AMPORT PARISH COUNCIL

Minutes of the Annual Parish Meeting held on Tuesday 18^th April 2006 at 7pm in Amport Primary School.

Present: Mr Ian Morrison (Chairman), Lt Col Stephens (Vice Chairman), Mrs Preston, Mr Neville Geake, Mr Maurice Hardy, Mrs C Mallam and Suzanne Hoare (clerk).
Apologies - Mrs S.Hammer, Mr Ian Long, Mr Southern and Mr Bill Gore.
In attendance: Mrs Unwin (Village Correspondent) Speaker and 9 members of the public. Norman Arnell - TVBC Councillor

1. Apologies and Welcome
The Chairman welcomed everyone to the meeting and gave the apologies of those who were not able to attend. He introduced Ashley and Andy from the Hawk Conservancy and Mr Freeman Smith from Neighbourhood Watch

2. The minutes of the previous Parish Meeting had been agreed at the May 2005 meeting and no matters were currently outstanding.

3. Report by the Hawk Conservancy on Red Kites
Last year when 4 Red Kites were released into the vicinity 2 young birds were lost to accidents with power lines. This year 7 Red Kites have been released and these will soon be breeding, hopefully the sad accidents of last year will not reoccur. The public can help by reporting incidents with power lines to the power companies. Sightings of birds nesting close to power lines can put pressure on the power companies to erect a T perch above the potential lethal perches on the pylons. Only the young fledglings tend to use these power lines as perches, so if accidents in the early weeks can be avoided the chances of survival are greatly increased. Therefore we ask the public to be vigilant and help identify the pylons which can kill the young fledglings and put pressure on the power companies to erect T perches.
Q Would it be better for the power lines to be underground?
A. Yes but this is considered too expensive.
Q How much do the T perches cost?
A. Not a great deal but the power supply has to be interrupted to install them, hence the power companies will not fit them to all pylons without cause.
The chairman thanked Andy and Ashley for attending the meeting and commented that Sir George Young MP has stated that he is interested in becoming involved and promoting the cause up to a national level. Ian Morrison invited the Hawk Conservancy to write an article for the Parish Magazine

4. The Police were not present at the meeting and Freeman Smith expressed his desire to retire from the post of Neighbourhood Watch Co-ordinator. George Bacon has said he will take on the role but is heavily committed on the work front for the next 6 months and would like to find a volunteer to cover this period. It was suggested that a notice be out in the Parish Magazine.

5. Chairman’s Report
This is the point at which the Chairman gives a state of the Parish address and I am pleased to confirm that the past 12 months have been a time when we made modest improvements to the quality of life in the village and not been sidetracked with too many tsunamis or outbreaks of avian flu.

Planning issues have not been contentious and we have had even fewer applications to deal with than the relatively few we had last year. The residents at the Firs in Sarson lane whose application was the main topic at last year’s annual meeting have now been accredited with gypsy status and I am pleased to confirm that we have not received any adverse comments about their occupation of the land.

As always, the Green has taken up much of our time and continues to be one of the best assets of the parish. We employed a new mowing contractor and, although he is costing rather more than out previous contractor, his improved practice has been welcomed by everybody. The grass is now kept considerably shorter and the school are so impressed that they have volunteered to pay for additional cuts during the summer months so that they can use it themselves to better effect.

The playground equipment is well used by the children and I thank Maria Long for monitoring the condition of this area.

In recent weeks our old friend Mr Mole has returned and we arranged a suitable reception committee for him.

We have spent a long time trying to find a solution to the track on the Green that leads to Nether Cottage and thought we had a solution in placing Grasscrete along the entire width. At the eleventh hour we established that expensive and effective as such an answer would have been, it would not bear the weight of TVBC refuse vehicles so the idea has been ditched and we will continue to look for a solution to this problem. Other minor improvements to the Green are expected to take place during the next few months.

As for Stroud’s Field, I would like to thank publicly the committee that has been looking after this and congratulate them on the small gate, which they have installed. This certainly makes the site more inviting and a rustic bench will be put there in due course.

The footpaths will be cut twice this year and I would like to thank Mr Hawkins Byass for a new stile, Simon Chesshire for putting in a post to prevent travellers camping near Furzedown lane, and Kieron Beattie and Robin Aisher for their posts which will hopefully stop dumping on the footpath 6.

Perhaps thanks to the salt bins, there has been no repetition of the last Xmas accident with a sliding lorry but we continue to suffer from speeding traffic and particularly along Wiremead Lane from increased numbers of cars and lorries. This is causing ugly erosion of the verges and more importantly is making walking along the roads more hazardous. We are in touch with Hampshire Highways and will do whatever we can to keep the roads safe. Meantime, I see that I reported that Waterloo Bridge would be repaired during last year. The Authority did nothing about this and it is back on their desk for active consideration.

Neville Geake and Charles Stephens have ploughed on with the Village design Statement and after much consultation with the parishioners and negotiations with the planners, the end of their work is in sight and the document should soon be available both to us and to Test Valley as a subsidiary planning document.

The finances of the parish are still in a healthy state partly because we have had very little capital expenditure last year. We did raise the precept to £9,500 – it was at £8,500 4 years ago – partly to have money available for spending on the track on the Green but also because we were aware that both the church and the school were about to have major fund raising appeals and wanted to be in a position to help and perhaps lead the way.

We feel strongly that part of our role is to encourage community activities and that as many people as possible should have a sense of belonging to the Parish and not just use it as a dormitory. In this spirit we actively supported the PCC’s initiative in creating a welcome pack for all newcomers and are grateful for all the work done on this by our village correspondent Caroline Unwin; we thank David Preston for all his help with Amport Talkback: we hold one of our monthly meetings north of the A303 so residents may attend, though precious few do, and we hope to encourage more volunteer days either in Stroud’s field, the church or elsewhere in the village.

Thanks are due to our County Councillor Pat West and our Borough Councillor, Norman Arnell for all their valuable advice, and of course to all members of this Parish Council who freely give of their time and spend so many Monday evenings away from their families. As always, my final thanks are again to our cheerful and learned Clerk, Suzanne, without whom I dread to think!

6. Village Design Statement
Neville Geake gave a brief update on the project.
The draft village design statement is on the website. It has been down graded slightly to a supplementary planning document. More photos are needed to taken on dull days and a further round of consultation is needed.
Norman Arnell commented on the importance of the VDS at planning consideration meetings.
Ian Morrison thanked Neville and Charles for their hard work.

7. Finance
The clerk distributed copies of the Balance sheet for the year ended March 31^st 2006.
This gave details of all income and expenditure for the past year. There were no questions arising from the figures. The overall balance for the year was £14,376.47, which was represented by the General Fund of £12,570.70 and the Village Hall Fund of £1,805.77.

8. Public Participation

Q. Rose Wareham asked why the roof tile were being replaced at Sarson Close
A. Norman Arnell stated that the repairs were now the responsibility of Testway Housing. However he would try and get a reason for the expenditure from them.

Q. Richard Unwin commented that he was concerned about the erosion of verges within the village
A. Ian Morrison stated that the Authorities would only act to install rustic verges to stop further erosion; this may well end up happening in Wiremead lane. The Authorities would also take action when tree root erosion became a problem, this again would lead to rustic curbs being installed.

Q. Would Quiet Lane Status be of any value to the village?
A. This is an area we need to investigate further and report back to the next meeting of the Parish Council.

The Chairman thanked everyone for attending and the meeting closed at 7.40pm.