Catthorpe Parish Council Minutes 6th June 2016

Minutes of Catthorpe Parish Meeting

Monday 6t June 2016

The Cherry Tree

Security in the village.

A number of burglaries have taken place in mainly in outhouses, sheds and garages plus the church. Tools have been taken plus the attempt at a motorbike. Hedging and electric fencing damaged. Plus the church window and door plus the safe taken. Several residences have seen a white long wheel based van in the village. Other local villages have also been targets for thieves.

Suggestions:

• Neighbourhood watch signs to be added to the village signs on entry/exit to the village

• Concerns over data protection and that a residence will object to camera usage

• Ray offered to house camera’s on this house but will only cover a portion of the village. This would spot fly-tipping as well as potential intruders

• Private protection paid for by the wind farm money

• Police generally advise to report all crime activities. This will flag to the local police there is a problem in an area. Call 111 to report an incident

Church

• Post two break-in’s the church needs £47,000 to be repaired, £12,000 to replace the broken stained glass window. A further £25,000 will be needed next year for the tower repairs. A letter was given to the residence asking for donations. Judith Smith has donated £1,000.

• The building is classed as ‘at risk’ by English heritage

• A form was provided to all residences to ask for a donation to the church to pay for immediate repairs

• There is the option to borrow forwards on monies from the windfarms but this would not raise sufficient funds

• There is £12k in the poor plots charity account which is not currently accessible

• The church can’t get money from the lottery as there is no community use. Even if it were to be dual use, the village would need prove plus it could take 5 years to get the money from the lottery

• Types of use include using the building as a village hall and therefore would need to have some element of management

• Alternative idea would be to convert into a historical society and put information into the church to represent its history. The PCC does not object to it being used for multiple uses

• Part of the problems with the church is the lack of general maintenance; gardening, odd jobs, gutter sweeping, etc.

Agreement in principle was made to have the church as a dual purpose building, for worship and as a village hall

Actions

Amy – Create a Catthorpe Facebook account - done.

Andy – Look at bringing the Catthorpe website up to date

Gillian – Investigate what is possible with the Poor Plot money and whether £5,000 can be taken and provided to the church

Jules – Organise a community group to help fundraise

Ray – Arrange for the local police to talk to the village meeting on security measures

Ray – Ask the police what measures works best, potentially the use of dummy cameras as a deterrent

Ray – look into village policing for a local area – costings and possibilities of linking to other near-by villages

Ray – What would the cost be to have street lighting in the village?

Ray – Arrange for some neighbourhood watch stickers and signage

Ray – What would need to occur to add a precept to the villagers council tax?

All – Be neighbourly – tell people if you are on holiday so someone can keep an eye out for your house

All – Check your own security – if you have an alarm and security lights; are they in good working order

All – Suggest ideas for church usage

All – Gardening session at the church 12th June for 2 hours to get it ready for David/Estelle’s wedding

All – when returning the yellow form, please indicate if you were in agreement with a council tax precept

All – if you want to set-up a Direct Debit, please contact Rebecca Bowen at Heath House for the bank account details

All - please complete the survey below. It's all anonymous. Any questions ask Jules.

https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/9G3CFMD

Agreement needed – please reply to this mail.

Each resident needs to agree that if a camera is in the village that they are happy to have them present and they or their house maybe on camera

Thanks to Phil and Sue for the use of their function room,