Green Hammerton Parish

GREEN HAMMERTON PARISH

DRAFT Minutes of the Annual Parish Meeting held in the Village Hall at 19.30 on Tuesday 31st March 2015

1. Present

Cllrs Bailes (Parish Council Chair), Andrew, Bowe, Chelton, Leather, Taylor, Tegerdine, the Clerk, Cllr C Lewis (HBC) and 41members of the public.

1. Welcome

The Chair welcomed everyone to the meeting.

1. Apologies

There wereapologies for absence from Sue Holden, Jayne Knights, Moira Bailes, Liz Powley, Margaret Andrew and Paul Evans.

1. Minutes of Previous Meeting

The Minutes of the Annual Parish Meeting held on 25th March 2014 were approved.

1. Resignation of Councillor

The chairman announced that Cllr Bowe has resigned from the Parish Council with effect from today. The chairman thanked Cllr Bowe for all her work as councillor over the last three years.

1. Report from the Parish Council

The meeting received the Parish Council Chairman’s report, which outlined the Parish Council’s activities for the year 2014-15 and had previously been distributed to all Green Hammerton residents.

[Due to prior commitments for two of the speakers, the chairman said that the report from the school would be next, then the Redrow development item before returning to the order on the agenda.]

1. Green Hammerton Primary School (Simon Hartley)

The aims of the school are simple – to give the best education possible in a safe environment. There are 91 pupils and 16 nursery pupils. Numbers are likely to rise as the nursery pupils come through to Reception. The prospect of new housing in Green Hammerton is a challenge to the village and the Council – more space will be needed at the school involving a close dialogue with the community. The school needs another school governor. The Head Teacher, Mrs Wallis, said that there are jobs available at the school for local people. There will be a pilot scheme for a 3:30pm close for the whole school to reduce the time parents’ cars are parked on York Road. Simon was asked about the catchment area for the school and replied that there are pupils from as far away as Arkendale and Dunsforth.

1. Redrow Development

The chairman asked Cllr Lewis (HBC) to explain the current planning situation.

Cllr Lewis(CL) said that the Harrogate Borough Council Local Plan had been rejected by the Inspector and had been withdrawn. The Plan had allowed for 390 houses per year but the Inspector indicated that the figure should be nearer 800 backdated to 2004. This figure has now been revised to 621 and HBC have enough housing supply for five years.

The effect of the withdrawal of the Local Plan is that there is now a presumption to approve ANY development as long as it is sustainable.

The HBC five year supply includes all existing allocations and includes 63 houses allocated to Green Hammerton in the original plan. The principal of development is in place.

The Great Ouseburn development that was turned down was very different from Green Hammerton since it was deemed ‘unsustainable’ for a variety of reasons including flooding.

So what is there to play for? To obtain a development that benefits Green Hammerton in terms of mix of houses, landscaping and provision of community benefits.

Several key considerations are not up toHBC:

Education – North Yorkshire County Council (NYCC) has this responsibility. NYCC may ask the developer to contribute if more school spaces are needed. NYCC will spend the money – not necessarily in Green Hammerton but over the whole area to provide enough school places in total.

A59 access – NYCC are responsible for highways.

Water and sewage – This is the responsibility of Yorkshire Water.

The discussion opened for questions:

Stephen Phillipson (SP) said that the land at ‘Westfield’ had been approved for 63 houses of which 20 belonged to the area behind the school (the ‘Yardley’ land) leaving 43 houses for the remaining land.

CL replied that the old plans were not valid now and reference had to be made the NationalPlanning Framework which gave a presumption in favour of any sustainable development.

Robert O’Connor(RO) said that a 40% increase in the size of the village was not sustainable and the density of the housing plans was out of character with the rest of the village. The scale was inappropriate.

CL said that development is very likely and that the best approach was to get the most out of it.

Simon Mack(SM) asked about information on the Yardley site and access to it.

CL said that development is being considered but no plans have come forward yet. It may be that two developers might work together.

SP read out a statement from Paul Evans that outlined infrastructure limitations in particular the extra car movements and the money that the developer and HBC would make. The development is an invasion of privacy. Also that there is no requirement to have affordable housing on any specific site as long as HBC meet their overall targets in the District.

