We had an excellent annual parish meeting on Tuesday evening 29 April and discussed a lot of things. The minutes will be published shortly by Chris on the notice board and on the website: http://www.saintmichael.org.uk. However as usual, for those who couldn’t make it, here are the informal details of what we discussed and decided. As you can see there are lots of things to report.

Brian has done his usual excellent job of financial housekeeping. The full details will be on the notice board as usual for everyone to see but basically the Village Greens Project has a balance of £2995.38; the Playing Fields Account has a balance of £1981.13 and the Parish Meeting balance is £847.29. The balance in the Parish Meeting account is a true balance for the year. The quotation for cutting the village greens this year is £236 plus VAT=£277.30. We have accepted a quotation for maintenance of the playing field for £750 - mowing £375, edge trimming £250 and a one off payment for removal of the wire fence of £125 which is totally reimbursable from DDDC so is no drain on our resources. The Village Greens account still needs to pay two more instalments of £1127.50 to PDNPA. The accounts it seems will have to be audited every year which we agreed is not fair on such a small operation as ours, so Brian and I will investigate what can be done to reduce this cost of £58.75. However Brian started the process by getting Parish Meeting agreement on the auditing exercise for this year so it will all be done in good time. He will give details of when the books can be inspected over the fourteen day notified period later. Thanks to Ethel for internally auditing the books last year; she’ll being doing the same this year before they go to the external auditors to fulfil our legal requirements.

It’s been a busy year with considerable discussions and planning on several areas of concern: highways, trees, the Kirkdale situation, the playing field and some planning enforcement matters of concern to the village.

In addition to last year’s Annual Parish Meeting, there have been further meetings throughout the year which were duly minuted and displayed on the parish notice board.

In addition there have been separate discussions on planning matters and finance matters with the relevant committees at which I was present.

• Council Highways now come every six months to flush the drains and dig out the edges.
• Severn Trent have fixed the sewer and drains and will continue to monitor.
• Financially we are moving closer to our target of a thousand in the contingency fund.
• Agreement for a bridge across the river and a rerouted footpath from the A6 to Kirkdale to help safety concerns
• Peak Park and Highways are looking at ways of making Kirkdale safer and trees have already been trimmed, and others are still to be tidied up, or, in the case of one which has fallen, removed.
• New signs for the village have been ordered and should be in place shortly.
• Tree roots on the footpath in two places in the village are being sorted out by Highways.
• Planning enforcement notices have been issued on the owner of Home Farm and this matter will be rigorously pursued.
• The Parish accounts were audited for the first time formally and passed with flying colours. Thanks to Ethel for doing this for us. The books were made available for anyone to see for 15 days prior to the audit. That will happen again next year
• Grants have been applied for to have the condemned tree on the Green removed and replaced by two new trees. I've applied for a full grant from Shell Better Britain Campaign and Friends of the Peak District to cover cutting the tree down and the replanting.

• Community Conservation and Recreation Area (the playing field) planning is now advanced. The Committee has been renamed and had several meetings since our last Parish Meeting. Work has been going on to complete a constitution for the Committee to give it formality and permanence. Discussions are advanced to take part in the community woodland scheme. Subject to final approval by the Parish meeting it is hoped that this scheme will start operating later this year.
• The Highways Dept has been asked to consider white lines on the roadthrough the village for added safety especially on dark and foggy nights and early mornings.
• Formalisation of the clerk to the meeting was approved.
• Sheldon Day is to have its own committee to spread the load of organisation
• Regular (more or else monthly) village newsletter is now sent to all members of the community.
• The newsletter, parish meeting minutes, village hall minutes are now on the web at http://www.saintmichael.org.uk

During the year we received a planning application for: Erection of an agricultural building at Ash Tree View. This was looked at by our planning committee and passed without any objections.

The big projects for 2003/4:

• Continuation of the design and implementation of the Community Woodland area on the old playing field.
• Completion of the bridge and footpath rerouting at bottom of Kirkdale.
• Completion of the standing stone at the top of the village as discussed and planned previously.
• Continuation of monthly newsletter to keep whole village informed of what’s happening.

I would like to thank those who have supported me and the village during the past year. Special thanks to Chris, John Naden and Brian Greasley without whom the organisation could not have functioned, especially over this past busy year. Thanks also to those who have served on the planning and finance committees and to those on the renamed Playing Fields committee for all their time and effort. Thanks by the way to Ashford Parish Council for their enthusiastic support in our pursuit of the bridge and footpath at Kirkdale. Thanks also to Rev Clive for making available to us web space he has set up for Sheldon church. This space now carries the minutes of Sheldon Parish meeting as well as the minutes of meetings of the village hall. So you can see these minutes, and my annual report on this site. A big thank you also to our two councillors, Chris Crowther and Judith Twigg, both of whom have been constantly supportive and hard working for our community and its needs. And finally thanks to everyone in the village, to those who regularly attend the meetings and to everyone for all their help during the past year. Attending our meetings, which we try to make as short as possible and as infrequent as possible, is good, but I realise that we’re all busy people and I know that those of you who can’t make the meetings as village members are with us in spirit, which is what matters. It’s for that reason that the village newsletter detailing what has happened at the Parish meetings is of such use to us all. It is important that everyone feels part of what is happening and knows what is going on; and this open approach to decisions, plans and problems is very important.

