August 2020 Notes
KEXBY PARISH COUNCIL
Minutes of the Parish Council Meeting held on 27th August 2020
These minutes are in draft form and may be altered
Present; Cllr. R.Gore (Chair), Cllr. C. Hunt, Cllr. S. Farrow, Cllr D. Edwardson, Cllr. D. Forrest, Cllr. L. Hoggarth
Apologies for absence; were accepted from Cllr. C. Cuckson
12/20 Speed Indicator Device – easing of Corvid-19 restrictions meant that it was now possible to resume use of this device providing social distancing measures were observed. Scott Hoggarth and Scott Dunderdale had agreed to take over siting of the device and they would liaise with the Clerk to arrange a time for collection.
13/20 Neighbourhood Plan – the Chairman of the working group had provided an update which indicated that progress had drawn to a halt since the arrival of the tenders from potential consultants. Covid-19 restrictions meant that it had not been possible to hold face to face meeting which had proved quite a hurdle. The Parish Council questioned the commitment of residents to the plan and instances were sited of other parishes where significant building projects had been given the go ahead which were not included in their plans. Since it was a joint plan with Upton the Clerk was asked to contact Upton PC Clerk to request that their Parish Council discuss the situation at their next meeting so that a joint decision on the way forward could be made.
14/20 Banking arrangements – the Chairman had been in touch with Barclays, they had all the relevant paperwork in place but no progress had been made due to Covid-19 lockdown. They would re-start the process and contact the Clerk to arrange the transfer from Nat West.
15/20 New website – the current website did not comply with new accessibility legislation so Lincolnshire County Council (who hosted the site) had devised a new format. The existing websites would be closed down as Parish Council converted to the new version with a deadline of 31st December for all the existing sites to be closed down. The Clerk had undertaken two on-line training sessions but was still struggling to upload onto the new site. There were also issues around transferring historical data, such as old minutes, to the new site. Cllr. Hunt agreed to speak to a web designer to see how easy it would be to create a simple website and what the cost would be.
16/20 Fibre Broadband – the leaflet drop had elicited a good response with around one third of the properties in the village expressing an interest in signing up to having a direct fibre connection to their property (subject to cost). The Clerk had registered an interest with Open Reach and had begun downloading details of the interested parties. Open Reach would then assess the level of demand and calculate whether the Government’s voucher scheme (£1,500 per household and £3,500 per business) would fully fund the installation. If more households and businesses could be persuaded to show an interest in the scheme there would be a better chance of it being fully funded by the Government grants. It was agreed that a reminder should be posted on Facebook and members of the council agreed to “knock on doors” to try and boost demand. The Clerk would circulate the spreadsheet showing those households and businesses that had already expressed an interest. It was decided to set a deadline of Friday 4th September for responses so that the Clerk could complete the download before going on holiday.
The request to Open Reach had to be made by a “legal entity”, it was agreed that the Parish Council would be the legal entity. It was not committing them to anything at this stage as it was purely the exploratory phase