|
Parish Council Meeting - Tuesday, 22nd November - All 5 Councilors and County Councilor John Watson were present. We said goodbye to Zillah Hopps, Clerk of the Council, and presented her with some flowers and a card. Her work over the years has been much appreciated. We now have a new Clerk, Miss Caroline Brown, and she was welcomed to the council meeting. There was a long discussion about the Allerton Waste Recovery Park. The planning application for this has now been validated by the planning authority and has been sent out to statutory consultees for responses within 21 days. A request has been submitted to the planning authority for an extension to the 21 day time limit, in view of the nature of the proposal and the amount of paperwork to be examined, but no response has been received yet. The planning application (ref NY/2011/0328/ENV) is available to view on North Yorkshire County Council’s website by going to www.northyorks.gov.uk and following the links to environment and planning. Mr Anthony Long, Chairman of Marton cum Grafton Parish Council, talked to us about the cost of fighting this proposal and he estimated that the legal costs involved could be in the order of £80,000- £100,000 of which £20,000 has already been pledged. The Councilors were unanimous in their decision not to spend any of the precept on legal fees. The matter of ownership of the Mar followed and anyone who can help in trying to find out previous ownership is asked to contact one of the councilors with the information. No decision was made on the future of the BT kiosk and this matter will be discussed further at the next meeting on 17th January. Parish Council Meeting - Tuesday, 27th September - a new councillor, Mr Dean Bailey from Arkendale, was co-opted to serve on the council. The minutes for the full meeting will be posted in due course, but there are two issues that arose about which the councillors are seeking the opinions of people living in the relevant villages. The first matter concerns the BT phone kiosk on Moor Lane Arkendale. This has been adopted by the Council for the grand sum of £1 as it is no longer considered viable as a telephone service due to low usage. Villages in other areas have found some very interesting uses for their adopted kiosks, like a lending library/book exchange service, the smallest art gallery in the world, a local Tourist Information centre. Your ideas and opinions as to how it should be used in our village are very important so please pass all ideas and thoughts to your local Councillors before the November meeting. Also if anyone would like to take on the responsibility for keeping the kiosk neat and tidy, again please contact one of your local Councillors. It has also been proposed that local Parish Councils contribute some of their precept to help with the legal costs of fighting the Allerton Waste Recovery Park proposal. Again your views are paramount in any decision-making regarding this and we would ask you to talk to your Councillors about this issue too and pass on your opinions. Please also talk about it to any neighbours or friends who might not have seen this article and ask them to do the same. Annual Parish Meeting of the Parish Council: This was held on Tuesday, 10th May, in Arkendale Community Hall. 27 people were present. The Chairman, Mr Peter Topham, presented his report detailing the work of the Council during the year and outlining the issues facing the community. Various questions were raised and discussed: ownership of the Mar, request for a new road sign on the A168 junction, our preference for crocuses over daffodil bulbs this year, and the problem of potholes in the road. Jon West also presented a podcast prepared by Antony Long, the Chairman of Marton cum Grafton Parish Council, outlining arguments against the proposal for the waste incinerator at Allerton Park Quarry. Questions from the floor covered the matters of the estimated £100,000 needed to cover the legal fees and costs of fighting this proposal, and also the issue of the 7.5 tonne weight limit on Moor Lane already being breached. This item was followed by a short update from Mr Alan Stokes, the Hall Chairman: in the past 18 months since the hall was built about 6,500 people have attended events and attendances are continuing to grow. Some events are profit-making, others are held for the sole reason of supporting the community. Cllr Anthony Alton from Harrogate Borough Council also spoke briefly about current issues at the Council. At the end of the meeting it was suggested by one resident that perhaps next year the meeting should start earlier to allow more time for people to raise issues. The Annual Meeting of the Parish Council: This meeting followed at 8.45pm and minutes will be posted on the village notice boards. The next annual meeting of the Parish Council and open meeting will take place on Tuesday, 8th May, 2012. Parish Council Meeting: This meeting followed at 9.05pm and the following matters are worthy of mention: arrangements are being made to repair the drain that has caused flooding at Clareton; money from the Harrogate Rural Safety Scheme Fund may be used to repair the smaller potholes which are not automatically repaired by NYCC; a request is to be put in for the road signs to be cleaned or cleared of shrubbery; the planning application for the Allerton Waste Recovery Park is to be submitted between May and September and no further action is required until then; there are to be further attempts to trace the owner of the Mar, and in the meantime personnel from the Army Foundation College will clear the pond at no charge to the parish sometime in the early Autumn; it was agreed that, at the request of the Chief of the Defence Staff, a flag would be bought and flown on Armed Forces Day on the 25th June; it was noted that Harrogate's decision to expand kerbside recycling will involve alternate weekly collections with week 1 being residual wheelie bin waste and week 2 being paper, card, plastic bottles, cans, glass and garden waste. This is due to start in Spring 2012 and arrangements have been made to cater for the infirm or those who have storage problems. The next scheduled meeting for the Parish Council is Tuesday, 27th September. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
07854 700153
Documents are