Perranzabuloe Parish Offices, Ponsmere Valley, Perranporth
1 Public Participation
No members of the public attended.
2 Attendance and Apologies
SG members: Chris Ashby-Zwozdiak, Susan Dutson, Andrew Bown, Kevin Havill, Rory Jenkins (chair), & Roger Kayes
Observer: Michael Callam arrived after 30 minutes.
Will Rogers (secretary) tendered apologies
3 Approval of Minutes of Meeting on 10th April 2019
The minutes were approved, subject to amendments in the text about Housing. Proposed by Kevin, seconded by Rory and accepted unanimously.
4 Matters arising
Roger reported that William is unable to apply for Locality funding for the costs of the questionnaire, given the closure of the scheme to new applications at this time, around the beginning of the new financial year. That doesn’t materially matter since he will be able to access the remainder of the £9000 total fund available from Locality for future expenditure, leaving the costs for the questionnaire to be covered by the £15000 fund put aside by the Parish council for the NDP.
5 Amendment of Terms of Reference
This again was not possible to advance since less than two-thirds of the total membership was present.
6 Declarations of Interest
Roger reported that he had realised following a comment from Kevin at the last meeting that he has been confusing two dimensions:
- The standard declaration of interest, as exemplified by the form given to new parish councillors, which would apply to someone who owns property or is involved with a particular commercial company, where decisions of an organisation (in this case, the Parish Council) might reasonably be expected to impacted. In the interests of transparency and the evident avoidance of conflict, that person would be expected to declare an interest.
- There is a broader issue connected with ensuring that there is an appropriate balance on the Steering Group of people with a pro-development bias, versus those with more of a conservationist, pro-environment stopping-development orientation. It would be good practice for the SG to try and achieve an appropriate balance between these two, to avoid the NDP being steered in one or another direction, without regard to the expressed interests of the wider community.
After considerable discussion, it was decided to adopt a simplified ‘declaration of interest’ form (covering the first bullet point above), and leave the second dimension to be monitored as new members were accepted onto the SG. The new approach (agreed on, yet still to be incorporated into the Terms of Reference) of waiting until a prospective new member has attended at least two SG meetings, would give the group the opportunity to see how that member would affect the balance.
7 Discussion of the format of Steering Group meetings
It was suggested that the Secretary delete this from the next agenda since it was felt that the issues raised under this heading had been satisfactorily resolved.
8 Questionnaire
Supply of photographs: the contribution of images of for use in the questionnaire from various people not on the Steering Group was noted and thanks were given to (in alphabetical order): Jamie Turnbull, Karen Daubney, Louise Anne Waters and Sarah Shobrook.
There was discussion of:
- the distribution of posters through the parish.
- the current discussions with the practice manager of Perranporth surgery with a view to setting up of a table in the foyer to the surgery on three mornings following the release of the questionnaire, to encourage people to fill it in.
- Linda offered to investigate the possibility of doing something similar at the front of the main co-op.
- the possibility of needing to employ one or two people to process paper questionnaires, based on experience of the heavy workload required to process the returns during the preparation of the Community Plan in 2012. To be further discussed at the next meeting, depending on the number of returns.
9 Reports from Focus Groups
Housing and Open space
Roger reported that he has been contacted by Simon Ellis of CAD architects as part of their community consultation related to a housing application that was due to be submitted in the summer. He had advised that the NDP had not yet developed any policies and thus there was no basis for the NDP to make a contribution to this quasi-formal consultation. Rory agreed with this approach.
BETI
A meeting was held on the 11th of April with Stephen Horscroft, Economic Development Officer of Cornwall Council. He was supportive of the draft policies prepared for the business questionnaire.
Kevin reported attending a talk by retail expert Bill Grimsey on the 10th of May at Cornwall Council on the future of town centres.
A BETI meeting was held on the 13th of May when the number of business addresses on the list obtained from the Valuation Office was whittled down to 560. Kevin put forward a proposal that Will would obtain a quote from Jeff Muir for producing 560 questionnaires (plus some spares), to be mailed out individually in an envelope with a return envelope. These would be sent out in early September. This was approved unanimously.
Roger quizzed Kevin about the value to the NDP of the business questionnaire. In response, Kevin put forward various points to support the case that it would be a useful exercise, both for the NDP itself as well as more widely.
Environment and Heritage
Chris reported on progress with the Local Landscape Character Assessment, with a substantial number of visits to different character types already undertaken. There was consideration of the prospect of using the services of Kas Statham to assist but no decision was taken.
10 Administration and Background Organisational Matters
Nothing to discuss.
11 Financial Matters
Ditto.
12 Any other Business
Kevin encouraged members to have a detailed look at the OCSI report with data for our parish, particularly on deprivation, issues that the NDP might be able to help with.
Roger talked about the tools available for preparing maps as working documents and for inclusion in the final NDP. Confusion continues about the usefulness in this context of the ‘Cornwall Council Interactive Map’, freely available online, and the slightly different ‘Local Councils Interactive Map’ which requires a password to access (available on request from Roger, for NDP purposes only). Discussions are on oing with technical sections within Cornwall Council, with the help of Kas Statham, the LLCA trainer. Roger is also pursuing the potential for use of QGIS to produce suitable maps, with the help of a volunteer who already uses this programme. Chris and Sue expressed an interest in being involved in any training.
13 Dates of future meetings for 2019
Tue 11th Jun
Wed 10th July
Thu 15th Aug
Tue 10th Sep
Wed 16th Oct
Thu 14th Nov
Tue 10th Dec