Annual Parish Mins.doc Page 1 of 6
Minutes of the Annual Parish Meeting of Tasburgh held on
Tuesday 25th May 2010 at 8.00pm in Tasburgh Village Hall.
Present: Dave Moore Parish Councillor (Chairman)
Brian Hill Parish Councillor
Keith Read Parish Councillor and Tasburgh United Charities
Don Proudfoot Parish Councillor and Social Club
Deborah Sacks Parish Councillor, Village Hall and Preston Primary School
John Mann Parish Councillor
Julie King Parish Clerk
Ann Gibbons Over 50s Keep Fit
Graham Pates Scout Group
Julie Lawrence Recreation for All
Alison Thomas County Councillor
plus nine members of the public
1. Apologies
Apologies were received from:
Roger Burnett
Geoff Merchant Parish Councillor
Lynn Cutress Redwings
PCSO Rebecca Holden
2. Minutes of meeting held on 12th May 2009
Minutes were agreed as a true record of proceedings proposed by Keith Read,
seconded by John Mann, all in favour.
3. Parish Council Reports
a. Chairman’s Report
Dave Moore explained that he had recently taken over from Brian Hill as
Chairman of the Parish Council. Brian had served as Chairman for 21
continuous years and had been on the committee that had decided to set a
maximum term of office for the Chair of the Parish Council of seven years. He
said that Brian’s record of 21 years would therefore never be matched or
beaten. Dave took the opportunity to thank Brian for his dedicated hard work
over the years on behalf of everyone who had benefitted.
Brain said that he had, for the last time, been through the minute book and
picked out the highlights of the previous year. He said that although he
wouldn’t read them all, he would pass a copy to the Clerk for the record and he
summarised some of the activities.
Dave spoke of the Advisory Committees set up by the Parish Council to report
and make recommendations to the full Council. He said that a lot of work went
Annual Parish Mins.doc Page 2 of 6
on in the background on behalf of the Parish. He ended by thanking the Clerk
for her hard work during the year.
b. Financial Report
The Clerk presented the Parish Council’s accounts for the year ending 31st
March 2010, explaining the major variations from the previous year and budget.
The main expenditure had been the establishment of Burrfeld Park, just over
£24,000 had been spent to date with £21,600 coming from grants and
donations.
c. Burrfeld Park
Deborah Sacks, on behalf of the Council, presented a short report on the
progress of Burrfeld Park. She began by thanking John Mann for his hard work
in establishing the Park. She said that three volunteer days had been held,
during which 80 native trees and an apple orchard had been planted. The Parish
Council had arranged for the mowing of the site during the summer months and
shortly a small amount of weed killing would be undertaken. She said that the
project would develop over many years and she would welcome any
suggestions for the site.
d. Traffic Solutions
Deborah Sacks presented a report on the work of the Parish Council’s Traffic
Solutions Advisory Committee. Amongst other things, the committee had
looked at traffic calming on Low Road and Saxlingham Lane and had decided
to establish a Community Speed Watch group in the village. It was noted that
there was one more volunteer needed for the Community Speed Watch, anyone
interested was asked to approach the Clerk. A footpath around the bends a the
bottom of Grove Lane had been the subject of a petition of some 188 names,
nearly 20% of the village, and two meetings had been held with Highway
Officers to try to progress this.
A member of the public asked if the subject of Grit Bins for Valley Road had
been discussed. The Clerk confirmed that at the Council’s last meeting it had
been agreed to purchase one bin. The member of the public explained the
difficulty faced by the residents of Valley Road during the previous winter and
suggested that four bins were required; he agreed to speak with the residents of
Valley Road and to come back to the Council with suggested sites. Dave
Moore agreed that the Parish Council would take another look at the issue.
A member of the public asked what ‘traffic calming’ had been considered for
Low Road, Deborah Sacks said that either traffic bumps or narrowing, however
there had not been a consensus amongst Councillors.
e. Parish Plan Deborah Sacks said that she had written a ‘Monitoring Report’ for the Parish
Plan. She felt that with the change in Government, such documents would
increasingly be used to shape communities. She said that it was important that
Annual Parish Mins.doc Page 3 of 6
the Parish Plan was revisited to establish progress made and to move forward.
