Agenda item

To include:

·  Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL)

·  Parish Sweeper Scheme update (attached core offer)

·  Grass cutting and verge maintenance – requested by Westfield and Ubley PCs

·  Council website redesign

·  Tourism – Visit Bath and Visit Somerset

·  Future Bright

·  Update on Community Empowerment Fund

·  Parish Charter update

·  Consultation Engagement

Councillor Myers updated the meeting.

Community Infrastructure Levy

He noted that this was the most-raised item at the Parish Liaison Meeting. Following on from the last meeting he and officers met five parish councils, Freshford, Tunley, Clutton, Keynsham and Midsomer Norton. He believed that all the individual points raised had now been worked through. Feedback from this exercise would inform a workshop for towns and parishes to be held on 6^th December 2018 in the Somerdale Pavilion, Fry’s, Keynsham. Invitations to this had been issued.

Parish Sweeper Scheme

He said that while this was in Councillor Goodman’s Cabinet portfolio, he had picked it up as an issue in Parish Charter discussions. A workshop was held and an offer sent to the 18 parishes in the scheme in August. They had until December to respond if they wished to take up the transition offer. 3 parishes had so far confirmed that they would accept the offer. Parishes in the scheme which had not received the offer or did not fully understand it should contact Sara Dixon, locality manager. The definition of the Cleansing – Core Service, available to the whole of B&NES, had been circulated with the agenda.

Hilary Collins, Clerk of Ubley PC, asked whether it would be necessary to retain the same hours for their parish sweeper for the two-year transition period, as the income for B&NES would be reduced in the first year and would be nil in the second year. If they had to keep his hours the same for those two years, it would give the parish no flexibility and it would be forced to increase the precept to cover his salary. Councillor Myers said that he would be happy to have discussions with her outside the meeting.

Grass Cutting and Verge Maintenance

Councillor Myers showed some PowerPoint slides. A copy of these is contained in appendix 2 to these minutes.

He said that a decision had been taken as an efficiency measure to cease to cut grass on land that that the Council did not own. Issues about liability and insurance arose if the Council carried out work on land it did not own. Land in the area had accordingly been allocated to one of four categories:

Category 1:  The Council owns the land and is responsible for its maintenance.

Category 2:  There is no identifiable legal owner (eg due to missing documentation) – the fact that the Council has regularly cut grass in the past, does not mean it has ongoing liability to do so.

Category 3:  Owned by the Crown (eg dissolved ownership where developer has gone out of business) – known as bona vacantia. There needs to be discussion as to what the Council might do in these cases.

Category 4:  Other ownership (eg Curo, Developer) – where Council land has been transferred to other parties, they should assume responsibility for its maintenance.

Mark Cassidy, Team Manager Parks and Bereavements Services, had done an excellent job in clarifying the ownership of land in the district. Councillor Myers hoped that the Council and towns and parishes would be able to liaise constructively if there were questions about the maintenance of particular pieces of land.

Ron Hopkins, Vice-Chair of Westfield PC, asked why a piece of land did not revert to the Crown if its legal owner could not be identified, thus removing the distinction between categories 2 and 3. Councillor Myers replied that the distinction was the certainty in category 3 that there was no owner, because the previous owner, such as a developer, had gone bankrupt, compared with the uncertainty about ownership in category 2, arising through missing documentation, for example, when it is believed that there is an owner. Ron suggested that a decision had to be made about ownership in such cases. Various councils had been cutting grass for 43 years in some areas and put signs up and prosecuted people for parking on the grass or allowing children to play ball games. Then suddenly, without warning, the Council decided to walk away. Parish councils did not know what to do. Councillor Myers said the Parish Charter existed to improve co-operation between the Council and towns and parishes. The first step being taken was to compile a definite record of the ownership of relevant land, and then the Council would work through the issues with towns and parishes on a case by case basis.

Council Website Redesign

Representatives from towns and parishes would be invited to participate in user testing of the new website. The Council would like to invite a small group of parish council representatives to take part in some user testing, in a similar way to the user group for Fix My Street.  If anyone was interested in taking part, please contact Sara Dixon, Locality Manager email: sara_dixon@bathnes.gov.uk.

Tourism – Visit Bath and Somerset

For many years there have been complaints that Bath Tourism Plus is only interested in tourism in the City of Bath. This summer a letter was sent to every town and parish notifying them that free membership of Visit Somerset had been obtained for them for one year. Visit Somerset would publicise events and attractions in towns and parishes and include them on their map. He urged towns and parishes to use this facility before the free membership lapsed. He would invite Visit Somerset to attend a future meeting and show their tourism map. If anyone had queries, they should contact Tina Veater, email: tina@visitsomerset.co.uk or tel: 91761 409830

Future Bright

This is a WECA initiative to boost skills and opportunities for up to 3000 adults who are in work and receiving in-work benefits, with the aim of getting them into secure and better-paid jobs. Please help promote this initiative to your local residents.  Details are on the WECA website at:

https://www.westofengland-ca.gov.uk/future-bright/

Community Empowerment Fund

Councillor Myers showed some PowerPoint slides showing the allocation of funding and examples of completed projects. A copy of these slides is included in appendix 2 to these minutes.

Parish Charter

The revised Parish Charter was ratified at the ALCA AGM in September 2018. Work was progressing on the Parish Toolkit. A survey of parishes to obtain practical information had been done. He urged towns and parishes to use the new Charter to facilitate communications with B&NES Council.

Consultation Engagement

At the Bath City Forum there had been criticism of the B&NES consultation process, and detailed suggestions for improvements had been made. A meeting with the Chairs of all the forums had taken place to discuss these. In November there would be an agenda item at all of the Forums to discuss feedback and comments about consultation in B&NES. There is already a great deal of information about consultation on the Council’s website. It should be remembered that there are specific rules relating to statutory consultations, for example about planning matters, and the discussions that will take place about consultation in B&NES will not affect statutory rights. One of the problems with consultation is that often fully-formed ideas are presented for consultation to a totally-unprepared audience. He hoped that the large amount of information published in advance of the Air Quality Consultation would mean that the community was better informed about the rationale for the proposals. Another issue is that many people are hard to reach, and yet could be affected by many proposals. Delegates would be welcome to attend the Forum in November.

Because of pressure of time, the Chair was unable to allow any further comments or questions, and invited delegates to contact Sara Dixon, Locality Manager, about them.

The Chair thanked Councillor Myers for the updates.