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Notes of Manorbier Community Council meeting 11th January 2005
Presentation by employees of Pembrokeshire Coast National Park on Draft Proposals for Conservation Area.
Pembrokeshire National Park employee Mr Scourfield gave a presentation on the proposals for the way forward. The chairperson Cllr Wales congratulated Mr Scourfield regarding the document. Councillor Calver was concerned that the document had not been brought back to the conservation group by the chairperson, additionally he indicated his concern about the clause on the use of appropriate materials. The chairperson Mr McCabe who was in the audience said that he had phoned around the group and the majority of those contacted had felt there was no need for a further meeting. He remarked that he had in fact contacted Cllr Calver and had invited him to discuss it with him. Cllr Calver remarked that as the final decision would be taken by the community council and as the attendance at meeting of the conservation group had been poor, with some members not even turning up for a single meeting, he felt that the council meeting was the appropriate place to discuss it. The National Park employee was concerned that the document should be considered by the Community Council as soon as possible. Cllr Calver was concerned about statements at meetings that it was wish of the group members to include the whole of the main village in the conservation area. There was a clause in the document regarding any planning permission that would be required for minor alterations which in future would require planning permission. He proposed he would not wish the document to include a statement by the group that only what they felt were appropriate materials should be used as this would exclude replacing windows and fascia boards with new modem materials. This was due to the fact that this was not the wish of the majority of residents of the village who would suffer the consequences of such recommendations. Other councillors felt that Cllr Calver's proposal could not be included as this discussion took place in the public session of the meeting, despite the fact that the national park were in urgent need for them to agree to the proposals. Cllr Calver then suggested if he and the council could not add or make proposals to the document the council could not legally agree to the document at this meeting. Discussion on the document would be placed on the council meeting for the 1st February 2005.
Statement by Chairperson Wales
Cllr Wales read out a statement which he said he had written himself regarding concerns from the previous meeting on discussions that had taken place. Several other councillors had written in to register their concerns regarding Cllr Davies and Calver at the previous meeting. Concerns were raised by other councillors based mainly on what they felt was the attitude taken by the councillors at the previous meetings. Cllr Calver informed the authors that if they felt that this was the case they should bring up the matter with the appropriate monitoring officer at Pembrokeshire County Council or the local government Ombudsman.
A letter was also received from a Mr Cochrane regarding a complaint he was making against Cllr Calver for not declaring an interest in the discussions regarding the proposed night firing at Manorbier Range. He challenged Councillor Calver to make sure that his complaint was produced on the www.manorbier.com website if he wished the website to be seen as open minded and fair. Cllr Calver informed Mr Cochrane that he had felt that as the county councillor it was his duty to respond to any proposal about which he was asked to comment. In this case he did not have a personnel interest and he had been, and still was, of the opinion that he does not have an interest to declare. However Cllr Calver explained that there was an avenue Mr Cochrane could pursue if he felt that Cllr Calver should have been declaring an interest namely to go to the standards committee at county hall. Cllr Calver informed the meeting that although he had been asked to comment on the 'scoping document' as the county councillor, which he had done, he had to make sure other members of the parish could be involved. In order to ensure that this was the case he had in fact brought copies of the document to various members of the community including Mr Cochrane which had enabled him to comment on the proposals. Cllr Wales at this stage challenged Councillor Calver about whether or not he had the right to do this, as it was the community council who should be commenting. Cllr Calver reminded Cllr Wales that as the elected County Councillor for the area and what he did was as the County Councillor and therefore was not governed by Cllr Wales and the community council and in consequence this was none of his business. The main points of Mr Cochrane's letter of complaint was that at a previous meeting on 4th January 2005 Cllr Calver had not declared an interest when asked to do so by the Chairman Wales. He stated that Cllr Calver had promised to help residents of the community who suffer from noise and vibration by taking every possible action to at least reduce the excessive noise. He stated that he was disappointed when he read on the www.manorbier.com website to find Cllr Calver was in favour of night firing but stated that he was further shocked when a neighbour informed him that the reason Cllr Calver was supporting the application was due to an interest he had in the ADR which should have been declared. He felt that this was the reason why Cllr Calver had not replied to him when he had asked Cllr Calver for his support. He indicated that when he had challenged Cllr Calver regarding the issue he agreed that a property of his family ownership had in the past been rented to a family. The male family member had worked for an aviation company for a two/three week period during the summer. Mr Cochrane suggested that Cllr Calver was, in his opinion, a hypocrite in calling for declarations of interest from fellow councillors on other issues when he had not declared an interest on this issue. He asked the community council to report the matter to the monitoring officer at Pembrokeshire County Council. In the later stages of his letter Mr Cochrane made certain allegations such as attitudes like this would only bring the council into disrepute and that Councillor Davies was a puppet of Cllr Calver and challenged Cllr Calver to put this complaint on the website as he felt that this would prove that the website was a true and unbiased and accurate account of council meetings.
