Wereham Parish Council Annual Meeting

WEREHAM PARISH COUNCIL

Draft minutes of the Annual Meeting of the Parish Council held on Tuesday 8****th May 2012 at 7.00pm in Wereham village hall

Election of chairman and to receive the declaration of acceptance of office.

Nominations and proposals for position of Chair were invited, Cllr J Bruce proposed Cllr G Koopowitz. Cllr G Koopowitz declined the proposal. No other proposals made.

Cllr P Norris was proposed chairman

Proposer: Cllr C Humphries

2nd: Cllr D Deighton.

Chairman Cllr P Norris signed declaration of acceptance of office.

Election of vice chair.

Nominations and proposals invited

Cllr G Koopowitz was proposed vice chair

Proposer: Cllr J Bruce

2nd: Cllr D Deighton

Present: Cllr P Norris, Cllr G Koopowitz, Cllr C Humpries, Cllr K Newell, Cllr J Bruce, Cllr D Deighton, Cllr G Key (arrived after nominations of Chair/vice)

Members of the public: 20

Declarations of interest:

Members are invited to declare personal prejudicial interests in items on the agenda. It is a requirement that declarations from a member include the nature of the interest and whether it is personal or prejudicial.

None declared.

To agree the minutes from the last Parish Council meeting held on 13****th March 2012.

All Council agreed to the minutes.

Proposer: Cllr P Norris

2nd : Cllr G koopowitz

Chairman's annual report for May 2011 – May 2012

The last 12 months have proved challenging for Wereham Parish Council, however we have achieved the goals which we set for ourselves and have moved forward in our activities.

The year began in May 2011 with elections being held, in the village hall, for all parish council positions. The Wereham results saw four new councillors voted onto the council with three of the existing councillors being returned.

This has improved the balance of the council considerably, with more areas of the village being represented, an increase of younger councillors and councillors with young families, plus an improved gender balance – all of which means we are better placed to recognise and respond to villagers needs.

Not everything has been straightforward of course, and in November 2011 we were made aware that a WN&KLBC Local Development Framework (LDF) public consultation programme had incorrectly categorized six West Norfolk Villages as Hamlets (and not Small Villages) and therefore wrongly highlighted them as having no development sites. Disappointingly Wereham proved to be one of these villages and the Parish Council were kept very busy playing catch up, to ensure that all villagers were given the opportunity to attend a public meeting in the village hall and ensure that their views were taken into account.

That was phase one of the LDF consultation programme with phase two scheduled for Spring 2012. However WN&KLBC have recently responded to a query from me to state that phase two has now been put back until autumn 2012.

Following the unexpected resignation of our parish clerk in December 2011, and with considerable help from the Norfolk Association of Local Councils (NALC), we were able to immediately appoint a temporary parish clerk (Sheila Goodwin) who supported us admirably for ten weeks, during which time we advertised for, interviewed and selected our new parish clerk, Natasha Clifford-Everett who has quickly settled in with us.

In December 2011 and January 2012 we also carried out our annual precept setting exercise, with due rigour and science, and taking into account, among other aspects, the fact that we had come worryingly close to being unable to pay all our bills in the last quarter, we recommended an increase in this year’s precept.

In March the Parish Council were pleased to welcome Mrs Elizabeth Truss, MP for South West Norfolk, accompanied by Councillor Colin Sampson, Mayor of King’s Lynn and West Norfolk, to Wereham to meet our villagers. Elizabeth briefly described her role as an MP and then answered a wide range of questions from the villagers, who were keen to take this opportunity to hear her views on the local and national issues which are important to them. The meeting was well attended and Elizabeth promised to visit us again in the future.

We have also commenced a programme of training for all of the parish councillors and have had a number of individual training sessions, plus one group training event which was arranged for all the councillors. We will, of course, continue to take advantage of appropriate training to ensure that we can carry out our duties effectively.

Finally, if you attend our meetings I would like to thank you for your support, and if you have not attended before I would encourage you to give it a try. I would also like to thank my fellow councillors Gail, Jo, Karin, Charles, Dave and Graeme for all their help over the last twelve months and I look forward to their continued support in the future.

Annual reports

End of year accounts were inspected by Council and approved. Annual return signed by Cllr P Norris & Clerk.

Proposer: Cllr G koopowitz

2nd: Cllr J Bruce.

Resolutions

The Council confirmed representatives for:

Cemetery: Cllr K Newell

Play area: Cllr J Bruce and Cllr G Koopowitz

IT: Cllr D Deighton

Church clock: Cllr P Norris

Village hall annual report

The past year has been an exceptionally good 12 months for the Village Hall with the Village Hall Fighting Fund benefiting from many, many fundraising events. The new Committee seem to have been far more enthusiastic and this has resulted in a Fighting Fund total now standing at