REPORTS FOR THE ANNUAL PARISH MEETING 2010
Upton Parish Council – Chairman’s Report 2009 -10
Thank you for your attendance tonight and Welcome to your Parish Council 2010 AGM. I have a brief summary report on the years events followed by a short summary of reports from our District and County Councillors, Richard Farrell and Stuart Lilley, and from other organisation that have an important role to play in our village life. However the most important aspect of this meeting for the PC is that we gain your opinions and ideas as to how you wish the village to go forward in the coming year.
Parish Council Changes
This year we made the full complement of 6 councillors with Geoffrey Summers joining the Council.
Due to a move away from the village Geoff has resigned from the council and I would like to express our thanks for the excellent work he has performed for the PC over the last year. Specifically he has worked as the PC representative with UVHAT and as the Parish Transport Representative.
This leads me to say that we currently have a vacant position for a councillor on the PC which has been advertised according to the regulations. We are also seeking any volunteers to step forward who are interested in filling the role of Parish Transport Representative.
During the second half of the year Mike Brown passed over the Role of Chair to myself, Mike continues as the Vice Chair to provide support to the PC given his experience and wealth of knowledge.
For your information the PC divides some core responsibilities currently identified into lead roles as follows
Stuart Norman – Roads and footpaths
Tracy Seelig – Young parishioners, the playground and Harwell site Liaison committee representative
Mike Brown – Vice chair, planning (with myself) , communications and volunteer group
David Mason – Amenities including Recreation Ground
Geoffrey Summers – Transport and Village Hall (Retiring)
Clare Lightfoot continues in her role as the Parish Clerk and Finance Officer. I would like to take this opportunity to thank her for the excellent and extremely capable support she provides us all with.
Last, but by no means least – Brian Simpson worked for a period of six months as Temporary Clerk to the PC to assist the PC dealing with the complex financial arrangements required for the village hall financing. I would like to take this opportunity on behalf of the village and the PC to thank Brian for his outstanding work regarding this matter.
As a note for your attention in May 2011 your current Parish Council will be standing down and a new Parish Council will be elected.
2009 -10 Parish Plan Outcomes/Objectives
Financial
Finances are in good order, the precept has been held static at £7250 for the fourth year in a row. You will note there is a separate Finance Report prepared by Clare and Mike that shows our finances to be under close control and in a healthy position.
Village Character – The PC continues to strive to maintain a village character through consideration in all planning applications of balancing improvements with the requirements of a rural village
Village Hall – The PC has afforded financial support and assisted UVHAT in placing the main contracts through the PC for the build of the village hall extension to enable VAT refund and provide an overdraft facility post SOS agreement. We continue to allocate one councillor in a liaison role to UVHAT. Currently we are working with UVHAT to determine the best way forward regarding land regularisation and the development and funding of the further car parking facilities. Mike Brown also assisted in monitoring and directing the building work contractors during the village hall extension contract.
Whilst I am on the subject of the village hall extension I would like to express my thanks to Mike for the work he undertook in this role. I would also like to thank Jessie West and Brian Simpson for their hard work in seeing the project through from conception to fruition. And of course thanks to everyone in the village, or associated with the village, who assisted the project through fund raising events and donations.
Recreation and Playground – One further dog bin has been placed at the bottom of the Sustrans path at Chapel Furlong as requested at the AGM last year. The mowing schedule continues relieving the village of substantial contractual charges, which would be incurred if we were not to carry out this work ourselves. Thank you to everyone involved in their past and for their ongoing assistance in maintaining the recreation ground. There are funds in the PC this year for playground improvements, and given that the structure of the extension is completed we would like to look towards how we could improve the playground facilities for all age groups. A bike jumps cycle track is to be created to the left hand side of the recreation ground.
Bus services, Roads and footpaths
We are in the fortunate position that the current bus service although limited has been maintained. Please use the bus service where possible to enable us to continue our case for securing this service.
