Draft Notes - Annual Parish Meeting 12 May 2022
Clerks Notes of the Annual Parish Meeting held at Sedgebrook Social Club at
7.00 pm on Thursday 12 May 2022
Present: Chairman Clive Wood of Sedgebrook Parish Council together with
Doctor Caroline Johnson MP, County Councillor Mark Whittington, District Councillor Pamela Bosworth, District Councillor Hannah Westropp, Mrs J Bratton (Parish Clerk) and 18 members of the public.
1 Chairman’s Welcome – the Chairman welcomed everyone to the first Parish Meeting since 2019.
2 Apologies: Apologies were received from Samantha Wade, Alan Cook, Sue Ashby, Mr James and Lady Caroline Ogilvy.
3 To approve the minutes of the Annual Parish Meeting held virtually on the 29th April 2021 - The minutes of the 29th April 2021 were approved and signed. The Annual Parish Meeting minutes of the 16 May 2019 were also signed.
4 Any Matters Arising from those minutes - none.
5 Chairman’s Report – the Chair introduced all the Parish Councillors to the meeting – the Vice Chair, Gill Mahoney has been a tremendous asset to the Parish Council, assisted by her husband David. Christine Warby sat in on many Parish Council meetings before joining – she knows where to get things and knows the village inside out. Christine is responsible for the children’s paintings (from Allington with Sedgebrook Primary School) which are put up in the phone box. She also litter picks in the areas which our Community Cleaner is not responsible for. Jane Denton works with the Clerk on finance matters and is responsible for the planters on The Green. The Clerk was also thanked for her role on the Council. The Community Cleaner does a fantastic job keeping the village clean and tidy between the speed signs. The Parish Council had lost one of our own Parish Councillors, Neil McGreevey who, in the time he was on the Council had made a tremendous impact in serving the community. Covid had a positive impact in the village with everyone coming together. The Chair thanked Sam Wade for her tremendous assistance over the years. He also thanked the County and District Councillors for keeping all the services going and asked both Pam and Mark to pass on the Parish Council’s thanks to their colleagues. The Chair gave thanks to the NHS, fire and police together with all essential workers. He made special mention of the parishioner who volunteered to paint the “badly maintained” benches in the village – within a week of volunteering, the benches were painted.
The Chair, together with the County Councillor, had finally managed to sort out the issue of flooding underneath the Allington Road railway bridge. The Parish Council are liaising with Highways England regarding the issue with water flowing down Allington Road from the A52 following heavy rainfalls.
The tree maintenance work has now been carried out. New fencing has been placed around the play equipment which has helped with the dog fouling issues. With assets aging and requiring repair, (and eventual replacement) an element of the precept is being put away. Everything is costing more and the rise in the precept is being kept to 2%. Since October 2015 the Parish Council has raised £27775.08 from grants and donations. The Chair was pleased to announce the Parish Council had obtained Lottery Community Funding of £10000 for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Green Project so £37775.08 had in fact been raised for the community.
The Vice Chair gave details of the proposed lectern which will give details of The Church, The Markham Museum and local areas of interest. Quotations are currently being obtained for the pathway from the lectern, past the phone box to the notice board. A circle of paving will be placed around the flagpole for the planters. The Parish Council had found out that the sweet chestnut tree was much older than originally thought – it was planted in 1897 for Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee. The sweet chestnut tree is to be replaced with a good-sized hornbeam tree. The parishioners were asked if they had any further suggestions/ideas. An artist’s impression of the proposed changes to The Green was on display.
6 Report from Doctor Caroline Johnson MP – support for medical provision in rural areas and any other matters which will affect Sedgebrook
Doctor Caroline Johnson MP gave thanks to the Parish Councillors for working as a team. It had been a tumultuous time in Westminster. First there was Brexit, then a new PM, the pandemic and then Ukraine. The pandemic with all the rules to follow and all the questions and concerns. The vaccine take-up was higher here than in other countries. It has been a very difficult time and they did the best they could in a difficult situation. The MP had carried on with shift-work as a Doctor in Peterborough Hospital - this was useful to give feedback to the Government. She did voluntary shifts on a Sunday giving vaccines at The Meres. Volunteers had ranged from age 14 to 82 years. Back to normal life is very successful and people are now having the 4th dose of the vaccine. The war in Ukraine has caused the prices of oil and gas to rise which is causing prices of food to also increase. There are big challenges in rural healthcare – investment has been made in the ambulance service in Lincolnshire which has meant that the response times have improved but more investment is required. Lincolnshire’s medical services are locally trained in Lincoln – a centre for the National Healthcare Research has been built in Lincoln. The A&E in Boston has been extended and investment has been made at Lincoln Hospital. There has been an uplift in GP’s appointments face to face but for working people, online appointments are more practical. A review of the whole of the IVF treatments in the East Midlands is being made. They are looking at the contracts to encourage more NHS dentists. The government have invested in a new Dental School in Lincoln at a cost of £800M. In answer to a question, the MP said there is a limit on the number of medical students. There are 21% more dentists and 20% more people in the country.
