October 1st 2019 Meeting Minutes
MINUTES OF THE MEETING HELD IN DARWEN TOWN HALL ON TUESDAY, OCTOBER 1ST, 2019
Present: Couns. Entwistle, East, Connor, Perkins, Slater, Davies, Browne and Taylor.
1.Welcome and introduction:
2.Apologies: Couns. Smith, Hollings, Salton, Brookfield, Rothwell.
3.Declarations of Interest: Couns. Connor and Taylor on updates.
4 Minutes of the last meeting and matters arising
These were agreed.
4.1 Street art regulations
Coun. East said he was trying to find a contact for Kieran Whitehead. Mr T Foster to pass on.
5 Public forum
Ms Janet Pearce of Keep Tidy Darwen thanked the council for their grant for the children’s litter pickers.
She said a food festival banner had been found dumped. Coun. East to put back up.
Mr Mark Atkins raised problems with plans to introduce no parking on pavements and suggested people be allowed to mark out spaces to ease parking problems. Coun. Taylor, Davies and Slater explained the mechanics behind “resident only parking.’’
A request for funding for Guides and Scouts attending the Euro Jam 2020 was made by Mrs Anne Cooper and the council agreed to donate a total of £400.
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6 Mayor’s report
Coun Salton was away on holiday. Coun. East had attended the brass band competition in her absence and said the event had been a huge success with 23 bands competing. There was some concern over lack of publicity. The band would like to play music at Christmas with a big screen showing The Snowman. Coun. Connor said much of the success of the event had been down to the hard work of Coun. Peter Hollings and he was thanked for his efforts.
7 Deputy leader’s report
Coun. East said he had attended the town centre partnership board and said discussions were ongoing to put up signage to explain the new market square and its features. He had also met with the chief executive of BWD, Denise Park to discuss various issues. Coun. East said there were ongoing problems with the website and social media and this was being resolved. The council PA system has gone in for an estimate for repair.
8 Finance
Paid in: £61,000 – 2nd part of precept.
£250 – food market stall money – 20 stalls outstanding for payment.
Authorised payments:
£662.10 – Rebecca Hay, salary and expenses for clerk.
£80.83 – LCC – clerk’s pension contribution.
£400 – donation to Girl Guides and Scout trip to Eurojam 2020.
£4,200 – Lancashire Constabulary, replacement cheque for Darwen Live.
£40 – J. Barritt – PAYE.
£79.69 – Friends of Bold Venture Park for heritage open day.
£2,868 – Lancashire Marquees for food festival.
£980 – S Taylor for marketing and organisation of food festival.
£250 – Very Vivid for food festival posters.
£200 – Ignite Parties for food festival.
£61.20 – S Taylor for website renewal.
£55 – Henry Christopher printers for heritage leaflets.
£480 – PJK Littlejohn for annual audit.
The audit had been successful, apart from a couple of minor points which the clerk had dealt with after liasing with the deputy chairman.
9 Correspondence
An invitation from the Friends of Darwen Cemetry for a WW1 event on November 8th was received and to be passed to The Mayor.
10 Updates
Coun. East said the heritage open days had been a great success and the heritage weekend under budget. Coun. Connor said the Mayor had helped celebrate a milestone for the Darwen branch of Cancer Research. Coun Connor had also attended an event at the Darwen Theatre Library, which he said was a great asset to the town.
Couns. Taylor and Smith had attended an event to paint the Scout hut at Bold Venture park.
11 Any other business
Coun. Taylor gave details of the Healthy Darwen event and Coun. Browne asked about a sign which had been erected by a commercial firm at the Darwen boundary near the motorway.
Coun. East to look at sponsorship for railing planters.
Coun. Slater said if the town wins a bid for up to £24m, he has asked that Darwen Tower be renovated.
Coun. East said the annual bonfire on November 2nd is in aid of the restoration of Darwen Tower..
Coun. Slater said the Black Snape playing fields had been put out to tender..
Coun. East awaiting a reply from BWD re spare floral containers for railings.
12 Part 2 – public and press excluded.
Two items discussed.
13 Date of next meeting.
November 5th, 7 p.m. Agenda items to be with the clerk by October 28th please..
