Minutes of the Meeting of Coniston Parish Council held in the Library on Monday 20th April 2009.

PRESENT: Councillors David Coxon (Chairman), Mrs Anne Hall, Ms Rosemary Hext, Peter Hill, John Stoddart and Lee Tarr; the clerk, C Sargeant; Sgt John Stevens; and, 5 members of the public (Derek Adams, Bill Bateman, Mrs Judy Jones, David Johnson and Peter Way).

1. Public welcoming and receipt of matters for debate: Chairman welcomed the public. There was no matter for debate.

2. Apologies: Mrs E Kelly (incapacity); PCSO K Largue.

3. Declarations of Interest: of members’ personal and prejudicial interests in respect of items on the Agenda: Cllr Coxon (matters relating to LDNPA). Cllr Mrs Hall (matters relating to planning). All councillors as Trustees of the Coniston Institute and Ruskin Museum.

4. Minutes of the Meeting of 16th March 2009 were approved, and signed by the Chairman.

5. Matters arising from that Meeting with reports of action taken:

5.a. Campbell House entrance protection: David Huck, Highways, wrote to Cllr Kelly on 18th March: Thanks for the e-mail. I have forwarded it on to John Bell, our Senior Traffic Engineer. He will no doubt be able to come up with some signing or lining that should do the job, possibly Keep Clear markings. He will doubtless get back in touch with you in due course.

5.b. Surgery (15th April): Cllr Coxon attended and reported a number of issues: request for Christmas lights in Lake Road; a street lamp in Lake Road (RESOLVED: to investigate a link to the Playground with possibly a solar lamp); the disturbance of random late- evening, celebratory fireworks; drain blockages; litter in Little Moss. RESOLVED: to organize a council walk in these areas.

5.c. The Garth Parking: No Cumbria CC money to pay for a feasibility study.

5.d. Primary Care Trust: No response to question about nursing provision.

5.e. Little Moss and Little Moss Close: Responses from both Home Housing and Lakes Housing were positive and problems are being tackled.

5.f. Grass Cutting contract: 2 tenders were received: Coniston Ground Care (£590) and South Lakes Tree Surgeons & Landscapes Ltd (£550). RESOLVED: to accept the lower tender. The clerk to respond to both parties.

5.g. Locality Working: Clerk submitted response to Locality Working in South Lakeland Questionnaire: 1. Do you have any specific comments on the Introduction and the reasons for Locality Working? Yes. Something has got to change! Diminishing parish electoral rolls are making parish councils less viable (economically), less representative (democratically) and less effective (socially). How many parish councils are there in South Lakeland that do not have elected councils? How many of those parishes make a disproportionate demand on the district council budget? If Locality Working was about the need to reform local government then why has there not been a more direct statement to that effect? Why the pretence? Who is afraid of disturbing the arrangement that has become equated with community independence behind a parish boundary? If eight parish areas in South Lakeland have logic behind them then when is that rationale going to be demonstrated because at the moment it seems arbitrary? Is the Locality Working strategy supposed to be subtle? If so it is failing because there are not enough forthright councillors at district and county levels. Parish councils seem to be like sheep being herded into pens that have already been prepared. The principal authorities are going to have to do a great deal of work to convince parish councils that they will uphold their side of Locality Working. They haven’t done a very good job to date and need to prove that they do not intend to push more responsibility onto non-professional parish councillors and clerks to cover their own inadequacies. If the co-ordinators appointed by the principal authorities repeatedly tell parish councils “You Can’t Do That” then failure will be writ large. Government through the principal authorities is imposing this scheme with no sense of what the repercussions will be. “It seems like a good idea, let’s do it and hang the consequences” has been a prevalent approach over the last half-century. Can Government ministers and principal authority officers know what will be the outcome of this scheme? Perhaps a lot of time and money has been wasted that could have been better used. Table 1: shows that parish councils have tended to look to their neighbours for help and support before they were told they should or must do. Locality Working is sensible but does it need an imposed structure put upon it for the convenience of the principal authorities? Locality Working will be resented if it is not issue-led rather than map-structured. There is too much superficial, clichéd phraseology in the Introduction and it seems to be yet another piece of political subterfuge. The Government and the principal authorities need to listen and respond to the parish councils or leave them alone. 2. Do you have any comments on the Questions and Answers section? Yes. The section of Questions and Answers is contrived. No researcher has been out to the parish councils to measure the questions that they are asking and want answering. It is another example of the patronizing approach to parish councils. Who decided that there would be 8 areas? Why not 6 or 12? 3. Are you happy to work within the Local Area Partnership identified on the enclosed map? Please tick the relevant box. Yes _ No _ Both are relevant: Yes. This parish has never had any trouble working with neighbouring parishes in the High Furness area and hopes that this will continue under a LAP. No. The map is too limiting. It is for the convenience of the principal authorities. Parish councils must be allowed to turn north, east, south and west, near or distant, to whichever parish shares an interest in an issue. That the questionnaire offers only ‘yes’ and ‘no’ is another instance of the narrow thinking of bureaucrats who lack experience of and are far-removed from grass-roots local government. This council believes that by networking agendas, minutes, notices, etc., by post, telephone, email and websites we could support each other without increasing the number of meetings councillors and clerks have to travel to and attend. To have regular contacts with our neighbouring parishes would stimulate our thinking and performance. CPC is opposed to fixed areas as a tier of local government between district and parish councils and views the promise of funding for such a set up as unhelpful. This council hopes for a flexible arrangement for working with our neighbours: to turn almost anywhere when we know we are trying to achieve something similar to councils who have already succeeded or are actively working to the same end; to share funding applications; to unite against common obstacles; to be open to give and receive help. As a parish council, Coniston sees no advantage in being isolated.

