ABERDEENSHIRE COUNCIL

Minute of Meeting of the Formartine Community Council Forum held on Wednesday 19 November 2014, at 7.00pm in Meldrum Academy Oldmeldrum.

Present: / Marion Ewenson, Chair – Fyvie, Rothie & Monquhitter Community Council
Glen Douglas, Foveran Community Council
Nick Orpwood, Fyvie, Rothie & Monquhitter Community Council
Katrin Prager, Foveran Community Council
Brian McDougall, Udny Community Council
John Pirie, Meldrum, Bourtie & Daviot Community Council
Elaine Brown, Formartine Area Manager
Carol Crawford, PA to Formartine Area Manager
Claire Robertson, Formartine Area Committee Officer
Mark Mitchell, Formartine Area Project Officer
Councillor Johnston, Aberdeenshire Council
Councillor Merson, Aberdeenshire Council
In Attendance: / Louise Farmer, GREC
Alison Robertson, Dog Warden
Apologies: / Andrew McCartney, Meldrum, Bourtie & Daviot Community Council
Irene Dunbar Meldrum, Bourtie & Daviot Community Council
Sandy McDougall, Ellon Community Council
Cathy Vincent, Auchterless, Inverkeithny & Fisherford
Cllr Hendry, Aberdeenshire Council
Cllr Norrie, Aberdeenshire Council
Cllr Robertson, Aberdeenshire Council
Cllr Shand, Aberdeenshire Council
Cllr Norrie, Aberdeenshire Council
Cllr Davidson, Aberdeenshire Council
Cllr Owen, Aberdeenshire Council
Cllr Gifford, Aberdeenshire Council
Cllr Duncan, Aberdeenshire Council
Cllr Thomson, Aberdeenshire Council
Item No: / Action
1 / Grampian Regional Equality Council – Presentation by Louse Farmer
Louise Farmer gave a short presentation on GREC. GREC has circulated a survey requesting feedback on equalities issues.
What do the Community Councils think about the service the GREC is providing? GREC also wanted to know how they felt about equality such as transport enabling people to get to Hospital, GP appointments etc. She also gives talks on Equality to other organisations to make sure that they fulfil their duties in relation to:
Race Relations
Race Gender
Civil Partnerships
Sex Discrimination
Disability Discrimination etc,
An Education Development Officer will be attending the schools to speak about bullying and talk about the Ann Frank Award. The school will get a certificate if they participate – it is not a competition but an opportunity for children to learn about equality.
Louise asked if anyone had any questions:
Glen Douglas asked about the village halls in relation to DDA compliance. Louise said that she would find out about this for Glen.
Glen asked whether GREC could support Children wo are being bullied in school.
The new GREC Education Development Officer will be involved in this type of issue. Glen suggested that a notice should be put on the notice board in schools to assist with publicising this type of issue.
Elaine Brown agreed to write to the Heads of Service to highlight the service that GREC offers and ensure that they are aware of this.
Brian McDougall said that he felt that the Survey was not relevant to Community people. Louise said that she would take this back to Aberdeenshire Council.
Marion asked how they GREC were funded – Louise said various organisations and the Scottish Government. They also get some money from donations and training sessions.
John Pirie asked whether the act was from the UK Government and Louise said yes.
Louise left leaflets and her business card for CCs to pick up.
Marion thanked Louise for coming along and giving Community Councils an insight to what GREC were involved in and what they did. / EB
LF
2 / Dog Warden – Presentation by Alison Robertson
Alison Robertson reported on the Local Green Dog Walking Scheme. There are now 20 Authorities signed up for this project including Aberdeenshire council is one of these.
Alison had brought packs with her and offered these to Community Councils to take back to their Communities. In the future this would be run by the Community Planning Officer.
Alison had small toy dogs which would be prizes for Children when they take this to schools. The Community Councils who take part in the scheme would be given a dog to offer as a prize at for example, their Galas and events. They would also be expected to put posters up around the villages in their communities. The posters could be laminated to preserve them. There is also a range of merchandise such as badges and lanyards, snoods and scarves. People who sign up will get a piece of merchandise and a membership card which they can take in to Council offices that will allow then to get dog poop bags free.
