Lambourn Parish Council Meeting Report: January 2022
5 January 2022
This is a summary of some of the highlights of the recent Lambourn Parish Council Meeting which was held in the Memorial Hall on the 5th January 2022. This is not an official set of minutes and I have augmented some points. Minutes will be issued by the Lambourn Parish Council following the next meeting. The meeting was chaired by the Chair of the Lambourn Parish Council, Moz Bulbeck Reynolds.
Christian Noll
CHAIR’S REPORT
Moz wished all a very happy new year and informed LPC that West Berkshire Health Watch contacted the Council to assist with vaccinations because Lambourn was a hot spot for Covid and West Berks has a higher than average rate. Moz is working with other councillors to organise additional vaccination clinics including ones in Upper Lambourn. West Berks Health Watch handed out Covid test kits today in Lambourn.
The LPC Office remains closed due to Covid restrictions.
The public toilet lock is broken and therefore the toilets remain closed.
Moz has been in post 8 Months. Huge progress has been made in the three focus areas:
Inclusivity: Language in all documents to be updated to be gender neutral. New website is up and running since beginning of December 2021. Moz thanked the website team and Christian Noll for building the website.
Transparency: Financial Transparency has been achieved. Documents and reports are available to all.
Accountability: Training for councillors has taken place. Documentation has been updated and is available to all.
The minutes of the previous meeting were approved and spelling mistakes corrected.
A letter was received asking if LPC councillors attended meetings with Walker Logistics prior to the Western Area Planning Group in April 2021. Moz confirmed that no such contact took place.
PLANNING APPLICATIONS
21/03030/HOUSE – 5 Newbury Road, Lambourn – Construction of detached double garage. Action MBJ.
LPC recommendation to WBC: No Objection
21/03083/COMIND – Land Adjacent To M4 Membury Airfield, Road Known As Ramsbury Road, Lambourn Woodlands – Change of use of land to Class B8. Action BJ.
LPC recommendation to WBC: Objection. Cumulative environmental impact assessment requested.
PRECEPT
Moz stated that she is not 100% satisfied that the full budget process has been completed. The individual committees set the budgets they require. The consolidation of the individual budgets and review by the Finance Committee has not taken place and the meeting discussed the overall budget and affordability of the whole. The sum of the individual budgets amount to a 17% increase if adopted unchallenged.
Moz indicated that inflation is running at about 4 to 6%.
Council voted not to accept the budget of £169,000 and to find additional savings from the budgets. Moz proposed a 6% increase. Council voted to reduce the budgets to achieve an overall 7% increase.
Moz directed Council to examine the budgets for BOSA (Burials Open Spaces) to identify savings. Suggestions were made to reduce the budget increases in a number of areas as well as using funds from reserves.
Council agreed a precept of $155,150 which is a 7% year on year increase. It should be noted that the precept was not increased in 2021.
The LPC website Accessibility and Privacy statements were approved.
The revised Communication Policy was approved.
LOCAL NEIGHBOURHOOD DEVELOPMENT PLAN
Sue Cocker update LPC on the LNDP status. The plan is nearing completion. The next stage is for it to be submitted to West Berkshire and then to be presented to a local referendum for adoption. Sue explained the purpose of the plan as well as the history of the activities which have taken place including the residents survey, a Landscape Character Appraisal, a Lambourn river study, a business survey, a landowners survey, a settlement character assessment, housing site allocation. The current allocation from government is for 90 additional houses. Taking into account the already designated areas this means Lambourn may have to find land for an additional 25 houses.
Lambourn Parish Council have published a news update on the plan which includes the material presented at the meeting. Click HERE to read the article.
Details of the plan and the progress can be found on the Lambourn Parish Website.
