Agenda and minutes

RESOLVED

thatCouncillorJoyce Hutchinson be elected as Chair of the South East Area Committee for the 2009/10 Municipal Year. 

CouncillorJoyce Hutchinson – Chair – In the Chair

RESOLVED

that Councillor Richard Farrell be elected as Vice-Chair of the South East Area Committee for the 2009/10 Municipal Year. 

To receive apologies for absence.

Apologies for absence were received from Councillors Terry Cox and Zoe Patrick. 

To adopt and sign as a correct record the Section I Minutes of the Meeting of the Committee South East Area Committee held on 10 March 2009.

The minutes of the Committee meeting held on 10 March 2009 were adopted and signed as a correct record. 

To receive any declarations of Personal or Personal and Prejudicial Interests in respect of items on the agenda for this meeting. 

In accordance with Part 2 of the Local Code of Conduct and the provisions of Standing Order 34, any Member with a personal interest must disclose the existence and nature of that interest to the meeting prior to the matter being debated.  Where that personal interest is also a prejudicial interest, then the Member must withdraw from the room in which the meeting is being held and not seek improperly to influence any decision about the matter unless he/she has obtained a dispensation from the Standards Committee.

Declarations of Interest was made in respect of report 09/09 - Community Grant Applications as follows: -

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

The Chair reported that she had accepted a community grant application from StockhamSchool as a matter of urgent business. She explained that the application was determined as a matter of urgent business as it was essential that the works could proceed over the summer and therefore it was necessary to consider the grant application prior to the next meeting of the Committee in the autumn. This application was considered with the other community grant applications (minute SE.9 refers). 

Any statements and/or petitions from the public under Standing Order 32 will be made or presented at the meeting.

Mr Robin Turnbull made a statement in support of the community grant application by Wantage Displays.  He reported that a group of volunteers had been formed to improve the summer floral displays and the Christmas lights displays in the town.  It was a free standing group without a committee or written constitution, but was loosely linked to the Wantage Chamber of Commerce.  The group also had one District Councillor and one Town Councillor attending as volunteers.  The group had been working with shopkeepers to improve displays and had ambitions to provide £12,000+ worth of displays this year.  The Town Council had not agreed to underwrite this cost and so grants and local donations were being sought to cover the costs.  Donations by local residents had proved successful by having donation boxes or buckets at shops in the town.  The group had no storage and had to pay for this as well as maintenance, set up and take down. 

Any questions from members of the public under Standing Order 32 will be asked at the meeting.

None.

To receive and consider report 09/09 of the Head of Corporate Strategy regarding the awarding of Community Grants.

Councillors Joyce Hutchinson, Jenny Hannaby and Julia Reynolds had each declared personal and prejudicial interests in this item and in accordance with Standing Order 34 they left the meeting during consideration of the relevant community grant applications. 

CouncillorJenny Hannaby and Reg Waite had both declared personal interests in this item and in accordance with Standing Order 34 they remained in the meeting during consideration of the relevant community grant applications.

The Committee received and considered report 09/09 of the Head of Corporate Strategy, which set out details of the Committee’s community grants budget and detailed three grant applications.  As referred to elsewhere in these Minutes, the Chair had also accepted an additional grant application from StockhamSchool which was considered, details of which were circulated at the meeting. 

The Committee considered each application.   As the Chair of the Committee had declared a personal and prejudicial interest in two applications and left the meeting during their consideration, the Vice-Chair took the Chair for those items.

RESOLVED

(a)               that the Committee’s community grants budget position be noted;

(b)               that the applications for community grants be agreed as follows: -:

(c)        that authority be delegated to the Head of Corporate Strategy, in consultation with the Vice-Chair of the Committee, to award a grant of up to £1,500 to Stockham School, Wantage towards the cost of building a sensory garden, subject to Wantage Town Council awarding a reasonable grant and that the applicant be advised to contact the Oxfordshire Council for Voluntary Action to seek additional funding sources (agreed by 6 votes to nil with 2 of the voting Members not being present during consideration of this item). 

None