There will also be decals going on the waste trucks to advertise these.
Glen suggested that the waste trucks offer bags to people – Alison agreed to take this back to the service.
John Pirie asked what to do about a dog that was causing concern.
Alison said that the service would be able to speak to the owners of the dogs and suggested that he contact Jennifer who is the Dog Warden for the area providing he had the right to be there lawfully. / DC
AR
3 / Changes to the Scheme of Establishment – Claire Robertson
Claire gave an update on the timescales of the extension for the phase 1 which had just closed and agreed that she would feedback on this at the next meeting.
4 / Apologies
The Apologies listed above were noted.
5 / Minute
The Minute of the meeting held on 4 September 2014, was approved as a true record of the meeting.
6 / Matters Arising
6.1 / Play Park Equipment
Glen Douglas reported that spares are not available presently for play park equipment and broken equipment is just removed. It was noted that there is a play park moratorium at the moment.
6.2 / Maps
Claire had previously agreed that the maps were to be sent round via Ian Rogan however, Community Councils had not received this yet. Claire agreed to organise for the maps to be sent and to find out what is on the Website. / CR
6.3 / Community Council Admin Grant
Elaine reminded Community Councils that they are required to publish their Agendas and minutes and to provide the Formartine Area Office with copies of same. In addition, they should provide an up-to-date list of Community Council members elected, their term and a list of co-opted members and the date they were co-opted.
It was agreed that all Community Councils are to be contacted regarding this. / All Community Councils
7 / Presentation Topic for Future Meetings
7.1 / Developer Contributions
EB asked if this would be useful and the group agreed that this should be organised.
John Pirie said that they had been informed that Developer Obligations could not be used for paths, however he had contacted the Developer and had been advised that they did not care. John Pirie agreed to provide the paperwork relating to this.
Glen asked if there was a way to let Community Councils know what is available. Elaine said that elected members who attend Community Council meetings will have this information. Councillor Merson said that he had highlighted this to Community Councils in his ward after the reorganisation of the service and the figures were accurate and available.
Glen asked that it was recorded that Mark Mitchell has been very helpful with the applications.
Marion said that they discuss this at their meetings and decide it this way. / CC
JP
8 / Community Council Reports
8.1 / Fyvie Rothie & Monquhitter Community Council
New recycling rules – glass is not being collected and they wanted small recycling centres being introduced to the villages. The community would then take ownership of it etc.
They discussed a Planning Application for Smidy Quarry. This was not too complicated apart from the recycling aspect and they were worried about the extra lorries coming through the village. A letter has been sent to the Planning Service about this.
There was an exhibition on the CARES application and there was a very good turnout. This is called the Fyvie Community Wind Farm but Nick Orpwood said that he did not feel this was accurate and could be slightly misleading.
The AGM is to be held next week and they are now up to 24 members.
The village hall is being done up presently and there is a buy a floor board campaign going on presently which allows members of the public to purchase a floor board for the hall. However, they need to do this over the summer break to try to avoid the hall not being used
8.2 / Foveran Community Council
Report provided prior to meeting by Glen Douglas.
Foveran Community Council continues to be very active.
Within Newburgh the new bridge over the burn has just been completed and the Council is looking into the condition of the first bridge (Bankers Bridge) as it is decaying badly
The nicer Newburgh Group has made a vast difference to the village with planters / tubs and the verges within the village cut and tidied
The weekly litter pick by the volunteers from ALI (Aberdeenshire Litter Initiative) keep the village clean
The Newburgh Gallows Hill Community Sports Hub is virtually completed with two football pitches, MUGA (Multi-Use Games Area) for football / tennis / netball
Floodlights are available for the MUGA court and there is a pavilion with changing facilities / toilets / showers.