Thanks and hopefully the projects for the next year will work smoothly for the long term as well as short term good of us all.

Elections

Chair John Herbert was re-elected unopposed as was the vice-chairman, John Naden. The existing Planning and Finance Committees were re-elected unopposed.

It was agreed that as many as possible from the village should be part of the Sheldon Day preparations and therefore a committee representing as many of the village (everyone) if possible would be formed. Names please.

This is the part of the meeting which is also the annual general meeting of the Village Hall Trust. Chris Davies reported on a very successful year for the Village Hall, with the refurbished kitchen being a great improvement, commented on very positively by village members and users alike. Total Payments made during the year were £18327.02 leaving a cash and bank balance at 31 March 2003 of £5653.46. Out of this final balance for the year still has to come the final payment to the builder and the architect fees amounting to approximately £3300 and approximately £700 for thirty fine new chairs agreed by the trustees. This will leave a final balance in the account of approximately £1600. Chris pointed out the view of the trustees that as much use should be made of the hall by local residents and people from neighbouring villages as possible so any help in getting business for the hall will be appreciated. More regular weekly bookings such as the local band practice is what we need. Cream teas remain successful, the last event at the Easter weekend raising more than £100 for hall funds and the charity stall in aid of Derbyshire Hospital Leukaemia Patients raising almost £100.

A new trustee was elected to replace me because my time is now up as trustee. It is John Naden who will be a trustee for the usual three years. I agreed however to carry on mowing the village hall grass. Chris Davies, whose time is also up, agreed to remain as a trustee for a further year.

The discussions with Peak Park about the woodland scheme and the sustainability fund were reported to the meeting and approval was sought for negotiations and public consultation with the whole village to begin on the suggested scheme which would mean leasing the field to Peak Park who would then undertake, at their expense, to carry out our plans and proposals for a Conservation and Recreation area for the village. It is vital that the whole village is involved and the Meeting gave approval for these negotiations to continue. The village will be consulted at every step and nothing will be agreed without formal approval of the village. We will send everyone a questionnaire when the details are to be discussed. There will then be formal discussions and public consultation so that the village itself can decide on plans to put forward to the planner. It was suggested that there be some small prize for the best plans and proposals from villagers with perhaps the young villagers having a special say as they are the users of the future. The chairman stressed that it was important that design of the area comes from the village with support and advice from Peak Park. It was our project. We must do this before we proceed with any final decision and any eventual application to go ahead. The Sustainability Development Fund would be the source of funds to do it and the funding of the woodland depending on its size would come from the Forestry Commission. If we as a village decide on the lease back scheme then we would decide what we want, a plan would be drawn by the sustainability fund officers (whom we have already had an on-site discussion with) and the community woodlands officer (with whom Dave Davies has had an on-site meeting separately) and the fund would pay for all that we want done. This is in its very early stages and as soon as we know more we'll let you know and circulate the questionnaire in preparation for another Parish meeting.

More on this important development later. Members unanimously gave their approval for us to continue negotiations and to pursue a public consultation exercise with the whole village

The meeting received the plan of where the footpath and bridge would go and approved it. Chris has a copy if you’d like to see it. It’ll also be on the notice board.

The tree is to be demolished in mid May. Grants have been promised (but we are still waiting formal letters) for the whole work, including planting the replacement trees so the money put aside for this purpose in the Parish Meeting accounts (£750) will now be freed up to be divided as promised between church and village hall. This was approved by the meeting. When it comes time to plant the new trees there will be full consultation with those residents affected so they can have a determining say in the positioning of the new trees to make sure they don’t affect drains or residents’ light. It was agreed that the demolished tree would be moved to the playing field area so that in due course it could be used there as seating etc.

New signs - They should be in place shortly, within the next month.

Tree roots latest - Highways say this work will be done shortly.

The tree on private land at the bottom of Kirkdale is to be seen to after discussions with the owners.