We remain committed to trying to achieve a cycle route or at least an improved path from Upton to Blewbury. This remains a difficult issue which is mainly outside of our Parish Council boundary. We continue our discussions with Blewbury PC and the OCC footpaths Officer to find a suitable agreement for all interested parties.
Village amenities and Upkeep
The volunteer group has continued to carry out some excellent work this last year, amongst other projects, in assisting with grounds maintenance at the recreation ground. The March Litter pick just carried out was another success, and a great example of the community spirit of the volunteers who assist in the village up keep. Thank you to all of you for your assistance.
First Responders
A further step forward made during the last year was the formation of the Upton First Responders Group. This group under went demanding training and provides a valuable self help facility for Upton and the surrounding villages should any one require emergency medical assistance. This is a further example of the great community spirit that exists within Upton. Well done to all those involved in providing what could be a life saving service.
Village Fete
A fantastic day, just about kept the weather at bay, and such great promotion of village life and community. Thank you to all involved and well done on the funds raised for St Mary’s Church.
Youth and Clubs
There remains a nucleus of small, but thriving clubs in the village which the PC is keen to assist where possible in whatever small way we are able. This is such an important element of the village community and the PC would like to encourage further activities for the village youth.
Amongst others – The karate club is now running on Sunday mornings, Brownies and Guides and the Dog club continue to meet in the village. Tiddlywinks, Wine appreciation club, Theatre club, the Upton Coven, Upton Table Tennis, and a keen group of cyclists who I am sure will soon form a further Upton club! I am sure other clubs will now develop such as short mat bowls given the village hall facilities we now have.
Communications
The Upton News continues as the main steer of our communications, but what a fantastic Web Site we have as a village. It is easy to use and keeps us all informed. Please let us know of any other pages which would be useful, and our gratitude goes out to Brian Rippon for creating and maintaining a superb village web site, Cathy Brown for compiling and Dawn Saunders for printing the Upton News.
George and Dragon Pub
Our thanks to Bill and Cielo for giving us such a lovely, friendly welcoming pub, which has been an absolute pleasure for us to attend on more than one occasion. We will all be sad to see the departure of Bill and Cielo and we thank them for their wonderful work and contribution to our village. We would like to extend a warm welcome to the new tenants and, in an effort to maintain our village character and amenities given the difficult economic environment, please continue to support the pub wherever possible.
Putting Upton on the Map
We are keen to assist in promoting Upton into the future, whilst having due regard to preserving our private village life. The Recreation ground is a wonderful facility, which along with the super village hall we now have, can work to bring more funding into the village facilities and clubs through community events. Recently we have had a caravan meet and the Uptonogood mountain bike challenge will take place on 20th June.
Now most importantly I open this forum to yourselves and we, as your PC, ask you for your valued input and suggestions for the village.
John Dickens
Chairman Upton P.C.
*************
Upton P.C. Finance Report 2009-10
This year has undoubtedly been the most complex financial year in the history of this council. In recent years our income has been about £7500 with an annual expenditure of about £6000. This year our income has been £129,521 and our expenditure £136,640. Indeed when this year’s accounts are sent off to the auditor we can expect a lot of questions and a considerably higher audit fee.
The system that we use to monitor our financial affairs is very efficient and has allowed us to run parallel systems for the hall and for normal business on simple spread sheets so we can give you a report on what we see as our normal financial transactions and on the Hall transactions.
Dealing with the Hall account first we received a total of £122,065 and spent a total of £131,531 the difference being made up of the £9020 we contributed to the building program plus we paid for the new wall lights and the hire of a skip.
The income can be split down into grants totalling £95,750, an interest free loan of £21,000 from UVHAT that has been fully repaid and VAT refunds of £15,315. The loan was a short term arrangement to ensure that the builder could be paid promptly without the council’s bank account becoming overdrawn awaiting the receipt of the grants.
