Annual Parish Meeting

Baschurch Parish Council,  April 2024

Report by Andy Woodthorpe, Chair of BPC

My first year in the role which seems to have flown by.

I look back on the year with some satisfaction at what we’ve achieved, but more of frustration at the amount of ‘work in progress’ due to third parties. Persistence and resilience have become key qualities with the sheer amount of chasing that needs to be done.

Firstly some people I need to say thank you to –

Anne for being a fantastic clerk with a wealth of experience to handle anything that comes her way. As a new chairman her support has been absolutely crucial.

Matt for stepping up to vice-chair. A very balanced sounding board, he has also elevated how we deal with planning applications with some clever use of technology.

John for his practical expertise around the parish, ensuring parish assets are safe, fit for purpose, repaired or renewed. Our go to man before we seek quotes from contractors.

Patricia and Gerry for their hard work on ensuring the cemetery remains befitting of a last resting place for many of our residents, and the success they’ve had in making our public footpaths more accessible. Gerry also has done sterling work in co-ordinating the Smart Water
roll-out.

Nigel who has picked up the lead on the highways issues that we can influence, including resolving a few problems with VAS signs which the gloomy winter had seemingly killed

Simon who has thrown himself into the council with real enthusiasm and is a tremendous support on the station project.

Russell, Robert, Carol, David and Wendy who have fully contributed to meetings, bringing with them a wealth of experience and ideas.

In summary we have a very good team of councillors who I believe share an alignment of wanting the best for our community. It’s worth remembering that they all give up their time for no monetary reward, and little recognition – so it’s only correct that I say thank you here.

In additional we have a very dedicated and passionate Shropshire Councillor in Nick, who’s hard work championing local issues largely goes unseen.

Key items from this year and Work In Progress going into next year

The footpath from Holberton Way to Eyton Lane is now open. The vast majority of residents who commented are happy, but, being a football referee, I’ve come to accept you’ll never please everyone. Thank you to Baschurch Village Hall and Baschurch Football Club for their support.

New Doctors Surgery – we’ve gone from possible, to not possible to maybe possible. We have been very supportive and have been instrumental in keeping open an opportunity - the ball is now in the surgery’s court to create a clear, credible and focused way forward.

Station project – we commissioned an opinion piece which in draft format amongst other anomalies didn’t include the potential inbound journeys to Walford College and PGL, these journeys make quite a difference to usage stats and thus the viability. Further work needs doing on the opinion piece for it to be more reflective of reality – then we can make some sensible decisions on what happens next.

Skatepark – chasing and more chasing – contractors are visiting the site early May after we upped the ante on our follow up methods…

Streetlights – yep, still chasing. We have a working theory that if we’re a big enough polite nuisance, we’ll jump the queue in the contractors list.

Highways – Fix My Street is useful, is does get looked at by Shropshire Council. It looks like Baschurch Crossroads will get some work done largely it seems down to fix my street. We recognise that we have some pain points that we’d like to get some expert advice on.

Safe active travel (walking) to school, including the zebra crossing and build out

Prescott mini roundabout

Nobold ‘rat run’

Parking near the doctors.

In December, I along with Nick met with a Shropshire Council consultant to look at those pain points in Baschurch, . The consultant was to go away and look at potential recommendations – he’s been off ill since January, so one to persist with.

Highways part 2 – The No Parking area around the schools has increased the parking usage in Baschurch Village Hall – a much safer place. But the effect of that is increased wear and tear on the car park – we have therefore agreed to fund some remedial work and attempt to secure some CIL money for small car park extension

Highways again – more chasing but good news – we finally got Shropshire Council to put a proper surface on Dove Court after 14 years, what a difference that has made. Again by doing something tactical we seem to have got the Weston Lullingfields car wash (on the corner where the turning is to Stanwardine) resolved. We keep chasing the long promised passing place as you head from Weston Lullingfields towards Cockshutt.

Village Halls – really important community hubs and facilities for local events and clubs. We’ve agreed to support Weston Lullingfields with the infrastructure to install broadband and to support Baschurch in their quest for green energy and bring the costs of utilities down by providing the balance on grants they’ll hopefully receive.

