May 2024 OPEN Meeting
MINUTES of RAUCEBY PARISH OPEN MEETING
Held at Rauceby Village Hall, Main Street, South Rauceby
15 May 2024
The meeting opened at 7.00pm.
Present: Chairman Mr M Ireland, Cllr Wright for LCC, Cllr J Clarke for NKDC, 8 Parish Councillors, 4 Members of the public, Clerk.
1. Apologies were received from Cllrs A Hagues of NKDC and Mrs B Balderston and Mr R Enstone.
2. Minutes of the last (May 2023) Parish Open Meeting had been distributed, approved by the meeting and signed by the Chairman.
3. Matters arising from the minutes:
Status of verge rewilding along Rauceby Drove, raised last year by a parishioner. This was discussed in a regular Parish Council meeting in 2023. There was concern that the rewilding of such a large area would be very expensive and not guaranteed to produce the desired effect. The Rauceby Foundation was approached and they agreed to examine the feasibility of rewilding a smaller patch of their land further up Main Street ear-marked by them for a public leisure area. No progress has been made with this yet so in the meantime the PC will keep a watching brief on the situation.
4. Reports from visiting representatives were given:
From Cllr R Wright (LCC): Cllr Wright presented a report, attached to these minutes, that embraced the issues of Lincolnshire.
From Cllr Clarke (NKDC): Cllr Clarke reported that Cllr Hagues has been appointed the new Chairman of the NKDC council. He also noted that the Post Office in Cranwell had closed and re-located to the Premier grocer shop as a sub-office.
5. The Chairman's Report of Parish Council activities since the last Open Meeting is attached to these minutes.
6. The Financial Report for 2023/24 was distributed and questions invited regarding the contents. A copy of the report is attached to these minutes. No questions were asked
7. Matters of local interest:
One parishioner made a comment about a car speeding problem along Thorpe Drove. Cllr Wright had also received a complaint about this. The council agreed to discuss this further at a regular PC meeting as there are speeding issues elsewhere in the village and speed monitoring devices are being considered.
Cllr Wright had also received concerns about how to report fly-tipping episodes. He explained that in the first instance, NKDC should be contacted. There is a section towards the bottom of the Rauceby website homepage which can be used to direct a report to NKDC.
The meeting was concluded at 7.30pm
Rauceby Parish Council Financial Report for 2023-24
Report from County Cllr Wright for Rauceby Annual Open meeting
The main priority for this year was as previously, Highway improvements.
This is yet again a priority, as apart from investment being required, the surveys we send out to residents and others, prior to budget setting, show this as the number one priority for the council to invest.
Major investment schemes, obviously take up a large proportion of the monies available and improvements to the A16 at Boston are nearing completion whilst work at Spalding is now picking up pace, with major changes to two roundabouts, to supply extra lanes and ease congestion on a very busy route. Construction of the Grantham Southern Relief Road continues and the North Hykeham Relief Road is now clearing the final permissions stage, for work to hopefully start next year.
Whilst potholes remain a problem for everyone, this is recognised, and work has been undertaken as efficiently as possible. My thanks go to the Parish Council & residents for embracing the Fix my Street system, which makes planning repairs easier.
We continue to lobby the government and talk to our local MPs about this issue. Hopefully the promised HS2 monies will arrive to provide the biggest single investment in Highways infrastructure in a very long time. With 660 miles of roads which are rated poor or very poor, we will continue to keep this at the top of our priority list to ensure our residents get the best standards of road we can deliver.
The assistance for NE Lincs Children Services has now ended, with their services now looking much healthier, thanks to the work of Lincs County Council officers. Our services remain one of the highest rated in the country
As per for everyone, rising costs have driven service reviews into how we deliver best value and the county are responsible for large budget items, such as Childrens & Adults services, Education and Home to school transport which has a cost running into tens of millions of pounds.
We continue developing relationships through the Integrated Care Board, looking to see how we can feed into the prevention agenda, to assist the NHS in either aftercare, or preventing the need in the first place this will have an impact on bed spaces.
Migrant situation the bridging hotels & temporary hotels are now in main, empty. RAF Scampton remains an issue, with the future still not entirely clear, but it is not now expected to house the numbers originally planned.
Two of us at the County Council (myself and the Deputy Leader) sit on the East Midlands Migration Board, and do have an input into the discussions with the Home Office on this.
We still work with our Ukrainian guests and with the future being so uncertain for them, its good to see how many still have Lincolnshire people opening up their homes to welcome them. The govt still offers funding and we now have a sizable number of Ukrainians, who have move on into jobs and their own accommodation.