Looking at our routine business we had a total income of £7546 and a total spend of £14,574 of which £9,466 was on the hall (see above) leaving a routine spend of £5108. Our spend this year has been lower than usual as we have spent nothing on improving the playground whilst waiting for the hall and the surrounding areas to be completed.
All transactions on the hall are now complete and our bank account currently stands at £6,803 which is within a few £s of what was predicted at the beginning of the financial year. Everything is back in a stable state and for the coming year all estimates are near normal although there is a sum of £1700 set aside to continue to help with the refurbishment of the hall and the extension of the car park and in order to compensate for the lack of recent spend we have budgeted £1900 to be spent on playground improvements. Of this £1900 approx £400 are donations given to improve the play area that are currently held in the Council’s bank account.
Our estimated reserve at the end of the coming financial year is just over £5000, ideal for a parish of our size.
The decision to undertake our own grass cutting continues to save the parish about £750 per year thanks to the volunteer effort.
We are currently looking at the possibility of getting a contract from the County Council to maintain our parish footpaths, this will mean some adjustment to our estimates but it will not have a significant effect on the end-of-year figures.
Mike Brown and Clare Lightfoot
Upton Parish Council
************
District Councillor’s Report
In recent years my report to you has tended to focus on the Council’s finances and this year is going to be no exception. Every year the Council’s financial position has become yet more challenging and this, as I will explain, is a trend that is likely to continue.
There are three key factors, all related in one way or another to the financial crisis, that have combined to put pressure on the budget this year:
· a reduction in income from sources such as planning fees, car park income, building control etc.
· a significant reduction in investment income as interest rates have fallen. A 1% movement in interest rates equates to about £300,000; this is the expected reduction this year and is in addition to the £1.1 million fall that I mentioned in my report last year.
· an anticipated fall in government grant over the next five years as it tackles the public spending deficit. This year over half of the Vale’s budget requirement came from government grants. Any shortfall will have to be met by either council tax rises – which may be problematic – or a reduction in services and/or greater efficiency..
If central government is to cut the budget deficit as all three of the larger parties have suggested and if the NHS is ring fenced, and other public sector spending protected as some have promised, then it is inevitable that disproportionate cuts will fall on local government. The Vale’s medium term financial plan anticipates a 5% reduction in central government grant, year on year, for the next five years. This translates into a fall from £7.3 million this year to £5.8 million by 2014/15. It is also necessary to rebuild the Council’s revenue reserves which are in danger of falling below the levels recommended by the accounancy body, CIPFA.
Taking all this together, the Vale needs to find average savings of over £1 million per annum every year for the next five years to stay solvent. Already the joint working arrangements with South Oxfordshire are saving nearly £1 million a year and new joint working proposals should save a further £500,000. Other significant savings this year are:
- the closure of the Local Services Point in Wantage, which saves £153,000 per annum in a full year. In 2010 redundancy and other costs limit the saving to £57,000.
- a reduction in sports development from £150,000 to £50,000
- reducing spending on grants, including one-off grants in 2010/11 which saves £100,000.
- reducing special responsibility allowances to councillors, including those to leader and deputy leader, which saves £25,000.
- removing essential car user allowances from staff who undertake low levels of official mileage which will ultimately save £80,000.
- modest increases in car parking charges, offset by free parking after 4pm
For the future there are two further unknowns. The first is that there will be an actuarial revaluation of the pension fund as at 31st March 2010 with new contribution rates from 1st April 2011. However, the recent strong rise in the stock market will hopefully mean that this is not as dire as it looked as if it might a year ago.
The other uncertainty is that this is the last year that the Vale will be responsible for concessionary fares which will then be provided by the County Council. Although the government theoretically funds this, the process is not transparent and our fear is that it will take from us in grant everything which the Vale spends (and which we suspect that the government doesn’t adequately fund, but can’t prove) while not passing the full amount on to the County.