In his previous letters to the community council Mr Cochrane had stated that he had a copy of the proposed 'scoping document' from the army that stated that the proposed document would only have a minor negative impact on the local community. He stated mat that this was a deliberate lie by the army as it did not mention the serious noise pollution and health issues thrust upon the local community and surrounding villages. He stated that he regularly experienced noise levels in excess of l00dB inside his home which was the equivalent of a sonic boom as the missiles today hit mach 3 and that several villagers have to leave their properties already when firing is taking place whilst others have relatives that refuse to visit them whilst firing is taking place The army in his opinion were trying to hoodwink the community and authorities with this document and openly lie in it to attain their own ends. He also felt that members of the community council had taken little notice in the past and hadn't represented the views of the community fairly as some members of the council had vested interests connected with the MOD such as relatives working there, use of land etc. Councillor Calver had challenged Cllr Cochrane regarding this statement at previous meetings saying the only members of the council he was aware of who had members of their families working there when they were on the council was Ex County Councillor Griffiths and the only person with an agricultural interest that he was aware of was Councillor Morgan. However Mr Cochrane would not elaborate on the point. Mr Cochrane had also stated at previous meetings that Pembrokeshire County Council Environment department were not able to carry out the monitoring correctly as they did not have the correct equipment to monitor noise levels.
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Councillor Calver could not satisfy all the people all the time and it was strange that Mr Cochrane was now challenging him on the grounds that he should have declared an interest seemingly because Cllr Calver would not take Mr Cochrane's particular view on this proposal. For the record Cllr Calver had stated that rightly or wrongly the present Labour Government had placed army personnel in countries such as Iraq following the advice that they said they were given that it possessed weapons of mass destruction. We can only take the advice of the army that the proposed operations are required at this establishment to give army personnel wherever they are stationed the most modem equipment and training on that equipment for such operations. He had asked that the proposed operation be kept to the minimum amount of time possible, kept within agreed time limits, that the community is kept fully informed, that accurate monitoring of agreed noise levels be maintained and that monitoring positions be in areas which are mostly affected. All the proposals by Cllr Calver had been agreed by the community council at previous meetings.
Letter from Local Resident
Cllr Wales produced a letter from a local resident with a complaint. In the council meeting held on the 11th November Cllr Wales had produced a letter he said he had received from Councillor Thompson regarding the complaint made by her partner at a previous meeting. When the clerk had started to read out the letter and suggested it was concerning a confidential item Cllr Wales withdrew the letter and could not recollect what he had done with the correct one. He refused to have the letter he had produced placed in the community council files. In the letter Mr Pellowe stated that he had raised concerns that Cllr Davies had sent totally incorrect information to the Pembrokeshire County Council and Pembrokeshire Coast National Park about the fund raising by the Manorbier and District Association. Councillor Davies had refused to name the person who he had passed the information on to him. He questioned Cllr Calver's remark that it was no concern of the council but a matter between Cllr Davies and himself. He suggested in his letter that if this attitude is taken because of a slight slip up which no doubt would happen again he felt that people who have in the past been willing to give of themselves would no longer continue to do so. Mr Pellowe then added further accusations against Councillor Calver in that he had interfered in last year's Jameston Fair as he had caused an upset over regulations at the local pub and that Maggie Williams would have nothing more to do with the fair. Councillor Calver was concerned about these allegations as it had been suggested before the 2004 fair that Mrs Williams said that it would be her last fair and in relation to the suggestion regarding the regulations to the pub he indicated that he had in fact saved the night time event by keeping his stalls open until the evening session and that if he and his wife not done this the night time event would not have been allowed to proceed.
Mr Pellowe informed the community council that as Cllr Davies was a member of a minor authority he had to disclose his source under the Freedom of Information Act otherwise it would be deemed a contempt of court. He then stated that assuming Cllr Davies complied with the instruction and that person named is a community councillor the person should be made to apologise for forwarding false information about an association for which the community has a deed of trust. His third request was that the community council take an accurately minute vote that "in future if any community councillor feels that if there are any concerns of a local charitable events organisation then this community councillor must contact the chairperson of the community council for this person to obtain the fullest facts in house before involving the authorities". Mr Pellowe felt that if his suggested vote is not taken charities will be seriously affected with a resultant diminishment of the community.
