Clerk’s Report November 2022

Parish Clerk Report for 29^th November 2022

Completed Actions

Copies of all letters and emails will be available to view at the meeting.

• Following a phone call from Ann Dickman who was concerned about the stability of her mobility scooter on the pedestrian access by the Brenamoor cattle grid, I contacted the Commoners and then Highways to see if the access could be levelled. Josh has dug a ditch to drain some of the water, and asked the public rights of way warden to fill in the area with more stone, but doesn’t know what the timescale is for him getting round to it!
• The NatWest bank account is now closed and the money has been transferred to the new Lloyds account.
• I have requested a copy of the new Register of Electors.
• I have updated the contact information held from Covid on a site called ‘In Touch Oke’.
• I have put the Avian Flu information on the website and noticeboard.
• I have sent a letter of thanks on behalf of the council to Ian Brooker on the occasion of his retirement as Dartmoor National Park Ranger.

Training

• I have completed my ILCA (Introduction to Local Council Administration) e-learning course, a GCSE equivalent qualification for new clerks.
• I attended an online conference arranged by Scribe Accounts for Clerks and Councillors. They had some interesting sessions, the ones that I thought were useful were:
  • Creatively Engaging Young People
  • Using social media
  • Web Accessibility
  • Budgeting and Forecasting Top Tips
  • Updates to the JPAG Practitioner’s Guide and Auditing
  • Happiness, Confidence and Stress Management
• I have attended some free Climate Change training for councils. There was some interesting information about storing emails, and sending attachments and photos that are ways that we could save energy.
• I attended some free training by Parish Online, which provide a very good tool for creating maps and storing information, which could be used for second home information, and asset locations.

Agenda Items

2022/23-130 Muddy Lane

After correspondence with Ian Brooker regarding the vehicular traffic on bridleways, he has erected a ‘No unauthorised vehicles beyond this point” sign at the Tongue End entrance to the bridleway.

2022/23-131 Speeding

The options as far as I can understand them are:

1. Apply to Highways (with DNPA/DCC/WDBC support) to get a 40 MPH speed restriction on the village roads, in line with the Dartmoor National Park ‘Moor Care’ policy and ask Dartmoor National Park to provide signs (there may be a cost) for the entrances. This is a long-term process.
2. Apply to Highways (with DNPA/DCC/WDBC support) to get a 30 MPH speed restriction on the village roads. As mentioned at the meeting, since the eligibility is determined by accidents, and Belstone has not had any reported accidents, it is unlikely that this would succeed. This is a long-term process.
3. Apply to Highways (with DNPA/DCC/WDBC support) to get a 20 MPH speed restriction on the village roads. This is highly unlikely to be successful and will probably require the 30 MPH limit first. As mentioned at the meeting, since the eligibility is determined by accidents, and Belstone has not had any reported accidents, it is unlikely that this would succeed. This is a long-term process.
4. Put up signs of our own design on private property along the roads. These are legal as long as they do not impersonate proper highways signs.  Messages such as pedestrians in road, animals in road, slow down, etc can draw attention to speed. They should be changed regularly in order to prevent ‘sign blindness’. These could be rotated with other councils. Sticklepath Parish Council are interested in sharing signs with other councils, however the designs that they are intending to use would be for lampposts, A4 sign holders would be erected on the lampposts (costs around £50 per holder + VAT), with the printed signs inside changed regularly. Sign holders for fixing on walls are cheaper at around £14 + VAT.  I have not investigated costs for posts. This could be implemented immediately.
5. Get sponsored signs such as this sort of sign at Sampford Peverell. The cost of creating the sign is covered by the Estate Agent who gets their name advertised in exchange for the warning sign. We would need to approach local agents, and again they would need to be moved around regularly in order to continue to be noticed.
6. Speed reduction signs and vehicle monitoring with radar guns (operated by volunteers) are not relevant until we have a speed limit. I doubt that anybody is going over 60 MPH on our roads, so we cannot take this sort of action, or ask the police or highways to take action until one of the first three options above is implemented. DCC have a Speed Compliance Action Review Forum (SCARF) through which they review actions on speeding, but it is measured in relation to the speed limit. https://democracy.devon.gov.uk/documents/s22189/TMT%20-%2001%20-%20SCARF.pdf
7. Raise awareness of speeding problems through articles in the Beacon, Oke Links etc..
8. Sticklepath Parish Council are going to speak to the South Tawton School Council to raise awareness through the children. There was a successful campaign in an Okehampton school recently.

2022/23-133 Cricket Club Donation

The Grant Policy states “It is the policy of the Parish Council that where charitable organisations, supported by local people, can provide facilities and services for the community, they are supported financially in so doing.”

Belstone Cricket Club is a Community Amateur Sports Club (CASC) which is recognised by HMRC as a charitable organisation. An organisation cannot be both a registered charity and a CASC. I would therefore recommend that the club should be considered technically as included within the council’s grant policy.

The policy also states that:

“All requests must benefit Belstone Parishioners or the fabric of the Parish.  Applications must state the amount required and the purpose to which it will be put.
Requests should be for the following financial year and are for single donations. The Parish does not commit to continuing support and no donation or series of donations is to be taken as an indicator of future funding.
The decision of the Council is final.”

The council can therefore decide whether or not it wishes to donate to the Cricket Club in next year’s budget, but I believe that the grant policy does not prohibit it from doing so.

2022/23-136 Election Preparation

It is the responsibility of the council to promote elections, and in particular registering for elections.  This should be done in the period from now until March. The council should consider whether they want to promote the Parish Council and membership of it, or whether there has already been sufficient interest.

Once the election is notified (at the end of March), the council can continue to operate and meet as normal, but should not make any far-reaching decisions or publicise anything that they are doing, as that could be considered an advantage to the existing councillors if they are standing in the election. For more information see https://www.local.gov.uk/our-support/guidance-and-resources/pre-election-period/what-pre-election-period-means-practice

2022/23-138 Budget 2023/24

Having done the Finance module of the ILCA, I understand that to create a budget you estimate expenditure for next year, estimate income for next year and then the precept is the shortfall. The precept is not included in the estimated income. Income can include VAT refund, grants, transfers from reserves and donations. I have included a 3% uplift for inflation on the expenditure, which may be an underestimate at the present inflation rate, but this year our costs have not gone up by that. I have not included any grants as both Devon County Council (DCC) and West Devon Borough Council (WDBC) have indicated that due to budgetary constraints the Locality Funds will probably be cut.

The email and data storage will become part of the running costs of the council, we covered it from the contingency budget this year. It is proposed to transfer the files which are currently on the shared Village Hall drive to our own storage from next year. This follows good practice for councils.

The three capital items are the Coronation Project (Expenditure Code R), Car Park Noticeboard (Expenditure Code U) and any Highways Signage (Expenditure Code V). These can be cut if the council do not want to embark on these projects this year.

You will notice that I have included in the income a transfer from reserves of £920 (Income Code G). This would cover the one-off costs of the coronation engraving and part of the car park noticeboard.  We would still have estimated general reserves of around £2,100 at the end of 2023/24, which is within the expected range of between 3- and 12-months expenditure, although a little on the low side for a small council like ours.

The increase in the precept of 4.9% is within the range that principal councils can raise after the Autumn Statement. There has been no indication yet as to whether there will be any restrictions on local council raises. It is equivalent to £1.37 extra a year for each Band D equivalent household, based on last year’s Tax Base (how many households in the parish).

An Excel spreadsheet version, including the forecast calculations for this year, is available if required.