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16 June 2023
It’s still very peaceful at Hughenden Parish Council. However, Full Council is next week so I thought I ought to get up-to-date.
Last Monday I went to HPC’s Environment and Services Committee and HPC’s Finance Committee as a member of the public.
I went to the E &S Committee to help bring the Committee up-to date on developments at the Primrose Hill allotments and then listen to the Committee’s discussion on this item.
I went to the Finance Committee as the agenda said reports were to be tabled at the meeting and I wanted copies.
E & S Committee started at 6pm and Finance at 7.30pm. I rather hoped I’d be able to slip home in between and have a coffee.
No chance.
Perhaps I should first explain that the Clerk has now produced draft minutes of the meetings but they are confidential. I understand they will not be posted until approved by the next meetings of the Committees i.e.14 August and 10 July.
Pretty well everything at HPC now seems to be confidential. In fact, I am so concerned not to breach confidentiality and see the sky fall in, that I decided not to read the draft minutes until I had written this blog. That way I couldn’t disclose anything in them.
Or have I breached confidentiality by disclosing the draft minutes exist and are confidential? It’s a minefield.
Whatever happened to openness, transparency and accountability?
E & S Committee
I spoke for the 2 minutes allowed for members of the public.
I explained that the allotment holders at Primrose Hill want a low cost, environmentally friendly approach to developing the allotments, using cardboard, bark chip and gravel board which would last for perhaps 10 years. This is the approach which the majority of allotment holders have used for many years. It works. It is particularly good for new allotment holders and those with health problems.
However, HPC’s contractor, if asked, would quote for spraying the plot with weedkiller, rotovating and using expensive materials that would last considerably more than the 10 years. This is not the approach that the allotment holders want.
In the event, one of the allotment holders had now applied to take over a plot. She will make the plot available to those who cannot cope with a full plot.
I suggested the Committee could recommend two things to Council to help – to waive the rent for this allotment holder, and to pursue the offer from Community Payback to help improve the site and provide help to the allotment holders, many of whom are elderly and sometimes struggle.
Unfortunately, the issue was the last item on the agenda so I settled down to listen.
Another councillor who came as a member of the public thanked the Council for the new dog bins in Great Kingshill.
The Committee then agreed a priority list of sites that require a site management plan. After some discussion, one of the proposed priority sites - Cockshoot Woods - was dropped from the list and Cockpit Hole went on instead.
[At this point, when I was writing this blog, my husband intervened. It’s boring, he said. Lots of discussions, no decisions except setting up working groups and it all seems to be going to Council next week anyway. And you obviously didn’t understand what was going on.
He’s right, I thought. So, I have cut the lot.]
As far as the item on the Primrose Hill allotments were concerned, one councillor said she thought the proposal for an allotment holder to ask others to help her cultivate her allotment was unlawful. She was assured by the Clerk that it was OK. And that was it. The item goes to Council next Tuesday.
It was 7.30 and the Finance Committee began.
Finance Committee
As a member of the public, I asked for the reports which the agenda said were to be tabled at the meeting i.e. the monthly financial report, an update on a substantive payment of Community Infrastructure Levy and an up-date on the year-end progress. But these reports were not tabled so I came away empty handed.
I stayed for an item on a request by Hughenden Community Support Trust for Council to pay the interest of about £2000 on what they said was a late payment of back rent.
I have previously suggested, repeatedly, that Council should take legal advice on the need for Council to pay the interest, not least because, for most of the period, HCST did not have a bank account; it was therefore impossible for HPC to have paid the rent.
The Clerk advised the Committee that it did not need legal advice. The Committee approved the payment of interest, presumably under its delegated authority, without any discussion.
I checked that Cllr Jones, who attended the Finance Committee as a member, had not declared an interest in this item. He said he had not and did not need to.
The Charities Commission’s website lists Cllr Jones as a trustee of HCST (although Cllr Jones said afterwards that he had resigned some time ago).
I dropped out of the meeting and went home. Next time I think I’ll take sandwiches.