2022 Chairman`s Report
Welcome to the Annual General Meeting 2022. I would like to highlight some of the activities the Parish Council has been involved in during the last year.
The covid regulations have now come to an end so we can now carry on with our normal procedure. Councillor Sheila Bowler resigned her position as she has now left the area, may I thank her for her help over the years. I would like to welcome Nick Pearson onto the council who was co-opted to fulfil her position.
The PC website has now been improved. Mr P Langford was engaged to improve the content to the website under the direction of the clerk for a fee of £12 per month. Also, Councillor Pearson has created a Facebook page for the Parish Council to present information. Thank you for that.
A request for a neighbourhood plan was received. The PC considered this and asked for volunteers to join a working group to develop a neighbourhood plan but none were forthcoming. It was resolved not to proceed any further at the present time.
The PC has officially acquired the disused telephone box from the Heartbeat Trust organisation that originally bought it.
A seat was bought for the playing field. My thanks to David Smith who helped me site it on a concrete plinth.
The bus shelters that the PC bought previously have now been sited at the bus stops in the High Street near to the Black Swan Guest House. One has already suffered collision damage which is not structural but it is no longer in a vertical position.
The PC have now recorded the plantation area in Littleborough Lane with the Land Registry as a site belonging to the parish. We have been contacting various contractors to obtain an estimate/quotation for the regeneration of this site. This will make it a facility for parishioners to use for recreational walks commemorating the Queen`s Platignum Jubilee celebrations. Two of the persons asked looked round and never replied. Another gave an estimation we could not afford and thought was excessive. The remaining one gave what the council considered a reasonable quote and so we have asked Finch Arbori Culture to undertake this work during this financial year.
With regard to planning applications we have not received any for multi-site developments. The site off Stow Park Road with approval for 39 dwellings has now commenced. There has been no further development to date on the High Street and Littleborough Lane sites for 4 and 9 proposed homes respectively. The PC have been approached by two separate organisations during the last twelve months for our views on the creation of two large solar farms in the Marton and Gate Burton area.
Both businesses have attended PC meetings to give an overview of their proposals and answer any queries that arose from councillors observations. Presentations were also given in the Village Hall for parishioners and members of the public to view and comment on. Representatives of the solar farm businesses were in attendance to answer any questions.
The information and responses to their proposals will be taken away and considered before the outline planning proposals are submitted during the summer 2022. Any more observations will be looked at before the full application is submitted to the Planning Inspectorate in Bristol at the end of this year. This proposed development is considered as of strategic national importance so the local planning infrastructure will not have the final decision.
The Parish Council have sent their views, requests and observations to both the Gate Burton Energy Park and Island Green Power organisations. We will wait for their next proposals and then consider them before we proceed further.
The HSBC bank have lost or mislaid the new bank mandate that the PC submitted to them last year. A new one has been sent to them through the branch at Market Place, Gainsborough, with a receipt asked for when it was presented. We have not had acknowledgement as yet but presume we can now let the new signatories sign cheques when authorised.
Thank you to my fellow councillors for their help and contributions to the parish during the past year. Special thanks to Mrs Gill Martin without whose help and efforts we would not be able to function at all.
As is the custom, I would like to record that the Parish Award for Marton and deeds for parish land are deposited in the Lincolnshire Archives, St Rumbold Street, Lincoln.
S W Spence
Chairman, Marton and Gate Burton Parish Council