Wotton Town Council Meeting

18th November 2024

I attended a meeting of Wotton Town Council meeting last night along with SDC Cllr Cohen and SDC Cllr Braun, I took some informal notes.

Before the meeting there was talk of the gargantuan size of Council agenda packs. This months WTC pack weights in at 273 pages. A Cllr. is gobsmacked that these are still being printed out. I didn't pipe up that my last SDC Audit and Standards pack was close to 400 pages, but sent electronically. There has to be a cost of at least 5p per page and dozens of grams of carbon for printed versions. Anyway.....

Normal formalities at the start of the meeting. Minutes couldn't be approved as they had only just been received. A dispensation was agreed for one Cllr. as they had an interest in agenda item #11. It was noted that there was now a vacancy at WTC as David Veal had recently resigned. The Chair thanked David for his contributions. An election could be called up until the 29th if anyone in the parish is interested in standing. However, there are now four vacancies and the Council is able to co-opt.

County Councillor report. Cllr Cohen was asked about a grit bins in Parklands (separate item #8d) and Court Orchard. It was unclear if the one in Court Orchard was owned by WTC or GCC. Questions about sharing the list of bench locations. Cllr Cohen indicated that GCC had said two of the locations were OK in principle. Cllr Cohen had also delivered a petition re the 84/85 bus route to Downing Street whilst there on a visit to London. She is still hopeful that something may happen, pressure is building. In the spirit of local democracy, cooperation and rising above party politics here's a picture! ;)

Claire Young MP, Cllr Linda Cohen, Daniel Zeichner (Minister for Rural Affairs), Simon Opher MP. Picture pinched from Simon Opher's Bluesky feed. (I'm on Bluesky too pop by and say Hi!)

Discussion about the knock on effects from the recent closure of Rushmire Hill, for a few days recently. People using local knowledge to circumvent the diversion were causing all sorts of problems in the narrow roads around the parish and for the people living along these back routes. Everyone should follow the longer official diversion route to ensure sanity. Rushmire is going to be closed for six months early next year. GCC are holding a public meeting in Wotton on 10th December.

District Councillors' Report. A few questions about the Symn Lane Play area and funds raised via the Stroud Funding Scheme and the levy of 7% in fees. Cllr Braun thought that these fees were picked up by SDC as part of the scheme. Cllr Braun will followup. Question on the shop front grant scheme (mentioned at the Bolster Wotton event, maybe) this is a work in progress by led by Stroud Chamber of Trade.

Finance items. Quote for remedial work to Civic Centre fire alarm panel was approved after discussion, as was the grit bin for Parklands and the November accounts.

The discussions on funding works for the Town and Chipping Halls were extensive. A Public Works loan of upto £300k is required. Already spent £40k on scheme cost of £250k and incurring further costs of £1.5k per month. £125k in maintenance reserve. Hang on for 6-9 months? Cllr. says National Lottery Heritage Fund funding should be applied for in parallel rather than just pursuing PWLB. Another Cllr. says that some residents very unhappy with progress. Clerk wants to hire a consultant to help with PWLB application as no staff capacity to process the application. Then Clerk raises that difficulty contacting a named SDC planning officer for informal telephone advice. Cllr Braun say WTC should use SDC pre-application advice service so that proper process is followed. WTC gets a discount and fees are insignificant anyway. Cllr. says that these staffing issues needs to be sorted, the process has been gone through so many times without resolution. Cllr. agrees to fill out the PWLB application to take pressure off staff, unsure of final resolution.

Then an item to agree to work with the Kingswood Parish Council re the McMurtry and Renishaw planning applications. Cllr. says that it would be difficult as WTC supports the application whilst KPC do not. Conflict of interests. Wotton will benefit from the creation of skilled employment close to the town. Cllr. also perplexed at the KPC position re proposed Greenway saying that surly we all need to encourage children to walk and cycle to school safely? It was agreed that both Councils could work together on a sustainable accessible transport strategy.

There was discussion on registering the Streamfield land with Land Registry, also registering the lease from WTC to the Recreational Trust too. WTC to pick up costs but then hesitancy to agree because said costs are unknown. Brief discussion on Play Gloucestershire community play service at Synwell Playing Field on Mondays. Cllr. praised this great service and Cllrs. were encouraged to visit and say hello.

WTC offices will be closed 23rd-1st Jan inc. over Xmas whereas Cllr Braun confirmed SDC is closed 25th-1st inc. There will be staff on call in both cases.

Consultation on Burial and Cremation. Again, much discussion. Responding will be a drain on very limited staffing resource. One Cllr. said that WTC should not respond as it's a national consultation and local priorities are greater. Others disagree and decide to set up a working group anyway.

Further consultations also require a response, one on remote attendance and proxy voting. Rather than each councillor responding it was decided that the Chair would send a WTC agreed response. The process of agreeing the response to each question was protracted. The Cotswolds National Landscape (AONB) Management Plan was skipped as was the SDC Council Plan survey because there was no paper copy. The Local Government Boundary review was noted.

Myself and Cllr Braun left the meeting at item #16 as it was getting quite late. The Chair asked if we wanted to stay for the restricted section, re the Symn Lane Car Park. We declined as we had nothing to add to the last communication from SDC CEO (Kathy) to WTC.