1 Apologies for Absence: Mr B Davis, Mr R Palmer, Ms S Wallis and Mrs M Willy.

2 Declaration of Interests

There were no declarations of interest

3 Police Community Support Officer (PCSO)

PCSO Michelle Haimes reported on the crimes that hade been reported in SP during the past month and explained how the police post would work. She also suggested the introduction of a ‘Pub Watch’, which the Parish Council supported and suggested she contact the pubs in the village, including Lopen. P Mottram explained how Community Speed Watch was currently working, the biggest problem being the lack of volunteers. M Haimes offered to help with Community Speed Watch if she could be kept informed of the dates and venues; consideration of extending this to include Hayes End. The police are trying to address the problem o of inappropriate parking the village particularly by the roundabout at the junior school.

4 Late Correspondence

a) Correspondence from South Somerset Homes relating to the green area at Stoodham

b) New plans for 24 Lightgate Lane from the agent, but as these have not yet been received as a planning application consultation from SSDC; this item will be deferred until January 2006.

c) Busy Bees Pre-school would like some external decoration on the outside of their building; the plans for this will be in the correspondence box for the next meeting.

5 Agreement of Minutes

The minutes of the monthly meeting held on 8 November 2005 were signed as a correct record of the meeting, after deleting P Robathan who had sent his apologises.

6 Matters Arising or Raised by Members

a) A donation of £200 has been received towards the South Petherton Christmas lights. The new lights could not be put up in the proposed place but it is hoped that the problem with this will be resolved before next year. A letter of thanks will be sent to Knights Electrical for donating their services to put up the lights.

b) A correction to Michelle Haimes phone number, it should be 0845 456 7000.

c) The proposed new gas main is north of the parish so has not been included as an agenda item for this meeting. There were no comments to forward on this matter.

d) The level at which a tender for work should be sought was discussed. Currently up to £300 of emergency work can be authorised by the Chairman, the Vice Chairman or the clerk. Over £1,000 must go out to tender and below that is rotated between the most appropriate local contractors. It was proposed and agreed that the level of £1,000 should be reduced to £750.

e) The Young People’s Parish Council have recently been away on a residential course as part of the Sparkplug Project.

f) South Petherton won the western regional award for the Young People’s Category in the Village of the Year Competition.

7 Planning Verdicts

The verdicts on planning applications received during the month were reported.

8 Stoodham Development

The Chairman asked that the subject of the green area at the Stoodham development should be discussed again as he felt there should have been more time for consideration by the Parish Council. The Parish Council voted 6 in favour, 4 against and I abstention to revisit the decision of the last meeting. After discussion the Parish Council agreed to inform South Somerset Homes that they believed a green area was appropriate and should be included in the development and would like to have a site meeting to discuss the options available before making any formal response to the proposals from South Somerset Homes. C Hockey, R Beale and N Greenleaf offered to meet with South Somerset Homes and the SSDC planning officer ASAP to discuss this.

9 New Planning Applications

a) 03038ful Erection of a building to provide office and welfare facilities and extension to existing building at Frogmary Green Farm. The Parish Council recommended approval.

b) 03047ful Retrospective application for an agricultural shed on land adjacent to 50 Compton Road. After discussion with the planning officer, it was agreed to defer this until the next meeting.

c) There were no late planning applications.

10 Police Post

A grant of £2,400 from the Mendip and South Somerset Community Safety partnership has been agreed in principle for a police post at the David Hall. This is towards the cost of the required building work and a fully networked computer. The police post will be used as an office for the police, with the PCSO using it for fortnightly surgeries and used by community volunteers at other times. It was further agreed that both the Parish Council and the District Councillors would hold monthly ‘surgeries’ there. The Parish Council agreed a further £1,000 to be spent on this and a grant application for the balance required has been made to SSDC and will be considered by Area North Area Committee on 21 December 2005.

11 Neighbourhood Watch Meeting

A grant of £50 has been received from the Mendip and South Somerset Community Safety Partnership towards improving/increasing Neighbourhood Watch in South Petherton. A meeting has been arranged for the co-ordinators of the existing schemes in South Petherton on 23 January 2006 at the pavilion. N Greenleaf and M Haines will be facilitating the meeting and anyone in the village who is interested in Neighbour hood Watch is welcome to attend.

