|
St. Florence Notebook - Community Council Meeting - 12th March 2007 At the start of the meeting County Councillor Calver queried with the clerk why a notice of the meeting was not published on the village notice boards advising members of the public of the date of meeting and the agenda to be discussed. He explained to councillors that it was a legal requirement that a notice be displayed on the village notice board giving three days notice of an intended meeting. He was concerned that if the meeting took place any decisions would not be legal. The clerk advised the council that she had been busy and did not have time to display a notice of the intended meeting. The chairperson, Cllr Mrs Evans, did not give an explanation to Councillor Calver regarding this failure to advertise the meeting or on very questionable legality of the meeting. Website Comments The law as it stands regarding advertising notice of community council meetings is very specific and requires the notice of the meeting to be displayed in public for three clear days excluding the day of the meeting and the day of posting. The time, venue and agenda have to be stated and the notice signed by the Clerk or other appointed proper officer. The summons to the meeting given to councillors also has to be available some three days in advance to allow them to become familiar with the topics on the agenda. This website firstly has concerns that the council has decided to ask members of the public to leave as councillors do not wish for the views that they air in a public meeting to be attributed to them and secondly the council has failed to notify members of the public that a meeting of the council was to take place. The requirement is for a specific resolution to be agreed to exclude the public and the press and that resolution must state the reason for the exclusion. Eastern Lane The subject of Eastern Lane raised it head again with Cllr Nixon concerns regarding the dangerous nature of the road. Cllr Calver asked members what they wished to happen pointing out that the council in the past had complained regarding size of vehicles, weight of vehicles, speed of vehicles and the inability of drivers to reverse in discussing the road. In the past Cllr Nixon had asked for the road to be designated "unsuitable for heavy goods vehicles" but Cllr Calver had pointed out he had been advised by highways that this would mean all vehicles over 7.5 tonnes being banned and the community council had to be realistic and take into consideration the needs of the farmer halfway up the Lane whose farm was serviced by a twenty ton milk lorry. Concern was raised by another councillor that the school bus was using the lane to which Councillor Calver pointed out if this was the case and as Cllr Nixon was chairman of the school governors and the bus was contracted to the school, he therefore would suggest that Cllr Nixon should be making representation to the school to make it a condition of hire that the bus was not to use the lane. That should solve that problem of the bus use of the Lane. It was no good complaining of large vehicles using the lane when you are chairman of the body that hires the bus that other councillor say is part of the problem. Another suggestion was to improve the surface of the lane and whilst accepting this would improve the quality of the road it would probably also increase the speed of traffic using the country lane. Councillors in the past had asked for access only signs to be placed. Cllr Calver pointed out that this would be impractical to enforce unless you permanently had a policeman checking drivers using the lane. The only solution to the problem would probably be to make it 'one way' and he felt that this would be inconvenient and involve villagers making a large detours when approaching St Florence from the Ridgeway or vice versa. He would arrange a meeting with the relevant official at county hall to discuss the road. Members also informed Cllr Calver of the recent serious accident involving a police car on the crossroads out of St Florence where it meets the Tenby/Sageston road. He informed the council that he felt that this was a serious concern to him and he would contact the council highways department over the possibility of having a speed reduction on this section of road and better signage to advise drivers over the entry of vehicles on to the road from both the St Florence and Redberth directions. Fees for use of St Florence Village Hall On the advice of the chairperson Cllr Mrs Evans a decision not increase the fees for users of the hall was taken. The reason she gave was that as work was to be carried out during the next twelve months the council should not increase the fees this year but "hit them with a nice rise in fees when the work is done". |