Notes of meeting between representatives of Shropshire Council (SC),

 

Albrighton & District Civic Society (ADCS) and Albrighton Parish Council (APC).

 

3rd May 2011.

 

Context.

 

A meeting was held between representatives of the respective parties, on the 3rd May 2011 at Albrighton Parish Council offices. The purpose of the meeting was to address concerns raised by ADCS, similar concerns were also held by APC. The meeting was instigated from a report and emails submitted by Peter Woodman as Chair ACS on April 20th 2011 and by Peter Leigh 20/4/11 and Rod Smith 28/4/11. The meeting followed the format of the April 20th report.

 

Peter Leigh Woodman “chaired” the meeting on behalf of ADCS, Chris Edwards, Steve Brown represented SC, David Beachy Beechey is a member of ADCS but is also Chairman, Albrighton Parish Council and represented APC, other representatives of ADCS.

 

Peter Woodman said that ADCS was very pleased to welcome Chris Edwards & Steve Brown and looked forward to a constructive meeting. However, he noted that after contacting Kim Ryley he was disappointed that he had not received a reply from him saying that Messrs Edwards and Brown would deal with the matter and felt that the chief executive of a professional organisation would have done so

 

Clarifications

 

Any issues or concerns relating to street scene / highways should be sent to Steve Brown steven.brown@shropshire.gov.uk) 01746 713162, in the first instance.

 

Chris Edwards SC provided some background to Shropshire Council. ACTION:  Chris to send through a council structure for information.

 

Issues dealt with by Steve Brown.

 

  1. Street Furniture, within the envelope of the Conservation area. Current arrangements for street furniture are not sufficient. Action 1 – review and develop a plan for prioritisation and consistency of street furniture (bins, benches etc) to be undertaken. This to be finalised by end of July 2011. ACS / APC to be consulted and act as a partner on this. The list would develop basic criteria for replacement over the preceding years. (ADCS Note: this should be 'over future years'.

 

PL email: Quality standards

There appears to be no common policy on whether signposts should be supplied black or grey. They are supposed to be black. However, a black sign post can have a grey luminaire to illuminate a traffic sign with a grey back in Albrighton. This indicates a) a total lack of trained supervision at site b)  total ignorance of what is required by your procurement officers.   There are no cost issues here - black luminaires and black backed signs are the same price as grey ones.

 

There appears to be no quality standard for litter bins in the conservation areas.  This again appears to be lack of joined-up procurement.

 

Streetlighting posts can be any colour!   Again, a lack of an effective quality standard in conservation areas

 

There appears to be no laid down quality standard for street furniture to be maintained.  In the main, in Albrighton, no maintenance is done at all. Responsibility ends with the initial installation.  Brian Bennett has actually confirmed to us that he has no budget for undertaking routine maintenance in conservation areas.

SB generally agreed with PL’s points above unless there was specific legal requirement and Action A: these will be brought into line over a period.

 

  1. Accepted that this was not raised at meeting, but I would suggest: Action 2  is :discuss with Parish Council option of Parish Council taking on all future responsibility for public benches, seats etc with consideration of initial support form SC. This to be discussed and agreed. APC  to consider and propose a date to SB.

 

  1. Ownership of Albrighton Village Green. Organise meeting with APC, meeting to discuss and explore APC taking responsibility for the village green. SB said that it was not registered with the Land Registry. PW said that this did not mean there was no owner only that it was not registered. SB said that SC had powers to register it to the APC. Support from SC in respect of legal advice, in kind (grounds maintenance staff and equipment) to restore the green to a standard that the PC could maintain and take responsibility for. Action 3 APC to consider and organise meeting with SB to move forward.

 

  1. Organise meeting with APC to discuss and explore APC taking responsibility for local none highway weeding with an associated transfer of funding from SC to APC. Action 4 APC to consider and organise meeting with SB to move forward.

 

  1. Improvements required to general approach of highway weeding by SC.  Action 5 A review of processes and procedures to be undertaken by SB, and feed back to further meetings.