October will see the introduction in the Vale of the new joint refuse collection contract with South Oxfordshire, about which I wrote in my report last year. This service which is already operating in South Oxfordshire is achieving one of the highest recycling rates in the country. Some residents in Stream Road have recently experienced problems with rubbish collection from the retiring contractor. I hope that this will not recur, either in Stream Road or elsewhere, but if it does if residents contact me I will take the matter up with officers who monitor the contractor’s performance. A financial penalty is imposed on the contractor for missed collections without an adequate excuse.
Finally, although it is remote from Upton I was happy to see the other day that work has started on the Old Gaol project in Abingdon.
*************
ST MARY’S CHURCH
During January 2009 St Mary’s was closed for the redecoration of the inside of the church. The congregation attended other church services in the Benefice during this time. The Benefice comprises the Astons, the Moretons, Hagbourne and Blewbury. Now that the decoration is complete the church is in good order. The quinquennial inspection which took place in August 2009 concluded that “This beautiful church receives much loving attention. It is in extremely good condition.”
Family services continue on a monthly basis and these are well attended by families in the village. The crib and carol service held on Christmas Eve was a highlight when the church was full and all enjoyed a wassail cup and mince pies.
The fete this year was a very successful fund raiser for the church and we are grateful to all those who worked so hard, led admirably by Mrs Jessie West. We were thankful for good weather and the music from the brass band along with entertainment from the dog show resulted in a delightful time for all. The quantity and quality of the cakes deserves a special mention! Due to the success of the fete the PCC was able to make a donation to the extension of the village hall, in addition to other charities which the church supports.
We are now fortunate to have the services of two organists: Mrs Rosemary Lury plays for most of our regular services whilst Mr Richard Burrow plays for Family Services. Our thanks to both of them as the music makes a valuable contribution to our worship.
Sadly 2 loyal parishioners died this year: Mr George Milford-Cottam and Mrs Edna Bonner, both are very much missed.
Clare Lightfoot
PCC Secretary
*************
UVHAT Chairman’s Report 2010
After all these years of fundraising, I can still hardly believe we’ve done it!
What a relief to see how successful the new extension promises to be. Yes I know we are still waiting for it to dry out sufficiently, so that the store and meeting room floors can be completed. It will be worth the wait.
The smoothness of the build between the contractors, the Parish Council and the Trust has been phenomenal.
Due not only to the right choice of contractor, but to Mike Brown’s ever quiet presence throughout, ably assisted by Graham De Wilde, as liaison. Also Brian Simpson’s exemplary gift for handling the finances.
Mike and Cathy are still quietly getting on with it and daily open up the extension to help with the drying up process.
My heartfelt thanks to Brian, Mike and Cathy, and Graham. Thank you also to Maggie and Austin Maytham, Clare Lightfoot, Celia Davies and Carol Hall for helping me with the clean-up and hanging of the curtains.
The Grand Opening was a great success, with our guests from the various grant funding bodies, fully appreciating what we have achieved and considering it to be money well spent.
Jessie West
**************
UVHAT Report from P.C. Representative
1. As Upton residents will no doubt be aware the activities of Upton Village Hall Amenities Trust have been centred this year on the Village Hall extension, which was officially opened on 13 March 2010. The project has been largely achieved thanks to unstinting efforts by members of UVHAT, ABS Builders & their sub-contractors and the enormous financial contribution made by Upton people by way of donations in money & equipment and in organising fund raising events. There is no doubt that these self help efforts within the village which provided some £43,000 encouraged outside Agencies and Charities to make grants totaling £91,500. A larger car parking area is still to be put in together with improvements to the existing car park and it is estimated that we will need to raise up to £4000 to complete this work. A conveyance of part of the land from UVHAT to the Parish Council is still to be arranged.
2. UVHAT is planning further fund raising events, again with initiatives coming from village residents, and these will assist with furnishings and other items needed for the village hall.
