HAVERAH PARK WITH BECKWITHSHAW PARISH COUNCIL
MINUTES OF THE OPEN MEETING HELD ON Tuesday 10 April
2018
Location: The
Village Hall, Beckwithshaw
Present: Councillors – Cllr
M Nicholson (Chairman), Cllr T Muirhead, Cllr Mrs K Wilson, Cllr D Spence and
Cllr Miss V Oldham.
Parish Clerk – Mrs J H Galloway
Commencing at 7.45pm the Open Meeting was held, 5
member of the public were present.
1. Apologies:
Cllr M Clark, Cllr Mrs J Ryder
and
Cllr S Lumley.
2. Minutes
of the last Open Meeting:
The minutes of the last Open Meeting were
incorporated into the immediately following Parish Meeting (9 May 2017).
3. Chairman’s
Report:
Thank
you for attending our Open Meeting and a very warm welcome to you all.
Firstly
I would like to thank my fellow Parish Councillors for their continuing support
and a special vote of thanks must go to our Parish Clerk Mrs Jean Galloway.
This
last year has been busy for the Parish Council with the formation of the Local
District Plan. The progress has been
watched over for us by Councillor Michael Clark who has been excellent at
putting forward the Parish Councils’ point of view. A big thank you to Michael.
With the
help of funding from Knabbs Ridge, we have now got a
defibrillator installed at The Smiths Arms with kind permission of the brewery
and Nick Lloyd, and Andy Ross has very kindly volunteered to be the
‘guardian’. Thank you to all involved.
Speeding
and traffic in the village has been a huge concern to the Parish Council for
many years and to this end we are very grateful to Jo Parish and her speedwatch team who have stood on the roadside to collect
data on the speed of traffic to help persuade North Yorkshire police and
Highways that we have a traffic problem.
In meetings we have had with these authorities they are very reluctant
to admit that we have a problem.
We have
instigated the possibility of installing flashing speed signs in the village,
extending the 30mph limit area and reducing the speed limit past the
school. Sadly, we have met strong resistance
from the police and North Yorkshire Highways.
With the help of our traffic working party we are revising our
strategy. We have not given up!
Planning
issues are a major part of our duties and when applications come before us we
must balance the needs of progress with the needs of the local environment
whilst keeping within the parameters of planning law. There is truth in the statement “you can’t
please everyone”.
Broadband
has never been very good in Beckwithshaw although there has been some improvement
in some areas. Councillor Tom Muirhead
has taken on the case for the Shaw Lane area and this, with the involvement of
North Rigton Parish Council and other local
residents, is ongoing.
We have
carried out litter picks both spring and autumn and a huge thank you to all
residents and Councillors who have helped in this task. It is very sad that the litter picks are
necessary but without them our surrounding road sides would become very
unsightly and more littering would be encouraged. We have arranged for our spring litter pick
to take place this coming Saturday, 14th April, starting at 10.00am
in the village hall car park. Please
come and help us.
We carry
out an annual inspection of Parish Council Property and have a contractor in
place for the maintenance of the area of grass opposite Shaw Lane. The work in the copse is carried out by
volunteers. Again, a big thank you to
all who have helped.
Finally,
I would like to thank everyone who has contributed to the workings of the
Parish Council this last year.
4. Questions
from the floor:
There was a discussion on concern about
speeding traffic.
Below is the record of the meeting with Darren
Griffiths North Yorkshire CC Highways and Jonathan Hunter, Traffic Management
Officer NYP on Monday 19th March 2018 at 2pm in the Smiths Arms Car
Park. Also present: Mark Nicholson (Chair BPC), Derek Spence (BPC), Jim Gordon
(BSW), Andy Ross (BSW), Jo Parish (BSW)
We were informed that the Parish Council
cannot erect our own flashing signs as these would not conform to current NYCC
Highways regulations. Nor can we attach anything to any existing roadside
poles. This may change as a result of
the ongoing consultation of Parishes but it will be later in the year before
things change – if at all. It was mentioned that the data output of the sign we
had been considering was also very difficult to sift through and we may not be
able to subject it to any form of analysis.
It seems the best way to slow down
through traffic is by having parked vehicles along the roadside – some villages
had considered buying an old vehicle and parking it permanently in an area
where they wanted traffic calming!
The Parish Council could ‘hire’ a
flashing sign from NYCC on a rotational basis for £6,000 plus VAT over four
years. This cost would include the
provision of the sign, the siting of it, a socket and post and officer time to
install it each time. For this the
village would get 6 weeks on and 12 weeks off and it would thus be deployed 3
times a year costing approx. £77 per week it was working in our village. This would be guaranteed to work during all
that time and any downtime due to lamps failing would be made up by NYCC.
Records show that we have had no
accidents in the village over the past 2 /3 years. This was explained as ‘no
reported accidents causing injury’. The
fatality at the roundabout seems to be considered a possible ‘suicide’. All sites are visited after an accident to
see if road layout has been a factor. Thus it would appear that a ‘collision
with no report of injury’ would not be taken into account. These could be happening regularly but the
police would be unaware of them.
The Highways representatives were then
asked what we ‘could’ do to move things along.
Beckwithshaw would be eligible for another data logging event from April
and suggested that we apply for this straight away to get it in the
pipeline. We are to contact them again
if we are asked to wait for any length of time.
We can request a particular site for the data logger (small box attached
to an existing roadside pole) but not the full data output as we do not have
the software to ‘decode’ it. If the result showed that we are consistently
seeing speeds in the mid 30’s we would be eligible for visits by a speed van or
a bike! But nothing else as we have not had ‘accidents’.
Alternatively, or additionally, we can pay NYCC £120 for data tubes laid
across the road at either end of the village for seven days and nights which
would log all vehicles and peak times and all speed bands. We would receive all
the data and be able to analyse it and could use this
to back up any future requests for road improvements. This can be done at any
time we ask for it.
A point of note is that through NYP
Operation Spartan, dash-cam footage is acceptable when reporting a speeding
offence. Dash cam footage showing poor driving habits of any sort can be
emailed directly to OpSpartan@northyorkshire.pnn.police.uk
Regarding moving the speed limit signs and
getting 20mph near the school this would also appear to be a negative option at
the moment. We were pointed towards a
Govt website which explains how local speed limits are set and which can be
found at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/setting-local-speed-limits. The following extract may give us some hope
but the whole publication requires reading through.
Traffic authorities set local
speed limits in situations where local needs and conditions suggest a speed
limit which is lower than the national speed limit. Traffic authorities have
the flexibility to set local speed limits that are appropriate for the
individual road, reflecting local needs and taking account of local
considerations.
Speed limits should be
evidence-led and self-explaining and seek to reinforce people’s assessment of
what is a safe speed to travel. They should encourage self-compliance. Speed
limits should be seen by drivers as the maximum rather than a target speed.
Traffic authorities are asked
to keep their speed limits under review with changing circumstances, and to
consider the introduction of more 20 miles per hour limits and zones, over
time, in urban areas and built-up village streets that are primarily
residential, to ensure greater safety for pedestrians and cyclists, using the
criteria contained in this guidance.
Unfortunately we are among many parishes
who are increasingly concerned about slowing down the traffic through their
villages.
The Open
Meeting closed at 8.05pm