5.h. Coniston Institute development: Letters received from Chairman (Anne Hall), Secretary (Vicki Jenkinson) and Local History Group (Stella de Gruchy). RESOLVED: to reiterate the Parish Council’s role as Custodian Trustees; to leave the Management Committee to make the decisions about the nature of the development; to respond to Local History Group along these lines.

5.i. White lining on A593 at Junction with B5285: Deadline for completion 15th May.

5.j. Coniston Market: RESOLVED: to invite Philip Dowling of Cowran Estate to attend June meeting.

6. Matters arising since that meeting:

6.a. Insurance Renewal 2009-10: Clerk comparing Allianz and Norwich Union premiums.

6.b. Annual Parish Meeting: Cllr Coxon to approach Bill Smith to be the guest speaker to give an illustrated talk on the rebuilding of ‘Bluebird’.

6.c. Great North Swim Correspondence had been received from Lakes Parish Council expressing its great concern at the lack of local consultation on the above event. The Council was appalled at the total traffic chaos that ensured during the 2008 event. Lakes Parish Council is seeking assurances from all involved that this will not happened again in 2009. Correspondence was also received from Skelwith Parish Council: If you are writing to Nova, may I ask you to copy us in? We are planning something on the lines of "....wholeheartedly support the comments made by Lakes and Coniston Parish Councils", if you are happy about this? RESOLVED: to write in support of Lakes Parish Council along the line suggested by Skelwith Parish Council.

7. Financial Transactions: RESOLVED:

7.a. To issue cheques: To C Sargeant for Clerk salary & expenses £300.00

To R J Airey for bus shelter maintenance £44.00

To J N Dixon Ltd for gate repairs £39.44

To Coniston Institute for room hire £32.00

To David Sharp for Playground fencing £2,279.94

To Wicksteed for rocking horse repairs

7.b. To receive accounts: Balances from bank 20.04.09.: Community Acc. £500.00; Business Premium Acc. £174.84; and Playground Acc. £3,793.00.

7.c. To note donations received: from Skelwith PC for Playground Fund £250.00

from unnamed donors £55.00.

7.d. To authorise transfer: Of £3,500.00 from Playground Acc. to Community Acc. to cover invoices for repairs to fencing and rocking horse.

7.e. To note receipt: Of Audit 2009 papers

8. Planning:

8.a. Application 7/2009/5070 9, Collingwood Close – side extension and dormer extension RESOLVED: to submit “No objections” and to request paper copies of applications.

