Text Box: Mollington Villages Notice board Text Box: MOLLINGTON PARISH COUNCIL CHAIRMAN'S REPORT 2009-10   This is my second year as Chairman of Mollington Parish Council During the year the Parish Council co-opted Mrs Helen Fielding to the remaining Councillor vacancy. Mrs Fielding is a young mother who runs her own accountancy practice from her home in Mollington. Councillor Keith Hilton has struggled throughout the year to overcome health problems and we wish him a full and speedy recovery in the coming months. Councillor Ben Jones, who was in the same position last year, is now fully recovered and back in business. It is just over a year since we lost our Amenity Cleaner, Steve Wilson, in a hit and run traffic accident. We were very fortunate in finding a replacement in Jeff Davies, a local man (from Dunkirk) who has now been working for us for almost a year and is doing an excellent job on his bicycle. Jeff also works for Lea Parish Council. Cheshire West and Chester This is our first year of working with the new Cheshire West and Chester Council (CWaC). We had developed an excellent working relationship with both Chester City and Cheshire County Councils and, although some of the officers from those Councils have transferred to the new authority, many of our contacts have been lost through voluntary redundancy and have been replaced by new officers with whom we have not worked before. CWaC are undertaking a Scrutiny Review of the way in which they work with Town and Parish Councils and we have put forward our views on service delivery issues, in particular the need for good communications and the importance of continued funding for our Amenity Cleaner. . The Area Committee network has been replaced by Community Forums. Mollington is covered by the Mickle Trafford Forum. The aim is to provide local communities (residents and organisations) an opportunity to contribute to local decision making to create better services and improvements for their areas. £5,000 is allocated per Councillor to spend on local projects. Ward Boundaries The Boundary Committee for England is reviewing warding in CWaC to ensure that every councillor represents, as near as possible, the same number of electors. The Parish Council initially submitted a recommendation for two or three member wards rather than single member wards, as this would provide back-up in case of illness and would provide a range of expertise and local knowledge. The Parish Council rejected a proposed Upton and Mollington ward, on the grounds that Upton was an urban parish and there was no commonality of interest with the smaller, rural parishes The Boundary Committee accepted the Parish Council’s views in part and in the second round of consultations it proposed a two-member ward for Upton, a single-member ward for Mollington and Saughall and a single-member Elton ward including Backford, Lea-by-Backford and Chorlton. The Parish Council submitted its preferred variation that the two proposed wards be joined together as a two-member ward (which is now the option favoured by CWaC Council). A final decision is due later this year. The new wards come into operation for the elections in 2011. Planning This year the Parish Council was consulted on 18 applications, 14 of which the CWaC Council subsequently approved. One was initially refused but was approved following submission of a revised application. Two applications were refused and one was withdrawn. The Parish Council supported the views of two residents who attended a Council meeting to discuss the handling of one of the approved applications to which there had been a substantial number of objections. The Parish Council had asked that it be called in for discussion by the Planning Board, but the decision to grant permission was taken by the planning officer using delegated powers. The matter was raised with CWaC's Overview and Scrutiny Committee, who promised a review of the procedure for dealing with applications under officers’ delegated powers. We are still waiting for this review to take place and will keep the matter “live” through Councillor Crowe. Despite much time and effort spent responding to CWaC Council’s Local Development Framework Topic Papers, we received no feedback prior to the second round of consultation. This has been taken up with the appropriate officer. We also responded to a regional consultation on sites for gypsies, travellers and showpeople as part of a review of the North West Plan. Mollington Parish Council was invited and will take part in the Examination in Public of the Plan in Manchester. We have still to persuade CWAC of the need for an agreed plan of the mounding at the Golf Club. Highways The Parish Council was invited to discuss speeding issues on the A540 with Saughall and Puddington & District Parish Councils following a review of speeds on A & B roads. This recommended no change to limits on our stretch of the A540 but suggested that “additional measures” were required in two places. We declined to support Saughall and Puddington in their request for a further review, but have written to CWaC asking for a meeting, an indication of the additional measures proposed and the timescale for implementation. The Parish Council was successful in having various street nameplates replaced within the Village and we will continue to press for improvements to the condition of our roads. Speeding through the Village continues to be a problem and there are still parking issues around the school that need to be dealt with. Finance We were pleased to report last year that our Parish Precept would remain unchanged in 2009-10. However, CWaC Council have withdrawn the “double taxation” grant paid by Chester City Council for the past few years and this has meant us making a small increase for 2010-11. For the second year we received a “clean” audit report from the Audit Commission, our external auditors. Garden Competition The Sheriff of Chester, Councillor Hilarie McNae, presented the annual Garden Competition prizes at our November meeting. First Prize and the perpetual shield were awarded to Mr & Mrs Harding of The White Cottage, Townfield Lane. Second Prize went to Mr & Mrs Wilson of Spring Waters, also in Townfield Lane. Mr & Mrs Cook of Hermits Lodge in Gypsy Lane won third prize. Our thanks go to Lemra who presented the first prize. Communications Bi-monthly reports of Parish Council meetings are published on our notice boards, in the St Oswald's parish magazine and on the mollingtonvillages website. Our thanks go to the magazine editor Christine Surfleet and to the webmaster Carl Stagg. We are also grateful to Lemra for distributing this report with their Open Line. I would like to thank Cheshire Constabulary for keeping us informed, through their monthly Homewatch bulletin, about incidents in the area. With the help of Christine Surfleet I arranged with the Mobile Library Service to add alternate Friday mornings outside the school at 10.00am to their list of stops, with effect from 6 November 2009. The Library will stay for 30 minutes each visit and to ensure that the service continues, at each visit at least two users must visit and at least eight books must be checked out. Finally my thanks to our Parish Clerk, Pauline English. This has been a difficult year for her as she has had to re-establish contacts within the new authority, Cheshire West and Chester, and has attended meetings of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee and Community Forum to press the Parish Council’s views Irene Lamb Chairman - Mollington Parish Council 16 March 2010