3. UVHAT has also continued to carry out responsibilities for Licensing, etc.
Geoff Summers
Parish Council representative on UVHAT
**************
PARISH TRANSPORT REPRESENTATIVE
1. Bus Strategy Document
On 05 June 2009 Oxfordshire County Council issued a revision dealing with Bus services funded by the County Council. Relevant extracts are:-
(a) The ring fenced Rural Bus Subsidy Grant from Central Government was used in 1998/99 to introduce 34 then new or substantially improved bus services and unless there is a further large boost in this fund it is likely to be required solely to maintain these services, which are for the most part now acknowledged as part of the core network.
(b) In rural areas long-term viability without subsidy cannot be realistically expected. There is a small budget reduction of -2.4% in 2009/10, with the rural bus subsidy grant at £1.66m. Some savings might need to be considered. There are already cuts being implemented on some services but our local services on routes 94/95 & X32 not mentioned.
(c) Subsidised journeys will be randomly sampled by Council officers after the contract has run for 2 years. The sampling will include counting passengers and noting where they board & alight.
(d) When a full scale area review is approaching all Parish & Town Councils will be contacted 3 to 4 months in advance of the formal consultation to assist in arranging a survey of local needs & usage of local subsidised services.
2. Local Transport Plan –
OCC has outlined the programme for preparing Local Transport Plan 3 covering the period 2011 – 2030 which will include shorter term improvements over 3 – 5 years to be reviewed and rolled forward annually.
The process stages for consultation as decreed by Central Government are scheduled to complete in December. 2010.
3. New case for bus timetable
OCC arranged for a new case to be fitted at the bus shelter in February 2010 to replace the old one where the plastic covering had split.
4. Transform Oxford –
The pedestrianisation programme for central Oxford has resulted in changes to location of bus stops. Maps have been provided & can be accessed via the OCC website. The only change affecting our local service the X32 Chilton – Oxford is that this terminates outside the OCC offices & the return service is from St. Aldates (Stop H5).
5. Didcot Parkway station forecourt development plans –
These show a proposed revamping of the vehicle waiting areas for public, including disabled spaces, taxis & buses with the objective of improving the current congestion and traffic flows. Also envisaged is improved access to the day parking levels for permit holders.
Funding of £5.4m is available subject to planning consent with view to work commencing sometime this year & completing in 2011.
Whilst this looks at coping with the current situation it appears sadly that these plans & the expenditure are short term and not in any way designed to deal with increased traffic use resulting from any expansion of housing in the Didcot catchment area.
6. Other Rail issues –
(a) A new service is planned to run London Marylebone – High Wycombe – Bicester – Oxford.
(b) Plans to re-establish the line between Oxford – Bletchley (via Bicester), which would link with the current Bletchley-Bedford service appear to be progressing.
(c) Disruption to services to & from London Paddington are envisaged over the next few years as the infrastructures are put in place for electrification (due to complete 2016/17), Crossrail & redevelopment of Reading Station.
Geoff Summers
Upton PTR
***************
United Charities of the Ancient Parish of Blewbury (Blewbury, Upton and Aston Upthorpe)
The United Charity is managed by a group of Trustees. One of our functions is to provide financial gifts to certain elderly residents of Upton at Christmas time and to contribute to a Christmas lunch for them. This was carried out last year but the number of recipients has, sadly fallen. If anyone feels that they would like to nominate a new recipient to the charity, would they please contact me. There are certain financial criteria to be met, but we guarantee total confidence and careful consideration of any nominations made.
Charmian Whitmell, Pippins, Fieldside, Upton. Tel 01235-850163
Trustee, representing Upton.
************
Blewbury Primary School
As always this was a busy year for the school with various activities happening. Blewbury held another festival and the school was able to take part in this in two different ways. The choir sang and the children were able to share traditional country dances outside the original school house as part of the 300 year celebration.
The school opened it’s doors during the exhibition weekend and we were able to share work from residential visits as well as sharing our International Eco Charter created by children on Comenius visits to France and Sweden. There were also examples of art work and work from the Year 2 presentation of Romeo and Juliet.
