Agenda and minutes

Apologies for absence were received from:

Sandra Hudspeth, Clerk to Deeping Gate Parish Council

Councillor Jane Hill, Deeping Gate Parish Council

Councillor Paul Froggitt, Orton Waterville Parish Council

Tim Bowden of the Local Government Boundary Commission for England (LGBCE) gave a presentation on the Electoral Boundary Review and how it will affect Parishes. The key points raised were:

• LGBCE is independent of Government and Political parties and report directly to Parliament.
• LGBCE are responsible for Local Government Electoral arrangements and looks at the number of Councillors, ward boundaries, and the structure of Local Government.
• This review will be looking at internal warding arrangements and the number of Councillors. City boundaries will not change as a result of the review.
• The review will be looking at all wards within the city.
• The review will decide the Council size (number of Councillors), the number of wards, the boundaries and names of those wards and electoral cycles.
• There is a presumption that as the council elects by thirds there will be a uniform pattern of three member wards however, if there is evidence to suggest that this is not practical the commission will make a judgement on the evidence it receives.
• Any evidence has to be justified against the statutory criteria of the review, which are; Electoral Equality, Community Identity and Effective and Convenient Local Government.
• The review cannot create or abolish parishes, or amend their boundaries.
• If a Parish is divided between city wards then Parish wards must be created.
• Consultation on the size of the council will run from 24 September 2013 to 5 November 2013.
• The review of warding patterns is likely to take place between January 2014 to April 2014.
• Draft recommendations are expected to be published between July 2014 and October 2014.
• Commission to publish final recommendations early 2015.
• Parish Councils were asked to talk to residents and publicise the review – Posters to be sent to all parishes.

The following questions were put to Tim Bowden:

What ratio of electors per Councillor are the commission working towards?

The current number is about 2300 but there is no set ratio it’s about doing what’s right for that particular place.

Will changing the ward boundaries have an impact on electoral registration and elector participation within those wards?

The commission does not have any involvement in the registering of electors but does stress that council officers should be made aware of the potential impact of the review.

If the commission were to allocate Councillors at a ratio of 2300 electors this could amount to some ward councillors in rural areas having to look after 10 or more Parish Councils? Would you be looking at implementing the ratio of 2300 electors to each councillor to rural areas?

There is no set ratio, the commission will look at the evidence put forward to them. In a scenario such as that of there being too many Parishes for 1 ward Councillor an argument could be made under the criteria Effective and Convenient Local Government.

The minutes of the meeting held on 17 January 2013 were agreed as a true and accurate record.

            The minutes of the meeting held on 19 February 2013 were agreed as a true and accurate record.

Adrian Chapman has written up draft terms of reference which broadly cover what the Parish Council Liaison meeting is trying to achieve. The meeting was asked to take this draft to their Councils to discuss and feed back to Adrian and then bring back to the next Parish Council Liaison meeting to hopefully sign off.

Action – Mark Emson to email copy of draft terms of reference to all Parish Councils.

It was agreed at full council that Neighbourhood Committees are to be disbanded and will no longer exist after this municipal year. With this in mind we will be looking at the Parish Council Liaison meeting to drive localism forward.

The Chair recommended that if anybody had any specific queries in relation to the cessation of the Neighbourhood Committees then they should email Adrian Chapman.

The Police & Crime Commissioner for Cambridgeshire addressed the meeting and the following points were made:

·        Police and crime plan setting out its priorities has been accepted by the panel and is available to view online.

·        The police are accountable to the public via the Police & Crime Commissioner.

·        The Police & Crime Commissioner is the face of the public, not the face of the police.

·        In charge of police budget of around £132 million and employs 2400 people.

·        Not just the Police Commissioner but also the Crime Commissioner – Working with communities and neighbourhood watch groups trying to prevent crime.

·        Have commissioned a new piece of software called ‘Alert’ which updates daily via the police showing any instances of criminal activity within the area.

·        Tackling burglary is a high priority – in the past there has been a turn around of up to three days for a victim of burglary to receive a crime number, the Police & Crime Commissioner is aiming to have a same day turn around in the future.

·        Wants communities to work with the police in tackling anti-social behaviour.

·        There are a number of specialist units combating organised crime working within the rural areas working alongside Countryside Watch and Farm Watch whilst also working alongside authorities from neighbouring counties.

·        Trying to bring organisations together to fight crime using Safer Peterborough Partnership as a model.

·        Would like to see more collaboration between the police and the NHS for instances when dealing with offenders suffering from mental health issues.

·        A new position is to be set up of an Outreach Worker whose job will be to visit Parishes, Schools and other local groups to see what concerns local residents have.