This has now been going on for far too long. Last September the Members committee of Peak Park Planning agreed that enforcement notices should be served on the owner of Home Farm but nothing has happened. So after a number of phone calls and letters, eventually on April 16 this year officers from Peak Park legal made a site visit at which John Naden and myself were present and had subsequent discussions with them about the need for immediate action. Shortly afterwards of course certain legal matters intervened with the owner which made the serving of these enforcement notices even more pressing. I decided that it was time to really shake up the Peak Park process and to make them aware of our great dissatisfaction at their inactivity on this matter which was becoming increasingly pressing. I therefore wrote to them complaining formally about the slowness with which matters are being progressed; the evident inactivity that has surrounded this matter since last September and beforehand; a sense that everything was starting from scratch, rather than simply building on work which must surely have been done in the last six months. I pointed out that: ‘As I understand the process, when a decision is made by the committee to issue an enforcement notice, it is the duty of the appropriate officers to prepare and serve such a notice without undue delay and not to arbitrarily delay matters on what appear to be spurious grounds as in this case. I would be interested to know the planning committee’s view on the whole affair, so I am therefore sending a copy of this letter to the chair of that committee.’ I also pointed out my astonishment when the officers at our site meeting said that one reason the matter had not yet been concluded was lack of help from Sheldon Parish Meeting. That I refuted utterly and was amazed that this issue surfaced only now as a reason for not pursuing the matter. And I concluded that they were all excuses not to do anything.

I received a reply from the Legal Services manager on the day of the Parish meeting which I read out and which was discussed at the Parish meeting.

The letter regretted the time it had taken to deal with the matter and agreed that unacceptable delays had occurred. The Legal Manager agreed that administrative difficulties were not an excuse but she said the process had been hampered by staff problems and Legal didn’t want to pursue the matter without further information which they couldn’t get because of the staff vacancy. (The meeting felt this was not our problem and that we were being treated dismissively and disgracefully).

The Manager also said that they were aware that any action would be contested and it made good sense to be very cautions about ensuring compliance with legal technicalities. (The meeting felt this was an unacceptable excuse for inactivity). There appears to have been a misunderstanding, the letter says, regarding the issue of evidence. The letter says: ‘we were pleased to learn that this was mistaken and that the Parish Meeting is prepared to give evidence if necessary at appeal as this will greatly help the case’. (The meeting felt a sense of outrage at this comment. There was absolutely no reason for this Peak Park view. It was yet another excuse) The letter ends: ‘Having said the above I would like to state again that I regret that this matter has taken so long to resolve. However we are now, subject to final comments from the planners, in a position to serve the enforcement notices and I would expect them to be served very shortly. I can assure you that this is being treated as a top priority’. The resulting discussion at the Parish meeting was very forthright at the lack of action and inefficiency by Peak Park on this matter. The meeting asked that we take the matter forward and not let them get away with this because it could be a precedent for the future. I will be pursing this with Peak Park as a matter of urgency.

I will be in contact with Legal services again to express my displeasure at what has been said in this reply regarding the excuses given. They are not very persuasive. I will also make sure that the notices are served on the owner at his present place of abode and not at Home Farm to ensure that the matter is dealt with. I will also tell Peak Park that while this delay continues more cars have appeared. In a further discussion with the Legal manager today it was confirmed that the enforcement notices should be served by the end of this week.

There are vacancies on the Peak Park this year for members of councils or chairmen of parish meetings. With the full endorsement of the Meeting I have been nominated for election to the Authority. I have written the required short statement which says:

‘I have lived in Sheldon for about eighteen years, with my wife and family; and been chairman of the Sheldon Parish Meeting for twelve months. I believe that it is important that a small Parish Meeting such as Sheldon be represented strongly on the Peak District National Park Authority to give a voice to the smaller rural areas in planning, development and conservation matters. I would aim to provide that voice. There are many good things done by the Peak District National Park Authority; there are also some things which could be improved, particularly in consistency regarding planning matters, the speed of implementation of policy decisions by officers (particularly such matters as planning enforcement notices) and general relationships with rural communities such as ours. I would use my appointment as a Parish member of the Authority to improve these matters.’

The nomination form, duly approved by the Parish Meeting will now be signed and sent by our Clerk to those carrying out the election which is held later in the year. I’ll keep you up to date about this. All we have to do now is secure enough votes from members of the other Derbyshire Dales parishes to get elected.

I thanked Chris for all her hard work for the village over thirty years of public service. She has always been a great help in any difficulties which the village has faced and she will be greatly missed. I wished her well for the future and was sure she would remain busy in other ways. We presented her with a framed photo of Sheldon from 1901 which Ralph and Pat Lord had arranged. Chris thanked us and said she was greatly touched by the farewell words and especially by the beautiful photo which she would treasure always.

A new village notice board is to be made to replace the present rather old one.

That’s it! The formal minutes with resolutions and voting can be seen on the village notice board or on the web.

Best wishes and thanks

John Herbert