2023 Minutes of Meetings

29th March 2023 - Annual Parish Meeting

Minutes of Mareham le Fen Parish Meeting –

29th March 2023 7pm

held at the Community Centre

Present: 17 residents

Chair: Cllr Mel Percival, Mareham le Fen Parish Council                                Clerk: Mr A. Everard

  1. Chair’s Welcome

The Chair welcomed everyone for attending this year’s parish meeting.

  1. To receive apologies
  2.  
  3. To approve the minutes of the previous Annual Parish Meeting of 20th April 2022

The meeting approved and the Chair signed the minutes.

  1. Chair of Mareham le Fen Parish Council Report

The Chair highlighted the high attendance at the Jubilee event, the installation of two new benches and a new parish council noticeboard with part to be used by the community. The parish council seats will be up for election in May.Candidates sought to join the council.In 2022 a walkabout with Highways Officers highlighted a number of issues to be tackled and these are being monitored for completion. The Parish Council is pursuing an application to become part of the Community Speedwatch initiative.Grass-cutting in the village undertaken by IDVerde had received a lot of positive feedback and ELDC had introduced a PRIDE team so potential projects were being considered.The current parish councillors were thanked for their service to the community.

  1. Presentation of the parish council accounts

The Clerk reported the unaudited financial accounts for 2022-23.

  1. To receive verbal or written reports from local groups and organisations

Lincolnshire Police PCSO Blackett attended and highlighted increasing number of scams and the proactive approach they were taking with Anti-Social Behaviour.  Operation Signature helps victims of scams and fraud. In the last 6months there had been 6 cases of crime, 4 cases of traffic offences and 8 non-crime reports.

Mareham le Fen Church of England Primary School sent a short report to highlight that the school remained popular and had a ‘Good’ Ofsted inspection grade and looked forward to working with the community.

Mareham le Fen Play Group updated on the proposed location of the play equipment following lots of consultation and pre-application help from ELDC.  It was seeking grants and S.106 funding as well as the £4700 raised so far by the group.

Lincolnshire County Council Cllr Gray said it was a year since the invasion of Ukraine and 1200 households were coming forward to host a Ukrainian family, 300 in East Lindsey.  £93 million would be spent on roads maintenance including 30,000 tonnes of salt, 42 gritters and 12 weather stations.  The Council has also been supporting new Children’s Centres and there is a new museum in Lincoln.

East Lindsey District Council Cllr Foster said that he was watching the Gleeson’s planning application for development in the village and had been called into the Planning Committee. He also highlighted the new PRIDE team.  Cllr Foster also highlighted that much of the increase in ELDC share of the Council Tax two-thirds of that was going to the Internal Drainage Boards. 

  1. Open discussion about issues relating to the parish of Mareham le Fen.
  • A resident asked about horse signs in the village which had been raised with Lincolnshire County Council.
  • A resident felt that some drivers were speeding down Horncastle Road.
  • In response to a request for lower speed limits on parts of Fen Lane and Moorside Cllr Gray will raise this with LCC Highways. 
  • A parishioner was concerned about the verges being churned up on School Lane.  The Clerk will write to the School and the PCSO will look into the issue.
  1. To receive presentations and information from invited representatives of Lincolnshire Emergency Planning, Lincolnshire Football Association and a speaker about biodiversity.

Apologies had been received from Lincolnshire Emergency Planning and Lincolnshire Football Association.A parishioner who has expert knowledge on anthropology, plants and biodiversity gave a talk about the issues.She writes in the Revesby Estate newsletter so sign up for regular updates. There is a lot of wildlife in this area – English Grey Partridge, Corn Bunting, beetles, invertebrates, Hover flies, many pollinators are at risk from over cutting grass and cultivation.There needs to be more flowers and hedges to provide food and shelter for animals. Not in favour of the grass verges being cut too much as it reduces the biodiversity so asks residents and the parish council to maintain some areas of wild uncut plants to encourage wildlife and rarer plants.

 

The meeting ended at 8.30pm.