APC Annual Meeting Summary Notes

Audlem Parish Council Annual Meeting

15 May 23

Summary Notes

editor's note:- a link to the Decision Notes for the meeting can be found by clicking:- https://www.audlempc.co.uk/lib/apc-decision-notes-15-may-23-F751476.pdf

The 10 Councillors all met for the first time last night -- 3 new dditions were welcomed -- Lynette & Stephen Hopkins and George McLaren Brown. There was also a significant number of members of the community present.Initially there was a 1 minutes silence in respect to the recent sad death of ex Councillor Bernard Edwards.

The first part of the meeting was concerned with electing a new chair and vice chair -- Geoff Seddon and Tim Lawton were unanimously elected to these positions.

It was announced that the 2 remaining councillor vacancies would be advertised.Quite a lot of time was then spent on the formalities that a new council have to follow and dates were agreed for when these should be completed. These included:

• Delegation arrangements, Review of terms of reference, Appointment of members to committees, sub committees etc
• Review and adoption of appropriate standing order and financial regulations
• Representatives on external bodies and vacancies
• Reviews of inventory of land and other assets, complaints procedure, policies, procedures, and practices in respect of its obligations under Freedom of Information and Data Protection legislation
• Review of employment policies
• Review of the Council's expenditure.

Planning – 2 new applications -- 23/0814N (Pheasants Rise, Cox Bank) and 23/1111N (Erection of 25 dwellings in field opposite the Anwyl estate) were discussed.

APC has objected to both of these applications on various grounds.

2 other applications (22/4588N and 23/0185N) had been officially approved by CE.

Finance. Training for new councillors was approved, together with the current payment schedule. The good news was that at last APC had been able to open a new bank account with Lloyds and would finally be able to take back control of its finances following the long and helpful support by ChALC following APC's historical financial issues.

The point was well made that APC is still short of income and so other than necessities, other spending e.g. grants to local organisations would continue to be severely limited.

Turnpike Field. The main item of interest was the result of the recent poll regarding the community's view of registering with Fields in Trust.

The results were that 297 residents had voted Yes and only 23 voted No. There was a small handful (10) that had to be discounted because of them not being on the electoral register and also 4 not marked and 3 late votes.

So, following this massive show of support and some debate, the FiT forms were approved and signed.

In addition, a new volunteer was appointed onto the newly named Turnpike Field Management Committee.

Staffing. One application for the vacancy for a new clerk had been received and it was agreed to increase the pay scale for this position up to SCP23 (£30,151) pro rata for 20 hours per week.

Corgi & Crown Hunt. Feedback from Audlem's families was that their kids really enjoyed this. Big thanks were given to the organisers.