20 October 2015 – Minutes

THAME TOWN COUNCIL

Minutes of the Meeting of the Neighbourhood Plan Continuity Committee held on 20 October 2015 at 7.30pm in the Upper Chamber, Thame Town Hall

Present: Cllrs B Austin (Chairman), D Bretherton (Deputy Chairman), P Cowell,
L Emery (Deputy Mayor), H Fickling, A Midwinter and M Stiles.
Officers
G Hunt, Town Clerk
A Oughton, Committee Services Officer

1 Appointment of Chairman

Deputy Mayor, Cllr Emery called for nominations for the position of Chairman. It was moved and duly seconded that Cllr Austin be appointed Chairman. On being put to the vote it was:

RESOLVED that:

i) Cllr Bob Austin be elected Chairman for the remainder of this civic year.

2 Appointment of Deputy Chairman

Cllr Austin called for nominations for the position of Deputy Chairman. It was moved and duly seconded that Cllr Bretherton be appointed Deputy Chairman. On being put to the vote is was:

RESOLVED that:

i) Cllr David Bretherton be elected Deputy Chairman for the remainder of this civic year.

3 Apologies for Absence

Apologies for absence were received from Cllrs Dixon (Council business) and Dodds (Holiday).

4 Declarations of Interest and Dispensations

There were no declarations of interest.

5 Public Participation & Public Questions

There were no applications to address the Committee or questions.

6 Terms of Reference

The Terms of Reference had been discussed and accepted at a meeting of Full Council on 28 July 2015. It was agreed that at this stage the Terms of Reference were satisfactory but over a period of time there would probably be a need to make some amendments.

7 Discussion of Inputs

Contributions from Cllrs Austin, Bretherton and Emery together with the original set of proposed discussion topics, as presented to Council on 23 June 2015 were discussed. Members agreed it was important to concentrate initially on two to three different projects that would provide a meaningful output.

Discussion took place on the town centre, its future and the need to maintain vibrancy and vitality. The Committee acknowledged that there were established groups such as 21st Century Thame, Thame4Business, Thame Centre First and the Cattle Market Action Group whose knowledge could be drawn upon and it was important not to duplicate work that was already underway.

The allocation of s106 and CIL funding, which was expected to replace s106 in April 2016, highlighted the need for an Infrastructure Delivery Plan to be put in place. It was accepted that there would be overlap with existing Council Committees and that care should be taken not to duplicate or disrupt the focus of those Committees.

The formation of the three working groups was intended to cover gaps in the implementation of Neighbourhood Plan policies that exist at the moment. Other Committees (Planning & Environment and Community, Leisure & Recreation) would continue to implement policies that applied to them.

8 Initial Consideration of Working Groups

Following discussion of item 7 it was agreed to initially establish three Working Groups;

a) Infrastructure and Delivery, led by Cllr Bretherton to include Cllrs Cowell, Dodds and Midwinter.

b) Town Centre, led by Linda Emery to include Cllrs Fickling and Stiles, but in practice will work closely with one or more of the existing town centre groups.

c) Green Living, led by Cllr Fickling to include Cllr Emery, and in effect already underway, with a meeting scheduled with representatives of the Thame RSA group next week.

The first step for each Working Group would be to draw up their respective Terms of Reference, identify initial tasks and relevant community representatives, these could then be shared between the three Working Groups. The draft Terms of Reference should be submitted for discussion and agreement at the next Neighbourhood Plan Continuity meeting.

It was agreed that the monitoring of the Compliance and Conformity of the Neighbourhood Plan in its entirety would be the responsibility of the Committee.

It was noted that a standard approach to projects was discussed and agreed.

9 Progress Report

Two examples of progress reports were discussed, one produced by the previous Town Clerk and published in October 2014. The other produced as a more ‘user friendly’ document for the community to gain a better understanding of the progress made and published in May 2015.

It was agreed that the Town Clerk would update the original progress report published in October 2014 to reflect progress made up to November 2015. It was considered that a formal mechanism may be required to enable the progress of the Working Groups to be reported back to the Committee.

The meeting concluded at 8.15pm

Signed ………………………………….
Chairman, 1 December 2015