Doctors are retiring early as they are well paid. Concern was raised about the 24-hour A&E service at Grantham & General Hospital. For any full emergency eg head injury, you would need to go to Nottingham. The A&E in Grantham is open to patients, but people are not aware they can go to A&E. It was noted that the 111 service actually directs callers to other hospitals. The MP will send an updated list of what can be treated at A&E. A clear message needs to be given to the public and the media.
7 Short reports from District/County Councillors
7.1 County Councillor’s Report – County Councillor Mark Whittington had been working on the flooding issue underneath the railway bridge which has now been resolved. The majority of the issues are highway problems and potholes. There are 5000 miles of roads in Lincolnshire with a budget of £51M which has remained the same over the past 10 years and costs are going up. It would cost £300M to bring the roads back to a good condition.
The budget for Adult Social Care is £250M which includes residential care, the elderly, young people with severe disabilities, home care services. We are an aging population, and a lot of people retire to the East Coast. Children’s Social Services is £100M per year – the number of children in care now is 740 and in addition there are another 3/4000 who are not in care, who are still living with their parents but are under Social Services. Prior to Covid there were 620/630 in care and the impact of Covid has increased the number to 740 with families being under a lot of financial pressure. LCC’s Children’s Social Services had an Ofsted report which was “outstanding.” LCC is also responsible for the emergency services - fire and rescue services (full and retained fire fighters) and the training centre at Waddington is being extended. The fire tenders are one of the best kind in the country. The first stage of the Grantham Southern relief road is being completed towards the end of 2023 at a cost of £120M. The A52 Barrowby junction could cause a problem in the future as the A1/A52 roundabout is not being put in. Highways England’s solution is to put in a “ghost” junction with traffic lights. The County Council thought that something more substantial will have to be put in place in the future.
7.2 District Councillor Pam Bosworth – parking and potholes have been an issue. The effect of Covid on the community and SKDC has been a nightmare and we still must be careful. There are a lot of events going on in Grantham and the surrounding area to celebrate The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. The Winters Singers are rehearsing in St Lawrence Church.
7.3 District Councillor Hannah Westropp – she is a Co-Councillor with Pam who does a huge amount for the District. When both Pam and Hannah were elected, they set out to make SKDC the best district in which to live, work and visit.
8 Short reports from village organisations
8.a Markham Museum Report 2021/2 – See Appendix A for the full report which Elisabeth Carnell gave to the meeting.
8.b Allington with Sedgebrook Primary School – Leanne Barr, the Head Teacher, mentioned she had some old logbooks from Sedgebrook pupils which may be of interest to Elisabeth Carnell. There are 112 pupils on the role. Leanne has spent 16 years at the school and is assisted by Christine Warby. 25% of the children are from Allington and Sedgebrook and, with the other 75%, the school is thriving. The school was one of the last schools to get an Ofsted visit – they were rated “good” with “outstanding for the children’s behaviour. The school has been pleased to visit the church again - St Lawrence for Easter and Mothering Sunday was at Holy Trinity Church at Allington. For such a small school they have done really well in sport – played football for the county, they were in the school championships for hockey, two Sedgebrook pupils obtained gold medals for gymnastics. The pupils are well cared for and have a good start in life. The children have been raising funds for End Polio - £583 which Bill and Melinda Gates tripled the funding so this was increased to £1749. For Children In Need £665 was raised and they also fund-raised for St Barnabas, they sold poppies, raised £200 for the Swimathon, and £340 for the Ukraine appeal.
8.c St Lawrence Church – Jenny Stuart the Secretary of the Parochial Church Council showed the meeting their display and gave a résumé of the report to the meeting in Alan Cook’s absence. See Appendix “B” for the full report. Jenny mentioned The Parish Giving Scheme which will allow a known and regular income for St Lawrence to enable the church to meet their financial commitments and to keep the church going - the Parochial Church Council would like to erect an archway between cemetery and the adjacent land to provide additional space and also a disabled toilet in the church as it is now open all day, every day.