8.b. to receive Notice of Grant of Planning Permission: 7/2009/5403 Church Rooms

9. Correspondence: RESOLVED: to note that since the last meeting the clerk had received and informed councillors of the following (Items marked (**) were taken as read):

901 English Heritage Conservation Areas At Risk

902 Rural Services Community Weekly News Digest 20.03.09.

903 Digital UK Switchover 24 June & 22 July

904 CALC Consultation on Locality Working

905 North West Plan Partial Review Newsletter March 2009 Interim Draft Policies Consultation Deadline 27th March

906 CALC Community Land Trusts newsletter

907 Rural Services Community Weekly News Digest 31.03.09.

908 Cumbria CC CYSS Newsletter March 2009

909 CALC District Association Meeting, Keswick, 18 June, Agenda

910 Lakes Leisure Rural Fun Sports for Children

911 CALC Clerk Training, Keswick

912 Commission for Rural Communities The voices of region’s upland communities Survey

913 NWDA Regional Newsletter April 09

914 SLDC Allocations of Land Development Plan Document (DPD) – Next Steps

915 CALC Parish Path Initiative

916 CALC Circular April 09

917 Rural Services Community Weekly News Digest 07.04.09.

918 SLDC April Electoral Updates

919 Playground Inspections Ltd Brochure 2009

920 CALC Meeting of Lake District Parish Councils, Keswick, 27 April

921 Rural Housing Enablers Study Workshop Invitation

922 Cumbria CVS Your News April/May 2009

923 Lakes Parish Great North Swim

924 Pauline Richardson Coniston Water Lake Users next meeting cancelled

925 Clive Wickham ‘Investing in Communities’

926 Tony Quick HMS Coniston Old Hands Whitsun Visit - 2009

927 Ton Class Magazine

928 Nicola Park Meet the Mail event in the Barrow office in Abbey Road this Saturday at 10am with Journalism lecturer Tony Randall from the University of Cumbria.

929 Anne Hall Lakes Parish Empty Homes scheme

10. Reports:

10.a. Coniston & Torver Housing Group: Alastair Cameron submitted (16th April) the following brief note: As you know we have allocated specific projects to specific members of the Housing Team to help progress the projects without delay between the Housing Team Meetings. Church Rooms (Rev Mark East’s project) Mark has steered this well during the final stages and, as far as negotiations etc go, the project is complete and ready to go. As with all old building conversions a bat survey is required. Church Field (my project) The changes to design of the site carried out by Eden Housing after consultation with ourselves and Mairi Lock were reviewed during January at a meeting I attended at Murley Moss. The meeting went well as all those necessary to progress the project were present. Mairi Lock felt that a re-application should be made for consent, despite the extra cost involved, as the layout of the site had changed significantly (although the number of units remained at 11 homes) and Eden Housing have now re-applied for consent. This will be considered at May’s Development Control Meeting. Members of the Development Control Committee (Planning Board) were invited to the site for a second time on Monday 16th March. Not many of them attended. Mark East and I hovered in the background in case we were needed, the Eden Housing architect was present and a Coniston resident who lives nearby also gave her comments. Feedback subsequently seems to be even more favourable, and we have been assured that there is no problem with this scheme. (But all this just adds extra cost!!) Lyn Mackenzie, who is leading both these projects for Eden Housing Association, tells me that building should start later this year but the development my be concurrent (i.e. Church Fields will start as soon as John Hext House has been completed). You might like to invite her to speak at a CPC meeting during the summer to explain how the work will be done. Old Furness Road (also my project) The rock-face still holds this project up but the Housing Team are determined that the project will go to completion. Work is going well to involve two outside bodies, English Partnerships and The Land Restoration Trust, to take on the maintenance and liability of the face in perpetuity thereby freeing up the land for use as affordable housing. Charlotte Kimber, a National Park architect has now taken over negotiating this partnership. A meeting was held on site between Charlotte, the Coniston Project Team (Anne and I), Elsa Brailey of Home Housing Tony Whittaker of SLDC, Mairi Lock, and David Beuzeval, the Land Restoration Trust’s Land Projects Director (and others) on 10th March to review the proposal. Fortunately it wasn’t raining. It was felt that a figure of approximately £100,000 would be required for a ‘dowry’ and it was expected that this would be raised from the authorities associated with the scheme. It was pointed out that a sum of £80,000 had already been spent on stabilising the rock face. Volunteer-time in lieu of fund provision was also felt to be an appropriate matching contribution. I have roughly calculated that my volunteer time alone amounts to over 80 hours directly on this project. As before I will continue to keep Tim Farron MP informed on progress on this scheme after the work he did for us last year. Private build (Anne’s project) Anne will fill you in on this important subject. For interest, there has recently been a significant change in attitude by planners on two fronts: 1) More leniency over building outside development boundaries, but the sites must be adjacent to the boundary and covered by the strictest p.o. clauses. (note – neither Slantriggs or John Martin’s site would qualify). 2) Barn conversions are now being viewed much more favorably by the planners. Mairi mentioned this at our last Housing Project Team meeting. By co-incidence an owner of a barn within the Coniston development boundary approached me at Happy Hour in the Sun recently. I have explained to him exactly what he should do and have notified Mairi Lock to expect an approach. He knows that he will need strict p.o. clauses applied. Torver’s Butcher Moss project Although nothing directly to do with Coniston, it is worth mentioning that Home Housing has had to pull out of this project to develop 8 houses in Torver because of severe financial difficulties despite the fact that they already own the site. This doesn’t bode well for the future as Home is SLDC’s preferred housing association in our area. Our colleague at Home Housing, Elsa Brailie, who has worked extremely hard on the Home Housing schemes, could possibly be made redundant. It appears that SLDC are buying the site. Perhaps Anne can give more info on this. New projects Pleased to say that some new sites that would continue to provide for Coniston’s confirmed housing needs are being discussed. We hope to have more information for the June CPC meeting. Our current schemes only provide for slightly under a third of the proven needs. Contacts Grateful if you could make sure any queries or suggestions over John Hext House go to Mark, Church Fields and Old Furness Road go to me, private build goes to Anne and if anyone would like to know more about the Torver scheme they should contact Hugh Cameron at Brocklebank Ground (41552). This is a reminder that the next Coniston Housing Group meeting is scheduled for Friday May 15th at 10am in the Coniston Library. Representatives from English Partnership (Home and Communities Agency) and the Land Restoration Trust will be attending to help progress the Old Furness Road development.