Cllr Calver was concerned regarding the history to this letter appearing in front of the council at this time. Considering its past history of appearance/non appearance in the hands of Cllr Wales as it was apparently first given for Councillor Wales to present to the November council meeting. Cllr Clver asked what date was on the letter. The clerk replied - 1st December 2004. Cllr Calver asked how could an open letter be given to Cllr Wales to be read out in the November 2004 meeting when it was dated 1st December 2004. Councillor Wales could not explain why this hand written open letter which he said he had received in October/November was dated 1st December 2004.
Both Cllr Calver and Davies were very concerned about this letter with Cllr Calver suggesting that the council should not be just taking notice of a letter being sent in but to advise the person to appear in front of the council with his allegations. One councillor remarked that Mr Pellowe was sick man to which Cllr Davies suggested that perhaps he should be helped to attend in a wheelchair if he was making accusations and demands of the council how they should be carrying out their business. On hearing this remark a member of the public demanded a retraction from both Councillor Calver and Davies as the man was already in a wheelchair. Both councillors were unaware of this but insisted that members of the public could not just send in letters based on disputed information, without being present for the council to discuss the accusations. At the first meeting when this had been discussed Mr Pellowe had advised the council that Cllr Davies had written to the police regarding the incident to which Cllr Calver had asked for him to produce a copy of that letter to the council, and as far as he was aware Mr Pellowe had not done so. Cllr Wales was instructed to ask Mr Pellowe for a copy of the letter which he said he had of the original complaint by Cllr Davies to the police.
Council Owned Land at Jameston
The owner of comer house had forwarded her £10 cheque for the land at Jameston and asked the council if she could pay by bankers order. Cllr Neads was concerned that by banking the cheque the council would automatically agree to extend the licence and felt that the council should seek legal advice on what type of license was issued to owner. Cllr Calver felt that we should look at the possibility of returning this land to the owners as it was of little use to the council and he was concerned that the tree that had originally been planted in the area could now be affecting the drainage system to the house.
Circular from County Councillor P Stock
The meeting would take place on the 21st February 2005.
Cllr Calver asked for the issue of roads to be placed on the agenda and Cllr Wales asked for safe routes to school to be included. Cllr Calver said he would try to be at the meeting as the county councillor but Cllr Davies and Wales were nominated to go on behalf of the community council.
Dwelling at Manorbier Newton
Pembrokeshire National Park had informed the council that the proposed dwelling at Manorbier Newton had been refused because of its policy of no development in the open countryside. Cllr Calver stated that he believed this decision to be ridiculous due to the fact that if this was the case what hope was there for future housing in the area. Cllr Wales felt that the community council should only make recommendations in line with National Park guidelines. Cllr Calver felt it was not the council's duty to consider applications paying regard to National Park policy but to put the local opinion forward as the requirements for the area did not seem to be the same as the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park view. Cllr Griffiths remarked that when she was the county councillor she had always believed it was best to leave planning decisions to the National Park or County Council employees.
Jameston Play Area.
Letters were received from Mr N Bailey and Mr P Leggett regarding the play area. Mr Leggettt confirmed that permission had been given to County Councillor Calver to erect the posts in the play area. Cllr Wales again tried to raise the issue but Cllr Calver suggested we should move on. Mr Bailey had forwarded the county council policy on play areas and Cllr Calver wondered where Cllrs Griffiths and Wales stood on this issue as both had tried to score political points on this issue during the county council elections. Both councillors felt that their diametrically opposed views still prevailed.
Letters from Ombudsman
Two letters were received from the local government ombudsman regarding complaints made against several councillors and he had informed the community council that in his opinion there was a case to answer and he was forwarding the complaints to the monitoring officer at Pembrokeshire County Council for further investigation.
Safe Routes to School
A letter had been received from Pembrokeshire County Council advising them that the council had been successful in their bid to the WAG assembly for funding for the project. The total amount allocated was £80,000 out of the original amount submitted for the project. Cllr Wales felt this was a great success into which he had put a lot of effort. Cllr Davies queried how this could be claimed to be successful when the scheme was scheduled to cost £396,000. Cllr Calver had only acquired a report on the scheme that day and was concerned that the first priority was to clear up the situation outside the school. He felt it was totally unrealistic to carry out further work until the situation was sorted out outside the school. He would be looking into the costing of the works already carried out which seemed to have made the situation worse.