Chairman’s report 2016

Follifoot with Plompton Parish Council

Chairman’s Report to the Annual Parish Meeting – Thursday 14th April 2016

Planning & Development

The Parish Council continues to take a positive approach to planning applications and we are a key consultee in the Harrogate Borough Council planning process.

All applications are considered carefully, taking into account the National Planning Policy Framework and other planning policies.

We are also mindful of the impact on the parish and its residents in terms of scale, appearance and infrastructure impact. Particular considerations are the capacity of the water supply and drains and the safety of our roads.

Appropriate development which supports the school, shop, pubs, church, sport and leisure organisations and groups has to be good for the community.

We actively supported the affordable housing development known as Radcliffe Close which was completed late last year, and we have welcomed a number of new residents to our community.

More recently there has been an application for a housing development on Spofforth Lane. We have listened carefully to residents’ concerns and in particular considered the road safety issues both during construction and once completed. North Yorkshire County Council Highways also raised some key objections on the grounds of road safety. A revised access layout has been put forward by the applicant’s team, and we will be considering this in the monthly parish council meeting that follows on after the annual meeting.

At last year’s annual meeting I mentioned that the Development Plan produced by Harrogate Borough Council had been rejected by the Central Inspector.

Harrogate Borough Council are now developing a new plan – I will cover this in more detail a little later on the agenda.

Moving onto Recreation and Leisure

It’s good to see there are now a variety of sport and leisure organisations and groups in the parish.

In addition to the long established cricket club, the Harrogate Rugby Club have now settled into their new home, and due to extensive bulb planting they have made a big effort on the visual appearance of their ground.

To support smaller groups the Parish Council was happy to make a donation to the Bowls Club, adding to their own self-generated funds to buy replacement bowls mats.

Friends of Follifoot School organised a very successful Beer Festival last summer which included some great family entertainment too, and I’m pleased to say that their third festival will be taking place later this year.

Friends of Follifoot Wildlife Recreation and Play have been working hard to develop a proposal for a Recreation and Play facility aimed at benefitting the whole community – and Sam Gallimore will provide a brief update on this later in this meeting.

Other activities include Pilates in the village hall on a Monday night, and a Book Club which also meets on a regular basis.

I would encourage as many people as possible to participate in and support these groups.

Next Litter Picking, Cleaning and Maintenance

We continue to carry out litter picking twice a year, and the next one takes place this coming Sunday – all are very welcome.

We are seeing more and more examples of where Harrogate Borough Council are reducing what they will do – particularly in respect of the extent and frequency of cutting the grass verges, and also in keeping drains and gutters free of leaves and debris.

We have recently taken the decision to engage a village Handy Person to carry out periodic cutting of the grass verges, watering the plants at the entrances to the villages and adhoc maintenance work.

Our Parish Clerk will be responsible for the issuing of “work orders” to the handy person and they will be paid on an hourly rate basis for tasks completed.

This will be on a trial basis and we will review its success after 1 year.

One final comment for this section is the subject of dog mess.

During the year we delivered a letter to every house in the village on this matter, highlighting our concerns about owners allowing their dogs to foul the streets without clearing up the mess. Of most concern was where this was taking place near the entrances to the village school.

I have not received any new complaints of this recently. We will continue to monitor the situation and involve the Harrogate Council Dog Warden if or when necessary.

Now Crime and Safety

Our thanks to Mike Hammond and other residents in the neighbourhood watch – Mike provides regular updates at the Council Meetings

I pleased to say that crime levels are low in our community – in total numbers and in seriousness
– Examples are thefts from garages/sheds.
– Cold callers and confidence tricksters – which at best is annoying and at worst quite intimidating
There are however increasingly more sophisticated methods – cybercrime e.g. Telephone scams and phishing emails on the Internet – identity theft

Whist the methods may be evolving the principles are still the same – the importance of personal awareness and protection, and looking out for our friends, family and neighbours

Next – an update on communications

We use a variety of methods of communication to stay connected with members of the parish community.

The Website and notice boards regular methods, and from time to time we have made mail drops to every house.

We continue to work hard to ensure all houses in the parish have access to faster broadband speeds and also better mobile phone signals. In spite of great efforts, by Councillor Hinchcliffe in particular, this is proving very difficult. We will continue to press on this.

We are also trying to persuade the Village Hall Committee to introduce Wi-Fi into the village hall, something which many other communities with village halls have the benefit of.

And Finally – a few comments our finances

We have a limited parish precept (our share of the total council tax bill).

For the year just finished the total precept was £7,000 per annum.

This budget is used to pay for the salary of the parish clerk, asset renewal maintenance, donations, insurance, membership fees, and training and office expenses.

All accounts are available for public viewing and are audited by Margaret Kettlewell. Our thanks to Margaret.

The Parish Council discussed and voted to increase the Precept for the coming year to £9,000 per annum.

The main reason for this increase is for the cost of the village handy person, to cover the increased work that we will carry out as a parish council.

The objective is to ensure we have a village we can all feel proud of.

As I said earlier though this is on a trial basis, and if not considered successful we could take the decision to reduce next year’s parish precept.

Hbc – development plan

As I mentioned earlier – the previous HBC development plan was rejected by the central inspector as being inadequate to meet the district’s needs – particularly in respect of housing.

HBC are now developing a new plan, but this will take some time to complete.

In the last year Harrogate Borough Council asked landowners to put forward sites for potential development across the whole of the borough.

They have subsequently published a number of potential development scenarios – e.g. a new “village” at Flaxby Park, large developments near existing towns (Harrogate, Knaresborough and Ripon, and more modest developments next to villages in the Borough (including Follifoot)

None of these development scenarios have been decided on at this stage, but when the time comes during the consultation process we will make sure we speak up on behalf of the community. I would also encourage all residents to follow this closely, and at the appropriate time have their say too.

There are a number of sites in and around the village – and details of these are on the HBC website.

That concludes my annual report.

Thank you.

Nigel MacDermid
Chair – Follifoot with Plompton Parish Council