Annual Parish Meeting - 18th May 2023

Asterby and Goulceby Parish Meeting – 18th May 2023

2 members of public present at the meeting

Notes

1. Minutes of the last meeting (23rd May 2022) - The minutes were approved as a true record to the meeting.

2. Annual report from the Parish Council Chairperson

Good evening all and welcome to the Annual Parish Meeting of Asterby and Goulceby and a big thank you to the pub for letting us hold it here. 

Firstly, I would like to thank the Parish Councillors who have served on the Council over the last twelve months. As you will know we have had elections recently and Sheila, Jan and Blue decided that having served as Councillors for a number of years they would not seek re-election. We therefore have some new faces on the Council. Ian Taylor and Graham Johnson who are both from Goulceby village. Ian, Graham and myself represent Goulceby and the Parish Council still has three vacancies for Asterby, so if anyone wishes to use their powers of persuasion on anyone in the parish we could do with a few more Council Members as we are only just quorate. There’s no money in it I’m afraid!

I would also like to welcome our new Parish Clerk and Responsible Finance Officer, Diane, who has joined us when Michelle left us in March, and I would of course like to record our thanks for Michelle’s guidance and support over the last year.

As you probably know, the Council has very limited resources so we do find it challenging to come up with village focussed events, activities and indeed any spending! We have though in the last year provided Asterby with a notice board which replaces the previous old-fashioned and environmentally unfriendly approach of nailing notices to trees! Sadly somebody found time to vandalise it last month so we will be looking as to how we can put that right without spending a great deal.

We also provided some planters in Goulceby which are fixed to the Watery Lane bridge railings. I would especially like to thank the County Council for permitting us to put these up and helping to make sure we have an appropriate legal licence in place, full insurance, not using the wrong type of fittings, guaranteeing the railings would not be damaged as a result of putting the planters on them and also permitting us to leave them up over winter.

We have made some formal representations over the year on safety matters. We approached Highways regarding the Asterby Lane and Asterby End junction suggesting that some slow down signs might help as the Asterby End exit is somewhat blind. Highways welcomed our suggestion but judged that additional signage wouldn’t really add anything.

We also asked whether the blind corner on Butt Lane would benefit from a mirror to enable drivers to see around the corner meaning that drivers could enter it more safely. This suggestion seemed to be quite complicated. We did at least receive a reply but declining to take any action citing that “mirrors are classified as a road traffic sign and as they are not prescribed in the Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions, and their use on the highway would require special authorisation by the Department for Transport”. The Council was also concerned that such mirrors can be very confusing to highway users travelling along the road.

The issue with the collapse on Horncastle Road was raised a couple of times with formal communications to Highways but sadly we didn’t receive any responses. 

A final matter we tried to get resolved was the issue of the numerous grit bins all being rock solid with years old salt having gone off in them. We had a reply from Highways helpfully suggesting that villagers might like to get together with crowbars and set about smashing the solid salt up into smaller pieces.  Absolutely true. Oh well, we tried.

Fly tipping seems to be becoming a regular problem on the Horncastle Road. I would like to record my thanks to ELDC for their very responsive action on the couple of recent occasions as the offending waste was removed very quickly. So, a big shout out to ELDC on this one. At least with the road currently being closed the fly tippers have been temporarily thwarted! Sadly, when the road is re-opened the tipping is more than likely to start again. We have offered to assist ELDC with anything which might help identify the persons responsible.

Just a quick reference to the Parish Council Precept. Last year, the Council raised £1,760 through Council tax in the parish which gave an average charge of £14.08 per household for the year. This was an increase of just 0.6% over the previous year when inflation was at a very low level. At the time of setting our precept for this current year we were in a situation where inflation was running at over 10% and with the prospect that it would continue at a high level for this year too. We therefore had to raise the precept to cover the Council’s administration costs to a level of £1,980 for the whole parish which equates to an average of £15.96 per household. All this increase did was to simply cover existing running costs. Across the 99 East Lindsey Parish Councils which raise a precept we are the 9th lowest at £15.96 per household per year. The highest being £164 per household per year. So that is just a bit of context.

Finally, I would just like to say on a personal note that it is great to have the pub open again after the winter as it is such an important focal point of the village which helps bring visitors to this beautiful part of the Wolds in which we are lucky enough to live. So good luck with the summer months.

That’s probably all for this year’s report so we will now open up the meeting as a public forum which is an opportunity for you to raise anything with us. 

3. Open forum for residents to put forward ideas for improvements for the village and discuss issues important to residents - None