AMPORT PARISH COUNCIL

Minutes of the Annual Parish Meeting held on Monday 21st April 2008 at 7pm in Amport School.

Present: Mr Ian Morrison (Chairman), Lt Col Stephens (Vice Chairman), Mr Bill Gore, Mrs S.Hammer, Mr Ian Long, Mrs D Preston, Mrs C Mallam and Suzanne Hoare (clerk)

Apologies - Mr Southern and Mr Nicholas Hoare
In attendance: Mrs Unwin (Village Correspondent) Speaker and 6 members of the public. Pat West HCC Councillor

1. Apologies and Welcome
The Chairman welcomed everyone to the meeting and gave the apologies of those who were not able to attend, unfortunately Paula Robertson from the probation service had been called to an urgent meeting in Basingstoke and David Horne had a prior engagement. This meant that the Green and Fen would not be the central theme of tonight’s meeting.
The minutes of the previous Parish Meeting had been agreed at the May 2007 meeting and no matters were currently outstanding.

2. Neighbour Hood Watch and Police Report
Brian Nolan spoke on behalf of the Neighbourhood Watch detailing the information alerts and commenting on the 4 crimes reported in Amport in the past year.
Brian outlined the Key person’s team which has a membership of 19 and his attempts to get every part of the village covered by a Neighbourhood watch representative.
Brian Nolan felt that the future of the organisation was secure and that links with other groups in Monxton and Grateley proved useful.
Brian Nolan concluded by thanking all his key people and Caroline Unwin for issuing Neighbourhood watch packs to new residents.
PC Bill Williams arrived at the meeting and commented that he was very pleased with the Neighbourhood watch set up in Amport.
Pc Williams stated that in general Amport did not suffer from crime beyond a small number of thefts however a spate of recent incidents relating to thefts from Oil tanks was causing concern. Residents were urged to report anything suspicious to the Police especially the appearance of a red tanker or activity at properties who had just received deliveries.

3. Chairman’s Report
Again, 'good evening and welcome'.

At this point it is traditional for the Chairman to give a short  review of the past year's progress and once again I am able to report  that we are moving ahead well with most or our projects.
First we have at last completed our Village design Statement and had it adopted as a subsidiary planning document by TVBC. This should help to ensure that future building in the Parish conforms to the criteria we, after wide consultation, have set. Our thanks to Neville Geake and Charles Stephens for their perseverance in finishing this task. There are copies of the Statement here this evening for anyone who wants one and it will soon be available in disk form to be added to the new residents' pack.

Amport Green and Amport Fen continue as the main hub of the Parish and, as such, still require the greater part of our expenditure. I hope every one is pleased with the new mowing contractor and particularly with the result of the tremendous work put in by David Horne who, with the help of the Probation Service, has transformed the area by the secondary stream. This is now running freely instead of the muddy morass it was, and there is no doubt that the wildlife habitats have developed successfully. I have recently heard that there are once again plenty of water voles and that we now have kingfishers.
Various dying and dangerous trees have been removed; the play equipment has been upgraded; and the parking area tidied up. I expect our Green will be the envy of other parishes far and wide.

The footpaths have been well maintained and a start has been made of compiling a register of all adjoining landowners so that we should be able to reduce our expenditure in the future.

After many years of trying, we have at last secured a half-acre plot for a play area to the North, by Fairways/Michaelmas Drove. We are extremely grateful to Chris Dunning for donating this land. We hope that, during the current year, Sarah Hammer and the local residents will be able to come up with an acceptable plan as to how we should proceed as it is a much needed facility for the children in that part of the Parish.

Amport School flourishes and has now received planning permission for the new classroom. We have earmarked £3,000 in our Budget towards the amount the School need to raise for this.

We are rather quickly eating into the nest-egg which was created by our recovering legal costs over a dispute about the Green some years ago, and so we have raised the precept by £1,000 this year. As can be seen in our accounts, we are spending rather more than the precept each year and it is likely that we will continue to do so - if only to finance the new Play area I mentioned. It is likely that the precept will rise gradually but I would point out that we are still in the lowest quartile amongst the more than 50 parishes in Test Valley.

So all would be well except for the threat of the Megashed on Andover Airfield. As you know, we kick-started the Stop campaign and I think everyone is very impressed by energy and professionalism of that team. Please encourage everyone you can to sign the Petition, write letters of objection to T.V.B.C. and turn up at the crucial Planning meeting which looks like being on 2nd. or 9th. of June, This project would completely destroy what we love about our area, our health, our peace of mind, and our way of life.

On general governance matters, I should mention that Neville Geake and Maurice Hardy retired from the Council during the year but both have continued to assist us in their special ways. On to the Council we have welcomed Jean Arnell, Nick Hoare, and Tania Garman who each geographically represent areas of the Parish not otherwise covered.

We have adopted the new Code of Practice in that every Meeting now starts with a Declaration of any Conflict of Interest which may arise.

I will end by thanking all those who have volunteered their services to make Amport Parish a better community and a better place to live -  and amongst many would single out David Preston for his regular  efficiency with our web site;  Brian Nolan for taking on the Neighbourhood Watch with such enthusiasm, for his repeated offer of  6 scholarship places at his Lanes Shooting School so that the boys  and girls of the Parish learn to  handle a shotgun safely and proficiently, and, especially David Horne who, with Atalanta, has  transformed Amport Green and Fen.

Thanks are due also to our indefatigable correspondent, Caroline  Unwin, to Tim Southern, our Borough Councillor, and to Pat West, our  County Councillor who attends so many of our meetings in spite of her  busy schedule.
Thank you to all my colleagues on this Council who have been so helpful not least in keeping our Meetings to the point and BRIEF and, of course endless thanks to Suzanne, our learned Clerk, without who very little would ever get done.

4. Finance
The clerk distributed copies of the Balance sheet for the year ended March 31^st 2008. 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 £8,162.12, which was represented by the General Fund of £7544.60 and the Village Hall Fund of £617.52

5. Goodman Warehouse update
HCC Councillor Pat West updated the meeting on the current state of the planning application at the Andover Airfield site. Highways and HCC have yet to respond to all the outstanding items. Pat West urged everyone to object once again and to visit and view the updated information from Goodman currently on display ay Beech Hurst. Pyestock was refused after a 6 hour council meeting at which the planning officers recommended permission. This is an issue we cannot afford to forget and must continue to lobby all concerned.

6. Public Participation
There were no to the parish Council.

The Chairman thanked everyone for attending and the meeting closed at 7.50pm.