Meetings and how to raise issues

Meetings

The best way to engage with the council is to attend one of our monthly meetings. This is where we discuss operations of the council over the past month, as well as important issues and correspondence. We also make key decisions here which must be made when there is a full council sitting together.

Parish Council meetings are held on the second Tuesday of every month at the Parish Centre, and usually commence at 7pm.

Meetings are an opportunity to receive important monthly reports from the police and District Council, as well as an opportunity for both the public and councillors to raise any necessary issues or concerns. They also enable the council at a full sitting to receive important updates on their own activities through working groups and to report parish council facilities. You may be interested to learn that we are in the process of rebuilding our parish centre (you can find out more here). We also own allotments and a cemetery and often decisions need to be taken on such matters as a full council.

We would advise you to familiarise yourself with the month’s agenda found here. This is usually uploaded about a week prior to the actual meeting.

The police will commence the meeting and run through their monthly report, found here. This report will cover the activities of police officers within the village, and give a breakdown of the crimes which have been committed during that month, as well as an indication as to how the police are dealing with this. During this report and immediately afterwards, members of the public may raise their concerns to the police representative.

Please note the police representative will usually leave straight after he delivers his report, therefore you should raise any relevant issue at this point.

Then the District Council representative will provide a monthly report. This report is based on concerns councillors have raised at the previous monthly meeting. The representative takes the concerns expressed at each meeting and over the course of the following month will seek to find a resolution to the query. They will then provide an update at the following monthly meeting, upon which councillors will indicate if a satisfactory resolution has been reached, or if more work needs to be done. You can track the queries and responses raised by reading the minutes. You will note that the issue is raised in one month’s minutes and the resolution is detailed in the following month’s minutes.

If you have a concern to raise, please ensure you ascertain beforehand if it is a matter for the District Council (WMDC) or whether it is a Parish Council matter. You can access details on what matters are typically WMDC-level here.

Please note the WMDC representative will leave after they have delivered their report so please ensure you address any appropriate concerns whilst they are still present. This is why it is important to ascertain which council the matter relates to. Once the representative has left, we cannot necessarily assist if it turns out that your matter was meant to be addressed to WMDC rather than the parish council.

The next section is the ‘Public participation’ section, and this is your opportunity to raise any matters for the parish council. Please note that after this section there will not be another opportunity to participate unless this is an item on the agenda.

Following this the council will go through the remaining items on the agenda. The documents that you will need to follow along with the bulk of the meeting can be found here. Unfortunately there will be a minority of items, such as correspondence and some financial documents we cannot share at the time of the meeting.

We would welcome you to stay for as long as you wish. The meeting will usually finish between 9.30 and 10pm. If you decide to stay we may need you to leave at the end of the meeting if any items need to be discussed to the exclusion of the public and press (see item agenda).

How to raise issues

At the meeting:

Raise your hand at the appropriate point in the meeting to raise your point, and address it to the appropriate representative (if the parish council, please raise it to the chairman).

Outside of the meeting:

Police: depending upon the urgency and severity of the situation, please choose the appropriate option here.

WMDC: often initial contact will be with the appropriate department of WMDC, which can be found here. If you want to follow up a matter already raised this way, you may contact one of your WMDC representatives as detailed or attend an Wednesday afternoon surgery at the Library.

Parish Council: please contact our clerk here.