Communities needed carefully thought out policies, which other authorities
would be obliged to take into consideration. The document looked at the
progress made to date with the Plan and the areas still to be tackled. Deborah
outlined the report.
A member of the public raised the subject of ‘adopt a garden’ where those who
were interested in cultivating a plot were put in touch with those who could
spare some space in their garden. It was confirmed that this was an idea that
the Council was aware of. Keith Read said that he had been charged with
trying to find a site suitable for allotments in the village, however despite
speaking to a number of land owners he, so far, had been unsuccessful.
Tony Lacey spoke of the website he had established on behalf of the Village
Hall Management Committee. He said that during April it had had 18,000 hits
and thanked the Parish Clerk for introducing him to the site providers. Tony
went on to explain about a new service he had been made aware of, ipatter was
aimed at companies and community groups and could prove to be a very useful
tool for direct marketing.
Tony also said that while promoting the Recreation for All’s Festival, he had
found that the local media were calling out for information relating to village
life.
4. Reports from Village Organisations
Tasburgh Social Club
Don Proudfoot said the Club had been founded in 1993 and it had seen good and bad
years. He said that the last quarter of 2008 and the first quarter of 2009 had been
traumatic, with customer levels dropping, cancelled functions, an overstocked cellar
and few customers, the club was operating on a shoe-string, finally the Club Steward
resigned and half the committee left. During June 2009 several new members joined
the committee and by the end of the month a full committee of 13 had been
established. A six point plan had been drawn up with a target of six months to put
things right. The whole committee had worked hard, various events had been held
and membership rose again. He said that thankfully the rescue plan had paid off and
by the end of 2009 all debts had been paid and the club was back in the black. Don
said that during the year he along with two other committee members attended
Norwich City College to learn about the 2003 Licensing Act, all had passed the
exam. The Club continued to work with other village hall user groups, some had had
very successful events using the facility of the Club, and he hoped more would
follow. Don said that Tasburgh Social Club was a facility for its members, their
families and friends and paying guests to socialise and enjoy the functions that were
held. It was not in competition with any other establishment and any excess profits
would go back to the members and the community via the Village Hall. Don
finished by saying that there were 171 members, ten less than the previous year, 79
were on the e-mail list and 117 lived in Tasburgh. He thanked the committee and all
Annual Parish Mins.doc Page 4 of 6
the members for their continued support.
A member of the public added that during the previous nine months there had been
serious upheaval. In addition to the points Don had already raised he said that the
Club had decided to embrace a green future. All alcohol was sourced from within 30
miles, any food was purchased locally and significant time and effort had gone into a
major refit, resulting in a lowering of electricity consumption and less cleaning
products being used.
1st Tasburgh Sea Scouts
Graham Pates, Chair of the Executive Committee, reported that the group continued
to grow, attracting children from Tasburgh and surrounding villages. There were
Beaver, Cub, Scout and Explorer sections and he outlined some of the activities that
each of the groups had been involved in in recent months. He said that in addition to
the adult leaders for each of the sections, they had nine young leaders supporting all
of the younger sections in the group; they had also had help from a number of young
people working towards their Duke of Edinburgh award. He said that later in the
year the Scouts and Explorers would be attending a jamboree at the Norfolk
Showground, where they would join 6000 other members of the Scouting
organisation. He said that Don Proudfoot remained the Group Scout Leader and that
they had an Executive Committee that consisted of interested parents who organised
fundraising and supported the leaders in the running of the group.
Tasburgh Over 50s Keep Fit Ann Gibbins said that this was a group established in September 2008, which
continued to meet under the instruction of personal trainer, Craig Flemming. The
group consisted of 15 members (only two men!), who enjoyed the hour long sessions
and kept fit. She said that they had initially benefitted from a grant from South
Norfolk Council for equipment and that their only difficulty was with storage, it
would be most beneficial if storage could be made available at the village hall.
