August 2022 Minutes
Belton And Manthorpe Parish Council
Chairman - Councilor Simon Syddall, 5-6 Washdyke Lane, Belton Ng32 2lt
Clerk - Chris. Morgan, 10 Manchester Way, Grantham Ng31 8rr
Tel. 07758762811
Minutes of the Belton and Manthorpe Parish Council Meeting held on 17th August 2022 at 7.30pm in the Church Hall, St John’s Parish Church Manthorpe.
Present Cllrs E Farley, (Acting Chair) Cllrs S Thompson, R. Hallam,
In attendance Chris. Morgan (Clerk and Proper Officer). – SKDC Cllr Ian Stokes
1) Chairman’s Remarks. The elected Chair of the Parish Council – Cllr Simon Syddall was not able to attend the meeting today as he was recovering from medical surgery that day. It was agreed that Cllr Eve Farley would act as the Chair for the meeting. Cllr Farley welcomed those present to the meeting and wished Cllr Syddall a speedy recovery. Even though there were only three Councilors present, the meeting was quorate and would go ahead.
2) Apologies for Absence – Cllr Simon Syddall, Cllr Adrian Charity, Cllr J Ashford, County Cllr Ray Wootten
3) Declarations of Interest – Nothing declared by anyone, and there were no matters on the agenda where any councilors present had any pecuniary interest to declare.
4) Minutes of the last meeting held 25th May 2022 – It was RESOLVED to adopt the minutes as a true record, proposed by ST seconded by RH and the minutes, were, duly signed by the Chairman and Clerk. – Matters arising – All covered by agenda items.
5) Update from National Trust – Mr. Ian Cooper the Belton House General Manager, was not able to attend the meeting and he had sent his apologies. He had sent a written item updating the meeting on National Trust issues. This included the present filming at Belton House of a popular drama, the ongoing projects as mentioned at the last meeting, the Christmas light trail, and issues involving overhanging vegetation on a number of footpaths throughout the village. These would all be attended to in the next couple of weeks by the team at Belton House
6) Finance. –CM had circulated a Financial report prior to the meeting, along with the spread sheet outlining Income and Expenditure there were no queries from councilor’s, and it was RESOLVED, to accept the report and agree to the payments that had been made. Prop. ST seconded EF. CM went on to speak about a letter received from St John’s Church, re Defibrillator Pads that had been purchased by them and the use of the Church’s water by people using the Parish Council Burial Yard. RESOLVED, unanimous decision to pay half the cost of the Defib Pads, as this was a joint initiative with St John’s Church, and to pay for the use of the water, when invoiced by St. John’s Church.
7) Community Governance Review – This item relates to the proposal for Grantham to have a Town Council. Graham Watts the Assistant Director of Governance at SKDC was going to attend the meeting and update those present on this, including timescales and possible boundary changes and the implications for the P.C. However, it had now been agreed with other Parish Councils that would be affected by this proposal, to hold a separate meeting with SKDC and also to have a meeting between themselves, prior to the meeting with SKDC. RESOLVED A meeting to be held on 25th August at Gonerby Memorial Hall, when Cllrs Eve Farley and Sally Thompson, along with the Clerk would attend. On 13th September at SKDC offices all Councilors and the Clerk were invited. At this stage Cllrs Sally Thompson and Rhona were available to attend along with the Clerk. CM to contact those not present to see if they would be able to attend. CM also spoke under this item re the vacancy for a Cllr on the Rosedale Ward, the relevant notices had been displayed, it was now possible for the P.C. to co opt someone to the position, but to date no volunteers had come forward. Cllr were asked to try and promote the vacancy with a view to getting someone to fill the vacancy and be co opted onto the Parish Council.
8) Constable Field Manthorpe -CM gave a verbal update that had been received from David Carter at Charles Dyson – Basically local solicitors have been engaged to try and trace the covenant that was believed to be on the land, and to find out exactly what the covenant states, this work is still ongoing
9) Planning Applications: There had been only a few Planning Applications since the last meeting, all of which had been circulated by CM and there was a separate paper outlining these. There was nothing contentious in any of the applications
10) Hedges in Belton This had been covered in item 5 and those present were happy, at this stage, with the response from Ian Cooper at Belton House.
11) Highways Matters – CM reported to the meeting that the matters that had been brought up at the last meeting had all been passed to LCC Highways and the relevant agencies for attention. Cllr Farley commented that the BT/Openreach manhole covers, on the footpath of the A607 had not been attended to and were still hazardous. CM stated that a BT engineer had spoken to him from the relevant location and was in attendance to deal with the matter. It appears that nothing has been done CM to report the matter to BT again. Cllr Ian Stokes reported that the fencing on the Manthorpe side of the Belton Lane railway bridge had been damaged giving full access to the rail track which was hazardous. CM to report to Network Rail. – Further to this, CM did report this to Network rail and their reference for this matter is 220819-000512.
12) Community Speed Watch - A full discussion with those present took place, it was disappointing that not many checks had been completed by the volunteers re this. There were a number of reasons for this, including volunteers moving away from the area. RESOLVED – Further publicity, and a leaflet drop in the villages to try and encourage more volunteers would be arranged.
13) Any Urgent Business. None had been notified
There being no other business the meeting closed at 8.22pm
14) Date and Time of Next Meeting- Wednesday 23rd November 2022 at The Old School House Belton