The following questions were put to the Police & Crime Commissioner:

Crime within rural areas, specifically burglaries seems to have increased recently. Is there going to be an increase in police presence within the rural areas?

Due to resources it is not possible to have Police Officers everywhere. Work has already been carried out to improve the time it takes an operator to answer an emergency call (94% of calls answered within 30 seconds)and the time it takes an officer to arrive at the scene (aimed response time of 3-4 minutes anywhere in the county). Within the next 18 months we are also looking to allocate police officers with new computerised phone equipment that will allow them to carry out spot checks on suspicious vehicles and will also allow them to submit reports there and then which should allow the officer to spend more time on the street and less time behind a desk. We are also trying to encourage more people to become Special Constables within the county.

With the likelihood that ward boundaries will be changing in Peterborough, will there be an alignment with the Police and the Boundary Commission on neighbourhoods?

It is unlikely that policing geographic will be affected by the Boundary review.

In Peakirk, 3% of the dwellings have been broken into  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.

The chair read out an email from the Head of Planning, Transport and Engineering Services for Peterborough City Council (PCC), the main points of which were:

• Neighbourhood Planning is a new way of preparing planning policies.
• PCC to adopt agreed Neighbourhood plans but it is up to the Parish to write the plan.
• PCC has a guide on how to prepare Neighbourhood Plans on its website titled ‘Statement of Community Involvement’.
• To date, separate applications have been received from four Parish Councils (Glinton, Deeping Gate, Peakirk and Northborough) and it is their intention to work together to share resources.
• PCC is obliged to advertise the intention to start the process of preparing a plan for a minimum of six weeks starting 5 April 2013. This will include publishing details of applications on the PCC website, press releases and publishing on Village notice boards.
• Following the six week period, PCC will review comments received and confirm (for each area) that they can proceed on the area they wish to prepare a plan or, PCC may seek a change to the boundary of the area before approving the application.
• Neighbourhood Planning is led by the Parish Council and as such most of the time and costs are borne by them.
• Neighbourhood Plans must be compliant with the principles set out in the Peterborough Local Plan and the NPPF.

The Planning Policy Team have said that they would be happy to do a presentation on Neighbourhood Planning at a future meeting, perhaps with one of the four Parish Council’s which have commenced the process.

Action – Mark Emson to email copy of email to all Parish Councils

A presentation was given to the meeting by Cllr Henry Clark of Peakirk Parish Council and Ian Dewar of CPALC on the processes of setting up new Parish Councils within the Peterborough area and the benefits of having a Parish Council. These benefits included:

·        Representation of local residents

·        Provision of local services

·        Revenue raising powers

·        Legal governance framework

·        Professional guidance and assistance from the clerk

·        Can help improve the community / local needs

·        Ensure money is spent on the community

·        A local voice for planning and licensing issues

In order to set up new parishes it was suggested that these benefits would need to be sold to the residents of non-parished areas / communities and then find a community that was willing to become a pioneer and find people within that community that are willing to do the work.

Cllr Clark stated that he would like to see a working group of PCC Officers and ward Councillors as well as existing Parish Councillors put together to promote parishing and draw up a plan for parishing Peterborough.

It was noted by Ian Dewar that a Parish Council could be set up within a timeframe of twelve months however, this was deemed a very optimistic timescale and would most likely take a lot longer. Legislation states that a new council can only be created on 1^st April.

Ian Dewar also noted that he had spoken with the Chief Executive and the Leader of PCC and that there was no objection from PCC for parishing the whole of the city.

The following question was put to Cllr Clark:

Have any groups / communities been identified that would be interested in becoming a Parish Council?

Werrington already have a Neighbourhood Council in place and have shown an interest in setting up a Parish Council but have been financially unable to raise a petition. Netherton have also shown an interest.

Following a request from Cllr Clark the following members put their names forward to be part of the working group:

Cllr Peter Hiller, Cllr John Bartlett, Cllr Denis Batty, Cllr Paul Froggitt (Name put forward by Ian Dewar).

Action – Mark Emson to forward a copy of the presentation to all Parish Councils.

Adrian Chapman discussed the progress of setting up an online forum where ideas and news could be shared between parishes. The plan is to use an existing forum established by the Local Government Association (LGA) called Knowledge Hub. He explained that discussions are taking place with the LGA to form a Peterborough Parish Council Liaison Knowledge Hub and that it was his intention to bring further information on this to a future meeting.

A schedule meeting dates covering the next calendar year will be sent to members before the next meeting.

CHAIRMAN

6:30 – 8:00pm