Further discussion followed including access to the A59 and sewage infrastructure.

The chairman concluded the discussion and said that the approach of the Parish Council was to find out the wishes of the residents through the survey that is currently in progress.

1. Brownies (Mandy Kuunal report)

The Brownies are still going strong with three leaders – Sally Newman, Hannah Reilly and myself with a Mum on duty each week.

The year has been very busy with highlights including Centenary celebrations - we took part at events at Rudding Park and with 10,000 members at the Star Quest event at Wetherby Racecourse.

There was a Pack Holiday at Ripon; full use was made of the field for rounders, trails and wide games; and a Big Art event. In September the new Hand Book and Programme was introduced. We attended the Remembrance Day service at Whixley. On 14 March we hosted Brownie Super Team at the Village Hall and our team won for the second year running. Plans for the next Pack holiday in April are well under way.

1. Church (David MacDonald)

The Church has continued to play an important part in the life of the village as well as the Parish and wider Benefice. The pattern of having a service on three Sundays each month has continued as well as a Sunday school - now on the first Sunday of the month.

Fundraising events included a sell-out concert organised by Dickie Black; a Tour de France ‘pop-up’ café; a car boot sale; and a riotous ‘Old Time Music Hall’ event at the Village Club – the brainchild of Malcolm and Rita Horner and produced by Barry Atkinson.

Thanks are due to many hard working and dedicated residents who keep the Church gong - in particular Martin Leather and his team; the cleaners and flower arrangers organised by Helen Walsh; and the Sunday school leaders until recently headed up by Liz Hines and now led by Rachel Holloway.

The Church belongs to everybody – It’s there for baptisms, weddings and funerals as well as being somewhere to visit for a quiet time when needed.

1. Green Hammerton Recreational Charity (Brian Halling)

The AGM is coming in June and all are invited. It has been a busy year with a lot of activities now. The cricket team continues with two teams and there are three football teams using the pitches – The Harrogate and Craven under-16’s are high quality young players with fixtures against the likes of Leeds Juniors.

Unfortunately minor vandalism continues – please report it if you see it. The table tennis table was vandalised and broken but has been mended at a cost of £900 raised by a Quiz Night at the Hall. The biggest improvement is the replacement of the chairs. The new chairs are far more comfortable and smarter.

1. Helenfield (Alistair Taylor)

A lot of work has been done this year with seven working days (200 working hours).The ride has been opened up for the benefit of flowers, bees and butterflies.

There has been further planting. The field has been going for 15 years now. It is a coppiced woodland and part has been felled. It has been necessary to protect the stumps from rabbits. Thanks are due to all the helpers and more would be very welcome.

1. Neighbourhood Watch (Bill Smith)

We are fortunate to live in an area of low crime but we have had our problems with the theft of Dougie Mack’s flags and the damage to the table tennis table. We should always be aware, most crime is opportunistic. Simple things like lights on timer switches when on holiday all help. The website and village email are very useful for sending out alerts. We need to stay vigilant.

1. St Anne’s

Last year St Anne’s had a spare space and was also short staffed. Now it is full and fully staffed. The new arrival has learned to walk. (Wendy introduced Wayne, her deputy). There a CQC inspection and StAnne’s achieved a rating of ‘Good’ which was very pleasing. The people of St Anne’s would love to join in with anything that is going on – staff will accompany as necessary.

1. Village Club (Paul Evans report)

The highlight of the year was the Tour De France weekend last July where we were able to theme the club as the cycle hotel, the name that it was known between 1900 and 1932.

There are too many other events to mention but the four others which stick out for me are

• The church barbeque put on at short notice

• Steve Ross and Sam Blackers charity night in September

• Yorkshire Air Ambulance charity day in September which raised over £1600

• Music Hall event

Once again there has been a considerable amount of money spent on improvements to the club notably:

• Completion of the toilets

• Installation of LED lights and redecoration in the corridor.

• New roof on the front porch

• Partial redecoration of the front of the building

• Decoration of the smoking area

• Repairs to the car park fencing

• On-going work to solve the damp issues in the flat

• Partial replacement of outside furniture

I have mentioned previously that expenditure on repairs and improvements over many years had been insufficient to keep pace with a modern business and hopefully both members and potential members will have started to notice the difference.

