MINUTES OF ANNUAL VILLAGE MEETING HELD ON MONDAY 9th MAY 2022
Held in the Memorial Hall, Publow Lane, Pensford at 7pm
Present: Mrs J Stephenson, Mrs J Gully, Mrs T Jones, Mr P Baxter, Mr S Filer, Mr M Daniels, Mr Andy Lyon, Mrs S Grimes. Also Present Mrs H Richardson (Clerk) and 6 members of the public.
a) Chairman’s Report: I have much pleasure in presenting my Chairman’s Report on the activities of the Parish Council for the last 12 months.
It has been a busy year with meetings still held virtually at the start of the year. We were very pleased to be able to return to face-to-face meetings. It was nice to see residents attending our meetings and contributing to the public participation section of the meeting.
We held a consultation day in the village hall which enabled residents to let us know how they would like us to spend funds made available to us by the Community Infrastructure Levy. This was very well attended, and much discussion took place. As a result, we have set up a working party to look into the practicality of installing some ANPR cameras.
My thanks go to Mark McMullen, our Footpaths Officer who keeps our footpaths clear, and our three guardians of the Defibrillators who ensure that they are always in good working order in case they are needed. They are housed in telephone kiosks and recently, we needed an electrician to repair the lights which had stopped working.
Thanks go to Mike Daniels who helped to install the litter bins and continues to empty them regularly with Simon King. I am sure this helps to reduce the amount of unsightly litter around the parish.
The Parish Council has been in discussions with the Highways Department at B&NES following the removal of the pedestrian traffic island on the A37. We unsuccessfully campaigned to prevent the removal, which was taken out due to the number of times it was being hit by cars. Since its removal we have tried to ensure that alternative measures are put in place to improve the safety for pedestrians.
The Parish Council agreed to adopt the vintage telephone box kindly donated by Sarah Bishop and her family. Thank you to Paul Baxter for taking the time to restore the phone box and also for organising the annual nativity scenes around the Pensford.
A tree has been planted on the village green to commemorate the Queens Platinum Jubilee so thankyou to Tracey Jones and Steve Filer for making this happen and to everyone who has volunteered to keep the tree watered.
We have considered and commented on many planning applications this year.
The renovation of the final fingerpost at the foot of Priestdown is almost complete
Tony Jones and Dawn Custance have resigned this year and both vacancies have been filled, The first vacancy was filled by Layla Malt in an uncontested election and the second vacancy was filled by the co-option of Andy Lyon.
I would like to thank all the councillors for your attendance at Parish Council meetings and at other meetings on behalf of the Parish Council. Thank you to Helen for all her hard work.