A management committee is currently being set up to oversee the use of the sports hub, which is available to the wider community, not just the residents of Newburgh
The subject of Dog Fouling, Litter and Speeding come up at every meeting we have, and we are constantly trying to get Police Scotland to carry out more speed checks in the villages of
·  Newburgh
·  Cultercullen
·  Udny Station
·  Foveran
In an ideal world Aberdeenshire Council would install flashing speed signs that show vehicles actual speeds, which we believe will slow vehicles down in each of the villages
We have plans that our newsletter will be available soon on line as well as being distributed in hard copy to residents within the FCC area
8.3 / Meldrum, Bourtie & Daviot Community Council
Report provided in advance by Andrew McCartney.
For the whole of this year the CC has been short of 5 members (28% shortfall) During the year 1 member resigned early in the year bringing the shortfall to 33%. Furthermore 2 members have notified their intention to resign at the AGM. Notice of application for Community Council membership has been posted in the local press, the Community notice board, Library & Post Office. Following several week of advertising there have been no registered applications. Recent meetings have been poorly attended and the last meeting there was insufficient members to form a quorum. I have approached 2 members of the public who I consider would make a good contribution to Council business but both have declined. One member who is resigning at the AGM has been an excellent and diligent Council member, and will submit reasons for resignation at the AGM.
Traffic volume passing through the town centre particularly at commuting times causes major congestion. Speed ramp on South Road and speed cushions on Commercial Road have reduced speed slightly but Council monitoring still indicates drivers are not adhering to the legal speed limit. At the last Community Council meeting representation from Aberdeenshire Council Roads department and the Police were invited to consider what action could be taken to reduce traffic speed entering and travelling through the town on the A947. A number of measures were flagged and we hope that these can be implemented sooner rather than later. There was also representation from staff & parents from the Primary School with regards to parking outside the school and traffic movements on Commercial Road & as a result of earlier implementation of restricting parent parking on side streets has only made the situation worse with parents now parking on the one way Meadowbank exiting onto Commercial Road where pupils have to cross Meadowbank where there is no patrol facility. The whole scenario of traffic movement and pupils in the immediate area around the school in my view is an accident waiting to happen. How often have we read of an accident in school areas only to learn that dangerous situations had been notified to the authorities with no action taken to prevent such accidents? And it is perhaps when Community Council members who live and breathe in the community, identify and report problems and subsequently little attempt is made to take remedial action that members become apathetic and disillusioned.
The efforts to identify a site to provide a transport hub for the town in order to relief town centre parking seems to have reached stalemate & the parking problems have been further exasperated by the closure of the British Legion car park being closed to members of the public.
Meldrum over recent years has been blessed with very low levels of rowdy youth activities. Sadly, I have to report that a group of young people are causing needless and mindless havoc particularly around the town square, many instances of such behaviour have been reported to the police but to date there has been no apparent restraint to their mindless activities. The most recent incident was on Sunday evening when Urquhart Road was blocked off with the cones left by BT in connection with their civil engineering works.
Earlier in the year a small sub-committee completed and submitted our views on the consultation document to the “Community Empowerment (Scotland) Bill, subsequently one of our members attended the National Conference in Edinburgh in the hope that this might mean good news for the future of Community Councils, sadly the feedback does not give rise for further empowerment coming our way. The only “Empowerment” that the Bill provides for Community Councils is a new statutory role in relation to the common good, recognising their important role as voices for local communities. The “Common Good” is apparently not defined in the Bill because “at this stage our view is that there are significant difficulties in framing a satisfactory definition.” Suffice to say that the common good is comprised of property and funds which have been bequeathed to the Council for the benefit of all its citizens. In other words we get to have a say on what belongs to us anyway. It was disappointing that the Minister is reported to have said in reference to Community Councils “dismissal of any idea that Community Councils should be given any further powers” largely because they are usually unelected and therefore unrepresentative of their communities. One delegate speaker Prof. Kerley concluded that Community Councils should not be simply given more grants by “higher authorities” but should be given more power and associated accountability. That way they would become more representative and the funding would follow. His final conclusion was “do this or just kill them off”