Club membership continues to increase and at the end of 2014 stood at 259 up 29 members on the previous year.

1. Village View (Paul Kirkwood)

In 2014/15 the theme has been greater interactivity such as asking for historical information for Ivan Andrew’s Remembrance Day event; formation of ‘Chatty ramblers’; Jon Purday’s cycle path; and ‘Save the Knaresborough bus service appeal.

In addition there were three major contributed features

• Peter Nixon - Anniversary of the bypass
• Roger Mattock – Staveley Nature Reserve
• Catherine Mack – Her great uncle and World War One

But there was very little interest in competitions

The highlight of the year was the colour edition of the Tour de France

The financial situation is good thanks to very low costs with the help of MickHarrison

plus sponsorship by local business such as Tancred Farm Shop.

Thanks are due to Steve Ross for his pictures and the complementary nature of Village View with the Website.

1. Website (Steve Ross)

There are currently 67 live pages and 132 subscribers (2014 109).

150 newsletters were sent last year and 6 new pages added.

Weekly activities include updating the events calendar, adding news items, sending the ‘What’s On’ newsletter plus other one-off newsletters such as the Redrow Housing Survey, new Dru Yoga classes and Post Office update.

There have been two surveys – one on grass cutting the other on the Redrow development proposal

Future plans are to increase the subscriber list, to make more use of video links, to encourage input from younger villagers and to promote local business.

1. WI (Anne Johnson)

Kirk Hammerton and Green Hammerton WI now have 34 members – the same number as last year with some new people and some leavers. The WI is now 100 years old with KH joining 85 years ago and GH later. There have been various celebrations including Harry Gration at the Spa in Harrogate. There will be an event in the Royal Albert Hall screened to Whixley Village Hall. There will be an exhibition of member’s work at Kiplin Hall, near Richmond. Topics covered this year included belly dancing; therapies and family history. The big event coming up is a garden party at Buckingham Palace with several hundred members – selection is by ballot and Liz Powley’s name was first. Liz went to Buckingham Palace for the 50th Anniversary celebration! She has given the opportunity to another member.

1. Proposed Cycle Path from Green Hammerton to Thorpe Underwood (Jon Purday)

The idea for the cycle path was partly as a legacy to the Tour de France event and to link up the important cycle routes – National Route 65 and the Way of the Roses. Jon lives at the bottom of the Green and sees cyclists go past soon to return since there is no through route. The alternative route is the busy and dangerous B6265 which is not suitable for most cyclists, especially younger riders.

Jon wrote an article for Village View and received a very strong positive response from the village. There are three rights of way to Thorpe Underwood – the shortest practical route through Low Farm with a detour round Little Wood, to avoid the very muddy and tractor area.

He walked the proposed route with local councillors Chris Lewis (HBC) and John Savage (NYCC), Rebecca Hunt (HBC Cabinet member) and a representative from SUSTRANS. He has spoken to Mr & Mrs Wrathall at Low Farm who are in favour of the proposal. In addition, Brian Martin, who owns the land on the other side of the footbridge, wishes to reroute the right of way on his land and is willing to help with the cycle path.

Jon, with a series of maps and photographs on the screen, ‘walked’ us along the proposed path showing various viewpoints and map locations.

The next step is to get permission from NYCC to have a permissive cycle/footpath around Little Wood. Unfortunately NYCC is in a state of transition and reorganisation. Jon is in touch with the right people but they have not yet had time to address this issue.

With NYCC permission for the route, it will be possible to commission a technical survey of the route. Funding for the survey is in place with contributions from local Parish Councils, HBC and hopefully NYCC. Once this is available we can approach funding sources and have our own fund raising events. The political wind is in favour – the government have recently (26.03.15) published a report promoting the benefits of cycling for health.

1. Questions from residents

Simon Mack asked about dropped kerbs in Green Hammerton to enable access for wheelchairs to the whole village.

The chairman was pleased to announce that we have just had confirmation from NYCC that they will provide the dropped kerbs – this follows several years of lobbying.

There were no other questions.

1. Closure of the Meeting

The Chair thanked everyone for attending.

The meeting closed at 21.30.