12 County Councillor’s Report

a) After the public consultation on the SCC budget the view was equal on whether a 3% or 5% increase was acceptable. Somerset are receiving more from the government than neighbouring countries but will still have a shortfall of 10 - 12% just to stand still. The government have capped Somerset at a 5% increase so large cuts in services are inevitable.

b) The Environment Agency will be spending £20.8million next year and £24.7 million the following year in Somerset. The Environments Agency is taking over the responsibility of all critical watercourses and the bridges over them.

c) There is a new bus timetable available but it does not explain the Nippy bus service, which is still not being, used enough, but changes and expansion of the service are still being considered.

d) J Sharpe said he was expecting the Parish Council to order the cast iron seat ends that he is donating to the village. There appeared to have been a misunderstanding here and the seat ends have not been ordered.

e) The new Chief Constable has said that under the reorganisation of the police force, Somerset and Avon are likely to disappear and be replaced with a new South West police force, sub divided for appropriate areas. Eg Bristol with its own pressures having its own sub division.

f) The reorganisation of the health service will affect the Primary Care Trust responsible for South Petherton.

g) There is a new control centre for Somerset Highways and GPS has been installed in their vehicles so the service should improve.

h) It was noted that Wadham School in Crewkerne is in ‘special needs’ as a failing school.

i) Ben Scott-Davies has received an award from SCC for outstanding endeavour to other young people; only four such awards are given out by the youth service each year

j) The Regional Assembly is looking at improvements in the area and making the Ilminster by-pass a dual carriage way and t fly-over at Hayes End roundabout seem to have moved up the priority list.

k) Paula Hewitt, the Head of Regulation at SCC, is joining a national group looking at how to integrate the Strategic Plan Function.

13 District Councillors’ Reports

a) P Robathan is to meet with Colin Port, the new Chief Constable and will try to get agreement that the police should provide the computer for the police post.

b) Yeovil has received a Safer Business Award.

c) The police currently have no authority to move people on unless they have authority from the District Council; the first dispersal order under the new system has been issued in Yeovil

d) SSDC are to receive £1.2million as a revenue support grant of which about half will go on concessionary bus fares to support free fares.

e) It is hoped to keep the Council Tax increase down to a reasonable level near inflation without loss of

services.

f) The role of the new Assistant Chief Executive was queried, as it was a new role in South Somerset. P Robathan responded by saying that the appointment procedure had been correctly carried out and if it was felt that there was any problem this should be reported to the Standards Committee rather than be the subject of continual discussion.

g) The State of the District debate was attended by 150 people; it was a useful discussion and included presentation by the Deputy Prime Minister’s Office and the Environment Agency.

h) SSDC is being interviewed for a second Beacon Council Award for Rural Communities. This will be supported with funding.

i) The junction of Hele Lane and South Street will be temporarily closed from 3 January 2006 for work by Wessex Water.

j) The work in Beaufort Gardens will be completed before Christmas.

k) The SSDC planners are to move to two locations, one in Chard and one in Wincanton and eventually to one place in Yeovil, in an attempt to overcome the current problems caused by a shortage of planners.

l) Some apparent inconsistencies in the need for planning permission were queried, but not applying for the necessary planning permission could lead to problems when the property is sold.

m) SSDC and SCC have received an award for the best recycling initiative in the country, but they make no money out of recycling. The cost of the new recycling is costing £½million more than the budget, with green bins costing more than anticipated.

14 Statement of Community Involvement Consultation

Parish Councillors were asked to complete the questionnaires from both SCC and SSDC for the Statement of Community Involvement Consultation.

15 Precept

Five Parish Councillors attended the precept meeting and went through the proposed budget line by line. C Hockey summarised the major points arising from that meeting. eg Parish Plan, clerk’s hours etc. The proposed budget will mean a 1.45% increase in the Parish Council precept. The budget and the precept of £55,277 was agreed by all present.