The Year 3 children went to the Ridgeway Youth Hostel for their residential visit, including a trip to Steam in Swindon. The Year 4 and 5 children went to Cheddar and Year 6 went to Kilvrough which is an Oxfordshire Activity Centre.
We had the usual sport’s morning and children took part in cricket and rounders as well as a swimming gala.
The Year 3 children linked Romeo and Juliet into their Literacy work and gave a wonderful performance on the outside stage on a beautiful evening. The older children created a great show with their version of Bugsy Malone.
During the spring J.I.G.S.A.W club contributed to a church service. In May we had a beautiful morning for our Pilgrimage Service which we held this year on Blewburton Hill surrounded by poppies and joined by our visiting teachers from Uganda and from Germany. We finished the year in church with our usual Leaver’s Service which went very well this year.
We started in September with a healthy number of children in the Foundation Stage and although a few children had moved away in the summer we are increasing in numbers and will be taking somebody into Year 2 straight after the Easter Break. We currently have 151 children in school.
One of our first successes of this new year was the presentation of our fourth ‘International School Award’, we are one of only 17 school form any sector to have received this continuously since it was first awarded.
The new school year started off in lively fashion with trips to the Hawk Conservancy and Warwick Castle, whilst Key Stage 2 had a Macbeth Workshop .A high percentage of Key Stage 2 attended an activity weekend on the Isle of Wight at a Kingswood Centre, we took 66 children and 10 adults.
As the term progressed rehearsals started for both the Nativity told this year through the story of the Lazy star who was having great difficulty shining until it came to rest over the stable.
Key Stage 2 created an impressive version of Macbeth with the three classes working together to either provide dances and scene setting, writing rhyming couplets for narration or producing speech for the main characters to act out the story.
As usual we held a harvest Service at the end of September and shared both our produce and food created by each class with the Senior Citizens at our Harvest Tea. The choir sang again in Oxford at both the castle and Holywell Music Room.
We held our first new style church service in the Autumn with Year 6 servers helping to share bread with everyone. This had a really good feeling about it.
At Christmas we held a much enjoyed Carol Concert where a long with everything else we were congratulated about the layout of the church.
The start of the year was blighted with snow and the decisions about staying open grew every day. We had wonderful volunteers clear paths and we opened late on Day 3 only to be thwarted by a Pressure Pimp failure in our heating plant.
There have been lots of football matches and a very cold Year 3 / 4 Rugby Tournament, with both our boys and girls playing well.
J.I.G.S.A.W (Jesus in games, song and worship) club continues to thrive after school and Mrs Partington has a knack of attracting many recruits! They completely took over the church service in February. We are also grateful to Mrs Partington for her Prayer group that meet once a month.
The choir continue to sing and the school was treated to a complete musical performance in March where anybody who had learnt an instrument could take part.
Children from Class 6 attended the Didcot Partnership International Day where we provided an activity linked with Egypt. Class 6 are about to attend a morning called Junior Citizens in Oxford where they will experience advice about work sites, electricity cables, basic first aid, water safety and how to dial for the emergency services.
Our next visit to church to hold our Easter Service will incorporate the sharing of bread and the sharing of Peace which was first introduced by JIGSAW club.
Marion Mills
*************
Neighbourhood Watch Report
During the past 12 months we have had very few incidents in Upton.
I have received two reports of minor vandalism to property but that is all.
There was a NHW police survey carried out in the village in November 2009 to which 20 householders took the time to reply and the two main issues raised were speeding on the A417 and dog fouling in the village.
The police assure me that they are constantly carrying out speed checks on the A417 usually at the Upton Cider Farm.
Otherwise I have little to report this year which is most encouraging. Compared to Harwell and Blewbury who have a lot of youth problems, particularly at night time, we are really quite fortunate in Upton.
Celia Davies
Upton Neighbourhood Watch Organiser
*************