Minutes of Meeting 2024

Draft Minutes of East Keal Parish Council 20th November 2024

Held at Keals Village Hall at 7pm

Present
Cllr Mahoney (Chair), Cllr Cooper, Cllr Pearson, Cllr Stickland, Cllr Thornley & 4 members of the public plus Pauline Murray (Parish Clerk) and District Cllr T Taylor.

1. Apologies for Absence
   Cllr Wrisdale gave his apologies. This was agreed by all councillors. 

Public Forum – There were no queries from the floor

Meeting commenced at 7pm

2. Declaration of Interest (if any) - none

3. Approving and signing minutes of a meeting held on 07/10/2024
   The minutes of the previous meeting were accepted by all councillors and a copy signed by the Chair Cllr Mahoney.

4. Co-option of a new councillor applications

As yet no applications have been received. Cllr Pearson is aware of a couple of possible applicants so hopefully they will apply by the 4th January 2025 so that they can be included in our next meeting of 9th January.

5. Reports from representatives on outside bodies:

1. County Councillor – Cllr Gray sent his apologies.

b.   District Councillor - Cllr Terry Taylor mentioned that there was a Crime and Policing Survey out 

for completion currently.  Also that the nuclear waste services are further considering their plans – the Theddlethorpe site is the only one currently near us but the worrying thing is that they are extending their scoping for sites.  In regard to the Pylons, the steel seems to be coming in already from aboard but everything is being done to lobby against it.  The strange thing is that the difference in cost between putting the cables overhead to underground is only £5.5 billion which in the realms of the total cost is quite small. 

The new partnership between East Lindsey, South Holland and Boston Councils is forming more strategies which will give rise to more co-ordination for emergency situations.  Apparently the Urgent Treatment Centres at Skegness and Louth are being underused.  In regard to the appeal re Planning application S/045/01608/23 land adjacent to Coronation Garage Cllr Taylor commented that it is possibly due to the new governments more relaxed planning rules.

6. Update from Delegated Groups

1. HR Committee - The Clerk has worked her first quarter and claimed payment for it.

         b.  Update in regard to Village Volunteers - No update 

         c.  Update by the Highways Working Group - The drains need jetting out near Braybrooke studios as  they still are bubbling up – Cllr Pearson to put on Fix my Street. There is a water leak from Glengarry on the actual property – Clerk to chase up with East Lindsey.

d. Update on the Time Capsule Cllr Thornley requested that a letter of thanks be sent to Alpha 

    Memorials Ltd for donating & engraving the marker of the capsule free of charge.       
 

7. Update on Village Assets (including the War Memorial) & Survey

Cllr Mahoney has carried out a tremendous amount of work on the Assets Register – she has been through the assets and embedded a picture of the assets in to the register.  Unfortunately not everyone can open the register unless you have google documents installed. All assets are in a reasonable state and nothing needs immediate work currently.  In the Spring it would be a good plan to clean up the old signs and replace where necessary.  Maybe the sign regarding Best Village of 9 years ago could now come down and we could work towards getting the award again.  

The memorial needs cleaning properly as it’s a listed monument made of sandstone.  Clerk to find out if the Commonwealth War Graves Commission have any funding for this.  Cllr Mahoney will send an updated Asset Register to Cllr Pearson for placing on the website.

Regarding the survey the questionnaire put together by Cllr Mahoney was agreed apart from a few amendments such as to add grit spreading under the tasks.  Cllr Mahoney to tidy up the survey and resend around.  Cllr Cooper suggested that it may be possible to coordinate the delivery of the questionnaire with the church Christmas cards. 

It was suggested that an offer to help with the cost of fuel could be made to the volunteers who cut the grass and supply the equipment.

8. Code of Conduct review

Cllr Mahoney had amended the LALC revision of the Code of Conduct to reflect East Keal’s requirements.  This was read through by the other Councillors and agreed. Cllr Mahoney will revise as agreed and bring the revised form to the next meeting in January. Training was brought up and Cllrs Strickland and Wrisdale need the Clerk to book them on to further Councillor training due to the time period since they had their training.

9. Planning:-

• S/045/01351/24 – new build on Blacksmiths Lane – still pending going to Planning Committee on 5th December

• S/045/01608/23 land adjacent to Coronation garage – appeal upheld

10. Work by PRIDE Team 

Not been started as yet – Clerk to chase up

11. Moving to a ‘gov.uk’ domain & emails

The Clerk had recently undertaken some training in to Gov.uk emails and suggested that using a gov.uk email has the following benefits:-

• shows services, emails and websites are from a trusted UK public sector organisation like a central government department or parish council

• means your website and service could potentially show up higher in search results 

• allows staff to join public sector communities which require a gov.uk email

• is monitored for potential security vulnerabilities, which will be reported to you by the Protecting Public Sector Domains Team at Cabinet Office

• gives your organisation the ability to better control email accounts by removing staff when they leave

• gives your domain better legal protection because it’s based in a UK jurisdiction

• means outgoing emails are more likely to be cleared by security filters and delivered to citizens and other public sector organisations 

• increases transparency of smaller organisations when public servants use corporate email accounts instead of personal email accounts for official government business 

• helps smaller organisations fulfil best practice guidelines as outlined in the Joint Panel on Accountability and Governance Practitioners’ Guide 2021

           councils agreed that updating email domains would be a good idea. The clerk is to do further investigating to find out the cost of switching.
 

12. Financial Update:

    1. An update on payments made since the previous meeting

Clerk’s salary (Aug – Oct), HMRC £128, LALC £180 and Room hire £20*2         

Bank Reconciliation Statement & Financial Report as at 31/10/24 Noted

2. HMRC penalty

The Clerk managed to get the £100 penalty cancelled and needs to ring to see if she can get 

the previous payment of £100 refunded.

13. Precept – draft budget for 25/26 circulated previously

The Clerk had circulated a draft budget – it was resolved to include £1,000 as a contingency towards any future elections and £300 for maintaining the flowers and assets - this brought the precept requirement to £4,900 for financial year 2025/26.

14. Audit list of tasks

Several items on this list Cllr Mahoney has managed to cross off.  The new Financial Regulations and revised standing orders will be added to the agenda for January’s meeting.

15. Matters Arising for next meeting

• Clerk to check with J Cooper re financial audit

• Revised Code of Conduct

• Progress with Survey

• Welcome booklet

• Update re Gov.uk emails

• Facebook 

• Financial Regulation 2024

 The meeting closed at 9.25pm - next meeting Thursday, 9th January 2025 at 7pm at Keals Village Hall.