 

  1. Drainage on village green, Action 6 – Graham Downs, Highways to develop drainage scheme to deal with this issue. ADCS / APC to be consulted on this.

 

  1. Consistency of sign posts colours. One standard colour to be agreed, unless requirements (statutory, regulatory prevent). Action 7 SB to investigate with local traffic and highways staff and report back.

 

  1. Resident issue (previously reported to the Customer Service Centre by Mr Shaun Meridith-Jones of Church Rd), to be revisited by SB, ACTION 8 SB to pursue and report back.

 

  1. General issues were discussed with regard to Shropshire Council, particularly in respect of Planning Services, Action 9 Chris Edwards to feedback concerns to appropriate officers. Chris Edwards to report back to ADCS at a future meeting and possibly with a senior Planning Officer in attendance.

 

Planning issues dealt with by Chris Edwards

 

  1. PW said that ADCS had asked Cllr Stuart West, Planning Committee Chairman, several times over a period of a year that ADCS be added to the list of consultees for local planning applications. This had so far not been actioned. CE said that Civic Societies were not as a matter of right a consultee and could register on the Planning Website Portal to receive notifications. PL said that South Staffs Council was pleased to have Pattingham Historical society registered with them as a consultee and was surprised that SC did not appear to want to have a ADCS as a contributor.

 

  1. RS referred to the email dated 28/4/11 with attachments to CE which outlined several points where local residents feel that the Planning Office at Bridgnorth is not responding to residents views and not even replying to correspondence. The RS letter of 25/01/11 to the LJC raised several matters which had been put to and discussed at the LJC meeting on 28/09/10 but then not recorded in the SC Notes of Meeting – this would also be taken up at the next LJC meeting.

 

  1. RS had sent to CE copies of emails sent to Bridgnorth Planning Office by neighbours of The Hollies Development and which had not received a reply. Neighbours had been promised at a meeting in Bridgnorth an updated Drawing of the front boundary of the whole development but had received nothing in spite of two emails chasing it up. CE handed over a copy of a drawing of the front boundary. However this was not the promised whole site drawing as it was only for Plots 2 and 3 and did not show Plot 1 or The Hollies itself. ADCS members also noted that it had been a Condition of the first Application for Development of the whole site that the footpath in front of the whole site would be widened from its 0.9m width (at the narrowest point in front of The Hollies) to the standard SC Highways width of 1.5m. This section of footpath is used by children walking to the primary school and where the school bus disembarked children. The Development was the opportunity to widen the footpath, requested by many residents who wrote to SC – this is a Condition of Granting the Application but was not being implemented by the developer and is not being enforced by SC.

CE said that we had not received a reply from Bridgnorth Planning Office because Rod Mills, the manager, had retired. ADCS members pointed out that we had written to SC (and not to Mr Mills personally) and that surely when a member of staff retires or is not available another person picks up the responsibility to reply and deals with the issues.

 

  1. RS raised that matter of none display of a Planning  Application Notice on The Hollies and when brought to the attention of Bridgnorth Planning Office was first told it was displayed (it wasn’t) and then they said it was displayed outside a house in Newhouse Lane (it wasn’t and the owner confirmed that it had never been there) and then eventually it was displayed at the correct property but by then about a week had elapsed providing resident less than the statutory 21 days notice to comment/object.

 

  1. Development of Stables opposite The Horns Public House on the A464 Shifnal Rd. DH said a gate connecting the development to the “lay-by” had been built as shown on the drawings. He said another entrance gate with brick piers, not shown on the approved drawings, had been installed directly on the A464 which was a very busy road. The enforcement officer had not taken any action.

 

  1. CE said that he was not too familiar with the local planning issues and suggested that he return to meet with us again and would bring one of the planning team, possibly Mr Kilby. This was agreed

I trust that this captures the discussion that was held, ACS to propose date for further meeting (suggest late July 2011 onwards), meeting date to be confirmed, and all parties to feedback on respective actions.

 

END.

 

 

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