16 Lengthsman

No contribution has been received from SSDC, and there are two parishes that have yet to pay the second tranch, which was due in October 2005. P Robathan says that SSDC never agreed to contribute but confirmed that SCC has agreed to underwrite the shortfall of £5,000 if there is no contribution from SSDC. The proposed scheme has been considered by the SSDC Scrutiny Committee who has recommended that it should continue in South Petherton and Coker areas and should be extended to those parishes that are interested in the scheme. The District Executive at their meeting in January 2006 will consider this recommendation.

17 Awards for All

Awards for All have an under spend this year so there may be some groups within the community that could benefit by making a grant application.

18 Recreation Ground

a) There is a man made hole in the BMX track which C Willy offered to get filled.

b) The remedial work on the MUGA has now been completed to a satisfactory standard. Adrian Moore from SSDC has to be thanked for his help in achieving this end.

c) It was agreed that SPRUG should keep some of grants they have obtained towards the MUGA as seed funding for future grant applications. SPRUG will pay £6,500 into the PC bank account and the balance will come from the amount budgeted for improvements at the recreation ground.

d) The access path between the car park and the houses can be difficult to access for disabled when it is wet. Resurfacing the path was considered but it was agreed that a preferred option was to create a path through the gate from the car park across the corner of the play area to provide access to the Bowling Club. The Bowling Club has offered to help with the costs. Quotes will be obtained.

e) The garden of remembrance has been cleared and opened up. There is one more tree, which appears to be dead and needs to be taken down; a quote will be obtained for this. C Willy will arrange for a tractor to level the soil and to get the trimmings burnt. The fence behind the football area needs to be replaced; C Willy will agree the specification and quotes will be obtained.

19 Community Play Bus

It was agreed that the SSDC Community Play Bus would be booked for a maximum of ten occasions each year. This will normally be on the second Wednesday of each month.

20 Highway Matters

a) A list was presented at the meeting, which includes some problems going back to June 2005. This will be discussed with Somerset Highways.

b) It was confirmed that the street light in West End View should be ordered but not pad for in advance as requested by SCC for the Hele Lane streetlight, which took eighteen months from ordering to completion. There is a problem with the choice of light fitting for the streetlight in George Lane, as the SCC Heritage Group will not agree to the lantern style light requested by the PC. It was agreed that the Parish Council would only be paying for replacement light fitting if it was the style of their choice.

21 Seating

a) The position of the five new seats was agreed as per the recommendation of P Stratford from the SP PP group. The optional additional five seats will be reconsidered in 2006 when the use of the first five has been assessed.

b) One seat will include a memorial plaque for H Warden, S Dickie will this with Mrs Warden and agree which seat is her preference.

22 Public Conveniences

A meting has been arranged for 3.30pm on 22 December 2005 at Prigg Lane car park to meet with Quionstone and discus their proposal. All Parish Councillors are welcome to attend.

23 Footpaths

a) Many of the problems highlighted recently have been resolved.

b) There is a stile in B Herrick’s field, which needs to be repaired; SSDC will be reminded of this.

c) There is a query about the footpath, which goes from Stoodham along the route of the brook. SSDC are investigating this, as it is considered to be dangerous when wet and slippery.

24 Cemetery

a) The specification for the new contract needs to be considered; any thoughts should be discussed with L Port or the clerk.

b) The seat donated by M Robinson for the cemetery is now in place.

25 Churchyard

There has been a telephone call to say that the grant application for 50% of the cost to repair the war memorial has been successful, but they would like to suggest that the concrete base should be replaced with hamstone and they would give a grant towards this but the Parish Council would have to pay 50%. Time was short for submitting this additional information/cost and the Parish Council agreed any additional work should be deferred for consideration next year.

26 Pavilion

a) It was agreed that the damaged doors should be replaced as per the quote received.

b) Decorating the changing rooms is on the Lengthsman’s list of wet weather tasks.

27 South Petheton Parish Plan

It was agreed that the decision on the size and style of the SP PP booklet should be left with the PP group. The Parish Council had no strong view on whether it should be A4 or A5.

28 St Margaret’s Hospice

It was agreed that a donation of £50 would be made to St Margaret’s hospice in memory of H Warden.

29 Approval of Cheque Payments

Approval was given for cheques drawn as indicated on the list attached to these minutes, plus £37.75 to Provender.

The meeting closed 10.05pm

Minutes Approved by: Chairman……………………… Date…………….