Remembrance Parade – probably the most controversial topic of the year. It’s worthwhile people asking the ‘why’ before opening hostilities. Previously the parade was run and managed by the Royal British Legion. They were instructed very clearly by their HQ to stop doing so. What had happened - there had been an incident on a parade which resulted in some serious injuries. The liability was covered by insurance, but with any such incident the Health & Safety Executive get involved to see if someone should be held accountable – understandably the RBL

does not want to expose it’s volunteers to that risk. Therefore the responsibility for the Remembrance Parade has shifted to Baschurch Parish Council, but that risk and liability has not gone away. We were told by an expert the route from the Doctors Surgery was high risk. Choices were

- Accept the high risk

- Have no parade

- Find a safer route and reduce the risk

If we kept things the same and something did go wrong, I don’t want to be explaining to the relatives of an injured person why we took a high risk option and to try to fend off a potential HSE prosecution. I believe a remembrance parade should still happen in our community. Therefore the third option therefore seemed the most palatable. The parish council were unanimous in agreement with that option.

A heads up, I will be proposing the same route this year. I know it won’t suit all, but no-one has come forward with a viable alternative. I re-iterate, I feel we should have a Remembrance Parade but need to be mindful of the risk.

Planning

We had a number of planning applications that we are always objective on. Shropshire Council are variable on how much notice they take of our recommendations - we are consultants. We have locked horns a couple of times with Shropshire Council where they have failed to enforce their own planning conditions which has caused significant frustration for the residents concerned and this council.

Shrewsbury Town Plan

A major redesign of Shrewsbury Town centre. Reducing the numbers of vehicle movements in the centre. Now the sting in the tail – despite the Community Investment Levy money from houses built in our parish going into the Shrewsbury Place Plan ‘pot’, Baschurch does not feature on the Shrewsbury Town plan. This town plan will make it harder for our residents to travel to or through Shrewsbury by whatever means (unless they want to cycle from our parish). It fails to consider the impact on the roads outside of Shrewsbury and on rural parishes such as ours. We’ve given strongly worded feedback to Shropshire Council, but will they take any notice? We’re not on the map remember….

Interaction

I’ve made a real effort to keep residents informed via the Baschurch News and embracing social media, our Facebook page. Queries still need to be emailed into Anne so they can be logged and distributed rather than raised on Facebook, though some of the comments are too tempting not to respond to. Residents are very welcome to attend any meeting or email in any question. Many of the emails we’ve received have been for issues beyond our remit such as highways or household refuse collection, but some have been within our gift to solve such as additional bins in Weston Lullingfields.

I’ve made a conscious effort to make our council meetings, well less like council meetings - more inclusive and relaxed, less stuffy; we’re getting a much richer debate on issues as a result. You’ll note I refer to councillors by their first names rather than Councillor this and that, again my way of breaking down barriers and making the parish council more approachable.

Going forward

I’m convinced there must be a more suitable, knowledgeable and qualified Parish Council Chairman than me out there somewhere - in that they would have more time to close out issues and have experience with

dealing with the inner workings of a county council. But until they step forward, I will continue doing the best I can – maybe my extensive experience in the private sector of leadership and having to work at rapid pace offers something different.

With that in mind and the limited ‘spare’ time I have, I’m looking to re-structure the parish council by having certain councillors responsible for particular topics. We will continue to do our best by our residents. One of the next major topics will be working on the parish plan, which will determine what development we can take, with what infrastructure needs to come alongside it (community benefit) and where. We need residents to come forward and assist the construction of the parish plan – without that help, we could in theory have block of flats built on the village green, Weston Lullingfields doubling in size, or PGL turned into a theme park!

Most of our residents are a delight to deal with, and I’m hoping some will put themselves forward to help with the parish plan and maybe be councillors in the future. We would also welcome residents who would like to become part of the playground trust or the Baschurch Station Campaign – both work closely with the parish council.

We are also on track to welcome Walford Heath fully into our parish as the boundary gets extended. Another sting in tail though, Shropshire Council want us to reduce our Weston Lullingfields ward by one person to create the Walford Heath ward that we have asked for. As a parish councillor is a voluntary role, and t he two wards are at opposite ends of the parish - we are having a battle to get them to see sense.

So, in closing Baschurch Parish Council does represent the interests of the vast majority of our residents – frequently chasing hard on issues which often take an age to resolve. To those small element of residents who just like to moan no matter what we do, never offering a sensible suggestion of how to solve an issue or offer help – consider the alternative. Without Baschurch Parish Council, all local issues will be in Shropshire Council’s remit. Consider how many of the issues I’ve mentioned are in the gift of Shropshire Council to solve, but that won’t happen unless this Parish Council continue to chase them. Consider Shropshire Council’s Shrewsbury Town Plan - we don’t even appear on the map. So, we need your support, not your griping or sniping.

We will persevere with our chasing and follow up. As you can tell, there’s much work still to do.