responded to this.

c) Centurion Way – The SDNPA Cycling Project Officer is reviewing the project plan for all sections between West Dean and Midhurst to consider the next actions accordingly based on resource, funding, outputs etc. Once they have a broad action plan, they will be able to liaise with MAC (and all stakeholders) to incorporate good ideas of how they will take the ambition forward of connection Midhurst with Chichester.

d) Rights of Way Routine Inspection January 2016 – No report received.

466. District /County Organisations
a) North Chichester County Local Committee meeting Fernhurst 21 March 16
b) North West Forum – Planned changes in Policing – Lodsworth 5 April 2016
c) SSALC New Councillor training Chichester Park Hotel, 23 June 2-5pm.

Date of next meetings –
Annual Statutory Meeting starting at 6pm followed by the
Annual Parish Assembly starting at 7.30pm
on Thursday 12 May in the Lower Barn, Park Hotel, Bepton.

Chairman: …………………………………. Date: …………………………..

These Minutes are unconfirmed until signed by the Chairman.