Tasburgh Village Hall
Deborah Sacks as Chair of the Village Hall Committee said that the committee
continued to look at extending or redeveloping the Hall, one of the aims would be to
provide additional storage. She said that after a false start, two further plans had
been drawn up. One was for an extension which would provide the much needed
storage and a new roof and was priced at around £250,000; the other was a complete
redevelopment and was likely to cost around £750,000. She said that the Village
Hall and community had to decide which would be the preferred option and she said
that there was a debate to be had.
Recreation for All
Julie Lawrence said that Recreation for All was a new group supported by
representatives from most youth based user groups and ‘fat dads’, but anyone was
welcome to join. Its purpose was to provide outdoor play and recreational facilities
to be placed around the Village Hall.
Annual Parish Mins.doc Page 5 of 6
Tasburgh United Charities
Keith Read said he was one of the five trustees of Tasburgh United Charities. He
said that there were two charities. The ‘Sand Gravel and Marlpit Charity’ owned two
or three parcels of land in the Parish, one of which was Burrfeld Park. The ‘Poor’s'
Charity’ held investments from land that had been compulsory purchased by
Depwade District Council and bequests left to it, from which they helped the ‘poor
and needy’ of the village.
He ended by saying that it was becoming increasingly difficult to find ‘poor and
needy’ Parishioners and asked that if anyone was aware of someone who may benefit
from assistance from the Charities to speak with one of the Trustees.
Preston Primary School Deborah Sacks, as a governor of the school, said that the school went from strength
to strength and was a ‘cracking school’!
Redwings Horse Sanctuary
Lynn Cutress, Chief Executive had sent a written report. 2009 had been their Silver
Jubilee year which ended with a successful Auction hosted by Paul Martin of TV’s
‘Flog It’ fame.
It had been a challenging year with a large number of admissions as well as a drop in
income due to the financial climate. The number of ‘Case Animals’ for the RSPCA
and other prosecutors continued to rise, however the Hapton site, being use only for
overflow quarantine and serious medical cases was largely the same as the previous
year. Details were given relating to a major case they had been involved in.
The report ended with details of a feature on TV’s ‘Escape to the Country’ and their
horse show at Easton College. The open weekends for 2010 would be 17th/18
th July
and 3rd/4th December.
5. Reports from Other Bodies
a. District Council
There had not been anyone present from the District Council.
b. County Council
Alison Thomas reported on the highlights from across the County Council over
the previous year. They included the lowest ever Council Tax rise of 1.9% and
careful budget management which had led to a reallocation of an additional
£2million to the Highways budget, to target potholes and surface dressing.
The Council achieved three stars for Adult Social Care and she was pleased to
report that six new schools would be delivered via the ‘Building Schools for
the Future’ programmed, including Chapel Road special school which served
children from South Norfolk. Numbers using the county’s libraries continued
to rise with the Millennium Library still the most used in the whole country.
She finished by saying that Norfolk was desperately short of Foster Carers and
anyone who may be interested should contact the Council.
Alison was asked about the programme for reinstating the County’s road
Annual Parish Mins.doc Page 6 of 6
surfaces following the bad winter and whether there would be any redress from
the contractors who had recently resurfaced the roads. She said that,
countrywide, there had been a new way of resurfacing roads; the winter had
proved that it had not worked and at this stage she was unsure of who was
responsible. She said that the important thing was to get the roads repaired and
to concentrate on whose fault it had been, and therefore who would pay later.
c. Police – written report from PCSO Rebecca Holden
PCSO Holden’s report spoke of the recent defacing of Conservative signs and
an issue, raised by the school, of a vehicle regularly parked on the junction of
Church Road and Henry Preston Road. She ended by giving details of the
members of the Long Stratton Safer Neighbourhood team and confirming that
she continued to the PCSO representative for Tasburgh.
6. General Parish Issues
No further issues were raised.
The Chairman thanked everyone for their attendance, he said that he was heartened by the
reports that had been given and the enthusiasm they showed, the meeting closed at 9.24pm.
Top Related