Agenda and draft minutes

Venue: Abbey House, Abingdon

Contact: Susan Harbour, Democratic Services Officer, tel. 01235 540307, e-mail:  susan.harbour@southandvale.gov.uk 

Items
No. Item

9.

Apologies for absence

To receive apologies for absence.

Minutes:

Councillors Holly Holman, Angela Lawrence, Sandy Lovatt, Aidan Melville and Helen Pighills sent apologies for absence.

10.

Minutes

To adopt and sign as a correct record the minutes of the committee meeting held on 3 December 2012.

Minutes:

RESOLVED: to adopt, as a correct record, the minutes of the committee meeting held on 3 December 2012 and agree that the chair signs them.

11.

Declarations of interest

To receive any declarations of disclosable pecuniary interests in respect of items on the agenda for this meeting.

Minutes:

Applicant

Councillor/s

Declaration

Abingdon and District Model Railway Club

 

 

Abingdon Air Training Corps

 

 

AbingdonSea Cadets

 

 

Preston Road Community Centre

Jason Fiddaman

 

Tony de Vere

Council appointee to the management committee

 

Wife is trustee

 

Councillors Fiddaman and de Vere left the room for the duration of this item.

Dunmore pre-school

 

 

Abingdon DAMASCUS youth project

 

 

ARCh (Assisted Reading for Children)

 

 

North East Abingdon Community Association

Tony de Vere

 

Pat Lonergan

President

 

Treasurer

 

Councillor de Vere left the room for the duration of this item. Councillor Lonergan left the committee and came back to the table to speak as a member of the public. He then left for the remainder of the item.

 

12.

Urgent business and chair's announcements

To receive notification of any matters, which the chair determines, should be considered as urgent business and the special circumstances, which have made the matters urgent, and to receive any announcements from the chair.

Minutes:

Urgent business

 

At it’s meeting on 15 April, the North East Area Committee had heard a grant application from Abingdon and District Model Railway Club Ltd to update their heating. Below is an extract from the minutes of that meeting:

 

“The committee considered the grant applications.  One application related to the Abingdon and District Model Railway Club whose premises were located at Lodge Hill, Radley, within the North East area.  Whilst the committee supported the application, it considered that the Abingdon Area Committee should consider this application also.  The North East Area Committee agreed to match-fund the Abingdon Area Committee’s grant, up to a maximum grant of £935 each.  Councillors noted that this application would be considered at the Abingdon Area Committee’s meeting on 22 April if its chairman agreed to accept this as an urgent item.”

 

The chair agreed to hear this item later in the agenda. Relevant paperwork had been sent to all members of the committee last week.

 

 

Chair’s announcements

 

The chairman showed the committee the plaque which any beneficiary organisation receiving a grant of more than £2000 from Vale of White Horse District Council would be expected to display as part of the conditions for receiving an award. The plaque says “supported by Vale of White Horse District Council”. Alternative forms (such as stickers) were available for boats or other places where a plaque could not easily be attached.

 

13.

Statements, petitions and questions from the public relating to matters affecting the Abingdon Area Committee

Any statements, petitions and questions from the public under standing order 32 will be made or presented at the meeting.

Minutes:

Andy Kaye spoke on behalf of Abingdon Air Training Corps. There were no restrictions on who could join the Corps, except that they must be aged between 13 and 17. They currently had between 30 and 40 cadets.

 

Mark Hargreaves spoke on behalf of the Abingdon Sea Cadets. They currently had 20 cadets but wanted to increase that amount to 34. At the current time they had no boats available and so were unable to offer training. The Cadets had secured other funding of £2,400 and would be able to order the replacement boat as soon as they had notification of the award.

 

Mary de Vere spoke on behalf of Preston Road Community Centre. The Centre was waiting to hear back on grant applications from Abingdon Town Council and Awards for All. They had already received a grant from the County Council. It is possible to undertake the work in phases if all the monies are not in place up front.

 

Rita Atkinson and Gary Hibbins spoke from the DAMASCUS youth project which works in Abingdon, Drayton, Appleford, Sutton Courtenay, Steventon and Didcot. The project works with unengaged young people and also works with police, schools and other projects such as the Abingdon Bridge. The project’s reserves are now down to £60,000 and their annual turnover is £75,000.

 

Pat Lonergan, a district councillor, stepped down from the committee for the item on the North East Abingdon Community Association. He spoke to the committee in his role as treasurer of NEACA. During his speech, he explained that the Association did not have reserves of £90,551 as previously reported to officers, but of only £1,000.

14.

Capital community grants pdf icon PDF 587 KB

To consider the head of corporate strategy’s report.

Minutes:

The committee considered the head of corporate strategy’s report. This set out details of the seven applications for capital grants in the Abingdon area. They also considered the urgent item on the Abingdon and District Model Railway Club. The Abingdon Area Committee had £47,071 available to allocate in the capital community grants budget for 2013/14. This was made up of £26,514 for the current financial year and £20,503 carried forward from the last financial year. The available funds were to be allocated during the present round of funding and a future round in November 2013.

 

The committee was reminded of the criteria of the capital community grant policy and “normally” awards would be no more than 50% of the total project costs, up to a maximum of £5,000.

 

RESOLVED

 

To approve the following grants:

 

Applicant

Project

Grant

Comments

Abingdon and District Model Railway Club

Heating update

£935

(24.95% of £3,748 project costs)

The other £935 to be awarded by North East Area Committee to make the £1,870 recommended award.

Abingdon Air Training Corps

Computer purchases

£3,427

(50% of £6,854 project costs)

As recommended

AbingdonSea Cadets

Replacement of safety boat

£2,392

(49.92% of £4,792 project costs

As recommended

Preston Road Community Centre

Replace room partitions

£5,000

(30% of £16,410 of project costs)

The committee awarded the maximum amount normally allowed as they considered the high value of the project to the community

Dunmore pre-school

New complete ICT package

£2,500

(49.29% of £5,072 of project costs)

As recommended

Abingdon DAMASCUS youth project

Street display equipment

£2,886

(100% of £2,886 of project costs)

The committee felt that the wide ranging value of this project and the information that it’s reserves were required to underwrite essential on costs, such as staffing, merited awarding 100% of the funds requested

ARCh (Assisted Reading for Children)

Book Box sponsorship

£1,200

(50% of £2,400 project costs)

The original application was for sponsorship, but this is outside of the grant scheme’s remit. The cost of providing 8 boxes filled with books to the Abingdon area would be £2,400 so the committee awarded 50% of this cost.

North East Abingdon Community Association

Lighting upgrade

£1,427

(100% of £1,427 of project costs)

Committee awarded the full cost of the project in recognition of the treasurer’s statement that reserves were only £1,000 not £90,000 as previously reported to officers, and that upgrading the lighting would result in reduced energy usage and revenue costs.

 

 

 

 

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Vale of White Horse District Council
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