8.d Community Speed Watch – David Mahoney is the Co-ordinator for the team and the Speed Watch has been operational since April 2019. An Archer Survey was completed in 2017 and it was noted that 2000 cars a day were travelling along Allington Road. The Parish Council helped funding with a radar gun. There are 8 volunteers throughout the area and last year 23 speed watches were conducted. Of the 150 cars recorded in an hour, 5 to 6% were speeding. They do get positive recognition but sometimes they don’t! David believes "the speed of the traffic was slowing down” and if anybody is interested in joining the team they would be very welcome.
8.e Social Club – Shaun McBride (the Chairman) – there have been some big challenges for the Social Club as they are a commercial organisation and not a charity. They are keen to get more members to join and to be part of the community. They are open on a Friday and Sunday and are opening earlier on a Friday from 5.00 pm during May to the end of June. For ten hours a week there is puppy training on the grass field at the back of the Social Club and the room is rented out. They are just breaking even. Part of the money given to them by the Government during Covid has been invested and part of it has gone towards the new room to the rear of the hall. The message was “use it or lose it.”
8f Jubilee Committee – Jane Denton read out Samantha Wade’s report about the Jubilee Committee – see Appendix C.
8g The Twinning Association – the Clerk read the following report from Susan Ashby:-
“Nothing has happened following the cancellation of the trip here at the beginning of the lockdown. I feel that people may still be nervous/apprehensive about hosting or travelling as it is still early days in getting back to normal. Any new information in the future will be put in Allington News and all previous potential hosts will be contacted.”
9 Invitation to the public to raise any matters of interest
Nothing was raised.
The Chairman thanked everyone for attending the Annual Parish Meeting and it was closed at 9.20 pm.
Refreshments followed.
APPENDIX A (Markham Museum Report 2021/2) and B (St Lawrence, Sedgebrook - Report for Parish Council Annual Meeting 12 May 2022)
https://1drv.ms/w/s!AsBxzxiVbEExgu0xlsApDZKhmvI9rw?e=87ffLH
APPENDIX C
JUBILEE COMMITTEE REPORT
VILLAGE MEETING 12th MAY
Over the past year when life has been getting back to some sort of normal, the Jubilee committee has been quite active, with the Platinum Jubilee celebrations just on the horizon and the community spirit that came to the fore during lockdown capitalised upon.
The village email updates have been utilised by most of the village groups to advertise events and send information – saving hours of leg work delivering leaflets. This has been backed up with the village WhatsApp group for more immediate communication as well as the continuation of the village website containing the village diary. The emails and WhatsApp group are both a side effect of the pandemic, so it is good to see something positive come out of something so grim.
If you are yet to sign up to the emails or messages, please see me at the end of the evening and we will get you on the circulation list.
The main yearly task for the Jubilee committee is the provision of the village Christmas tree, which is a modern tradition in Sedgebrook dating back to 2002. We are, as ever, grateful to J E Wade & Sons (farmers) and the Green family for their machinery, time and electrical expertise to make sure this happens. The Green family get an extra mention this year as they have already sourced and donated new lights for the tree for next Christmas!
However, this year sees the Jubilee Committee return to its roots to provide the Sedgebrook village Platinum Jubilee celebrations. This will take the form of a village picnic on Sunday 5th June at Sedgebrook Manor, by kind permission of Hon James and Lady Caroline Ogilvy. The festivities kick off at 2pm and there will be live music, children’s activities, a bar, wood fired pizzas, skittles and more. Full details are available on the village website, along with the link to book your FREE tickets. We are also looking for donations of bottle of any sort in order to raise a bit of money towards funding the event.
The Jubilee account has a surplus which has been maintained since 2002 and has ensured we have a bit of funding in the village for things that fall down the cracks, such as the Christmas tree and village website. The current balance is £2147, some of which will be used to fund any shortfall in the upcoming Jubilee celebrations. There is also a ring-fenced amount of £339 for the Mother and Toddler group, which is available to anyone either rejuvenating the group or setting up something similar.
All that remains is to thank everyone for their input over the past 12 months and to remind everyone to please support the village jubilee celebrations.
Sam Wade
Jubilee Committee Chair
12 May 2022