Parish Council
If any Member of the Public wishes to see details of the correspondence or matters mentioned please contact the clerk, details below.
I have published the following pages/posts:
Devon Communities Together is an independent charity which works with charities and community groups in Devon. Among many other things, they collate emergency plans from Parish Councils and communities, and ensure that they are available to the emergency services’ secure platform – Resilience Direct. I was contacted by a Project Manager with Devon Communities, who mentioned that the copy of the plan that they hold was five years’ old. I had been forwarding their emails to the Emergency Plan team, and hoped that they had forwarded a more recent version. However, this time I replied directly to say that the plan was under review and we would have one available soon. He offered to facilitate a FREE practical workshop for councillors and other interested members of the public to work on the plan, usually held one evening 6-8pm, but he could be flexible. They can even provide funding for hall hire, refreshments and publicity if needed. Could this be the impetus to finally get the two plans finished?
Cllr Wooldridge has a quote for £216 for 2 hours of Defibrillator and CPR training for up to 20 people from Joe Rice First Aid.
The Defibrillator Ear-Marked reserve currently has £397.43 in it following the £120 VETS charge. There will be at least £72 further expenditure (the annual phone rental), leaving £109.43 after the course and rental. Last year there was an additional £203 of expenditure on pads and a battery. Pads cost £76.74. Ali Cruse usually donates £20-£50 of Coffee Morning donations to the fund each year.
We also have £200 in the contingency budget.
This hour-long webinar featured a company who both provide councillor training, and help troubleshoot failing councils. They reported that over half of councillors join for altruistic reasons to make a difference in their community, although some are there to campaign on a specific issue and some because of external pressures. They suggested that motivating councillors meant involving them and helping them to feel that they make a difference. There were four main ways of doing this; creating a Strategic Plan for the Council, training councillors, allocating tasks and working with them one to one.
For more details see https://www.scribeaccounts.com/blog/what-motivates-councillors-to-be-councillors-how-you-can-use-this-knowledge
This webinar brought together Devon County Council Highways Managers and utility company managers with town and parish councillors and officers. The idea is to increase the understanding of how roadworks are managed. There are two types of roadworks, those directly to improve the roads ‘Road Works’ and those required by utility companies (electric, gas, water) ‘Street Works’. Street works require a permit, for which they pay, and there are strict rules relating to the permits. Highways do have a large enforcement unit which spot checks 6,000 street works incidents a year. They can enforce fixed penalty notices or take them to court for failures in safety, timeliness and reinstatement problems. They encouraged us to report when signs are put up and no work is done, or signs are left behind, as they cannot oversee the contractors’ works throughout Devon. https://www.devon.gov.uk/roads-and-transport/report-a-problem/report-a-problem-with-road-markings-and-signs/. For larger works in towns, councils work directly with both the utility companies and highways. There was a complaint about future road closure signs causing obstructions in narrow lanes, but Highways hid behind legal requirements for the size and nature of signs!
The recording is now available to watch and the slides are available for download.
This Webinar explained new regulations in the 2025 Practitioners’ Guide for Digital and Data Compliance.
Before April 2025
If we do not do this, we could fail our audit, which would cost additional money, we could lose our .gov.uk domain, we could undergo compliance investigations and get bad press.
We can use the free browser checker Wave by WEBAIM.
Cyber-attacks on the 500 council websites managed by the speaker had tripled in the last 5 years.
The speaker emphasised that, (as I believed but had been questioned), accessibility requirements mean that all information should be in HTML format not just PDF or an image.
You can access the recording, slides and a blog to summarise the webinar here:
Community Asset Transfers
This webinar concentrated mainly on buildings that might be transferred and the liabilities that go with them.