10.b. Police Report: Sgt John Stevens said that in March there were no incidents of burglary, vehicle theft, violence or robbery but there had been 4 incidents of anti-social behaviour. Compared to the same 12 month period last year to this ending in March there had been a 15% drop in reported crimes in the area. In other areas there was evidence of increasing numbers of burglaries from dwellings and a press release had urged greater public vigilance and willingness to report suspicious people and vehicles to the police. Sgt Stevens responded to a number of questions on topics including noise and anti-social behaviour in the evening, the theft from Hill’s Garage and recovery at Coniston Hall camp site of gas cylinders, the problems caused to the businesses in Lake Road by the blocking of traffic on the morning of the Coniston 14 event, the cold-calling of white-van businesses and the misuse of mobility scooters.

10.c. Highways Report: Cllr Mrs Kelly as “Highwayman” continues to liaise with Highways.

10.d. Cllr Stoddart: Sought clarification of how the plans for the Institute redevelopment were to be displayed in the Co-op. Expressed concern about the fullness of the bin near Town Field. Asked for the Forestry Commission to be approached to repair the cattle grid at the High Cross entrance to Grizedale Forest. Sought Parish Council recognition of the work done by Coniston-in-Bloom to erect the commemorative blocks at the entrances to the village.

10.e. Cllr Ms Hext: Was optimistic that work to repair the Coppermines Valley Road would be done soon. Expressed concern about parking outside Holly Howe blocking access to Far End.

10.f. Cllr Mrs Hall: Drew attention to the frequency of owners failing to recover dog litter.

11. Public questions and comments: Mr Bateman questioned the ownership of the triangle of land at the northern end of the Far End road and sought clarification of the work done, in the past, by lengthsmen and the cost to the Parish Council of the current scheme. (No cost to the Parish Council because Highways has appointed a Highway Steward to cover the work in the area.)

12. Date of next Meeting: RESOLVED: that the Annual Parish Meeting, the Annual Meeting and an ordinary Meeting would be held on Monday 18th May 2009, 7.00pm in the Library.

13. Date of June Meeting: RESOLVED: to bring the Meeting forward a week to the 8th June.

Meeting closed at 8.50pm.

Signed: David Coxon, Chairman Date: 18th May 2009