The County will be working with the District Councils, to wade through the changes to waste services, originally announced in the 2021 Environment Act more will follow on this as it develops.
On devolution, we are now waiting for the final agreements from Central Govt and the structures decided for the necessary committees. All councils in Greater Lincolnshire are committed to making the Mayoral Combined Authority work, and deliver for all our residents.
Locally
Lots of potholes filled and where appropriate, now full repairs, rather than quick fills. The resurfacing work on the Grantham Road, was to address the deteriorating surface.
Speeding is an issue being raised in several villages - I've raised this again with the Road Safety Partnership and asked for action.
I get very few problems raised by Rauceby residents.
Chairman's Report for Year 2023/24
Ladies and Gentlemen
It gives me great pleasure to present my Annual Report as Chairman of Rauceby Parish Council, a year in which we have met on 6 occasions and addressed such issues as planning, highway matters and general village business.
You may remember that at the Open Meeting last May we received a presentation by Anne-Marie Shepherd from NKDC regarding the implementation of a Neighbourhood Plan for the village. Although there was a general positive discussion on the night there turned out to be no long-term support to producing a plan and the Parish Council decided not to pursue the initiative any further.
I am pleased to say though that the Rauceby Gigabit project is nearing completion having been initiated and led by Councillor Simon Enstone over the past 5 years. This has been a huge undertaking and at times I m sure it has felt as though it was taking over his life but I would like to place on record both the Parish Council and parishioners sincere thanks for all he has done in driving this project forward to the benefit of us all. As someone who now has a download speed of near 500 Mbps rather than 5Mbps the improvement in the service amply justifies the decision to support the scheme.
Of late, during the actual rollout of the scheme Simon has been helped by a number of others so our thanks also go to John Gasson, Jeremy Dent and Simon Dachtler for their time and effort given.
I cannot present my Annual Report without commenting on speeding through the village. This year I believe I am able to be positive in what I say in that we did eventually see the two areas of red tarmac laid in both North and South Rauceby and in conjunction with our relatively new white gates, signage and deployment of the SID machine the occurrence of speeding is generally lower than it used to be. I think it is fair to say that the Parish Council is not receiving complaints as it used to so that must be an indication of an improved situation.
An area where the Parish Council has continued to re-invest is in the refurbishment of village assets. Over the past year the Bee bench at the top of Burrows Hill and the bench at the end of Cliffe View have both had all their slats replaced with recycled plastic ones. There has also been recent damage to the 1937 Coronation bench along Thorpe Drove which needs a specialist welder to repair.
We have also financed the refurbishment of the old telephone kiosk in Main Street, South Rauceby. This is actually owned by The Community Heartbeat Trust having been gifted it by BT some years ago. Perversely they have no budget to look after it so the Parish Council have paid for its re-painting while we are thankful to Dacrylate Paints who have given the paint free of charge. I believe it now looks much better than it did some months ago.
For a number of years we have experienced severe flooding at the south end of Rauceby Drove and having liaised with LCC Highways throughout this time we were pleased that last year they invested in a drainage scheme to alleviate the flooding problem. I am pleased to say that this was immediately successful and has been very helpful considering the quantities of rainfall over the past 9 months.
Following the Coronation Litter pick last year Councillor Gill Enstone has organized two more in October 23 and April 24. These were well supported and enjoyable occasions which over a couple of hours collected a small trailer load of rubbish from the verges of our parish. Thank you Gill for your efforts in organizing these days and I believe the initiative will continue with the support of the Parish Council when necessary.
A third village defibrillator was commissioned in The Spinneys earlier this year. This was donated and will be maintained by Shock Sleaford for which we are grateful. Another village asset which we hope never has to be used but good to know it is there if required.
We continue to use the services of Jeff Earl to cut the grass in various village locations and what a very good job he does. He now also keeps the bus shelters tidy over the winter months. I thank him for his excellent service which as I said last year is always looked on positively by parishioners.
I would like to thank and am very grateful to the 8 other councillors who give of their time freely, contribute to discussions and help as required.
As a Parish we are supported by our District and County Councillors, Andrew Hagues, Jim Clarke and Richard Wright, who I also thank for their time and contributions.
Finally, I would like to thank our Parish Clerk, Ian Grady. Over the past year he has continued to administer our Parish Council business with the utmost professionalism and with an ever-increasing knowledge. I have thoroughly enjoyed working with Ian and I thank you most sincerely on behalf of the whole parish for the time and dedication that you give to the position of our clerk.
Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes my report for the year.