Please note that Monxton Parish Council meetings are now held on Wednesdays (as agreed Autumn 2013) at 7.30pm. The next MPC meeting is Wednesday 15 January 2014 at 7.30pm in the village hall.
Category Archives: Parish Council
Speed Indicator Device
Monxton Parish Council and the recently-formed Traffic Steering Group have been discussing the idea of having a Speed Indicator Device or Display (SID) (also known as Vehicle Activated Signs) in Monxton. These are LED signs that flash up for drivers exceeding the speed limit and may be a useful tool in Monxton to help curb the problem of excess speeds in the village.
MPC would like to know whether or not residents would like to see one of these signs in the village or parish. The signs can either just flash up to anyone exceeding the speed limit, or can tell drivers their exact speed. Some SIDs can also log the speed of all vehicles that pass and this information can be downloaded and used to document traffic speeds and volumes, although these versions are more expensive.
It would be mobile and moved to different sites (exact locations TBC) within the village. This would hopefully optimise effectiveness and also try and ensure that there was no complacency among drivers. It would enable the traffic speed and volume to be logged at each site and we could work out which location had the most issues and where the sign was most effective at slowing traffic.
The cost of the SID is quite significant and will be approximately 20% of MPC’s total funds (or about 50% of the annual budget). The exact cost is to be confirmed depending on the make and model of SID. There may well also be some grant money available towards the purchase. But at this stage we would like to know whether or not you think the concept is a good idea.
Please add any comments below.
Previous Parish Council Meeting Minutes
2019 Meeting Minutes
2018 Meeting Minutes
2017 Meeting Minutes
MPC Meeting Agenda Presentation 18-01-17
January 18 2017 minutes
MPC AGM Meeting Agenda Presentation 12-04-17
April 12 2017 minutes (AGM)
MPC Meeting Agenda Presentation 12-07-17
July 12 2017 minutes
MPC Meeting Presentation
October 25 2017 minutes
2016 Meeting Minutes
January 18 2016 minutes
MPC Meeting Agenda Presentation 18-01-16
March 16 2016 minutes
MPC Meeting Agenda Presentation 16-03-16
May 18 2016 minutes
MPC Meeting Agenda Presentation 18-05-16
July 13 2016 minutes
MPC Meeting Agenda Presentation 13-07-16
September 21 2016 minutes
mpc-meeting-agenda-presentation-21-09-16
2015 Meeting Minutes
January 21 2015 minutes
MPC Meeting Agenda Presentation 21-01-15
April 8 2015 minutes
MPC Meeting Agenda Presentation 08-04-15
May 15 2015 minutes
MPC AGM Meeting Agenda Presentation 13-05-15
July 22 2015 minutes
MPC Meeting Agenda Presentation 22-07-15
September 30 2015 minutes
MPC Meeting Agenda Presentation 30-09-15
November 18 2015 minutes
MPC Meeting Agenda Presentation 18-11-15
2014 Meeting Minutes
January 15 2014 minutes
MPC Meeting Agenda Presentation 15-01-14
March 19 2014 minutes
MPC Meeting Agenda Presentation 19-03-14
AGM: June 4 2014 minutes
MPC Meeting Agenda Presentation 03-06-14
MONXTON PC Accounts 2014
Environment Report
July 23 2014 minutes
MPC Meeting Agenda Presentation 23-07-14
September 17 2014 minutes
MPC Meeting Agenda Presentation 17-09-14
November 19 2014 minutes
MPC Meeting Agenda Presentation 19-11-14
2013 Meeting Minutes
Lorries and Co-Op
Monxton Parish Council has recently had two meetings with Co-Op and TVBC/HCC and we are working together to stop the negative impact of lorries through our village.
Various Monxton residents have spoken to lorry drivers who appear to be lost or trying to turn around. This has shown that many suppliers still held the old address for the Co-Op, which mentions Monxton Road and also calls the building a CDC or RDC (Composite or Regional Distribution Centre) and omitted the phrase ‘Andover Business Park’. MPC has reported this to the Co-Op. MPC also suggested that the directions given to drivers were not as clear as they could be and suggested adding photographs of the site itself and the road signs at the relevant exits on the A303.
So MPC has requested that the following is now being implemented as soon as possible:
Co-Operative
- Issue a statement to all suppliers to strongly remind them to update their databases with the accurate and up to date address for the CDC at the Andover Business Park, mentioning the words ‘Co-Operative’ and ‘Andover Business Park’, and excluding anything saying Monxton.
- Create new directions for HGV drivers which will include photos of the Co-Op CDC, and road signs on the approach of the slip roads and roundabout, and be easily understandable with fewer language barriers.
Goodmans
- To improve the signs at the entrance to and around the Andover Business Park
TVBC/HCC
- To improve the road signs and road markings leading to the Andover Business Park, and discouraging routes down Monxton Road
- Add a new sign at the top of the west-bound slip road showing Monxton to left, Business Park straight on, and town centre to the right (or similar) and road markings
- Add Andover Business Park signs in Collingbourne Ducis to route via Tidworth & A303
- Ensure ABP is well signed from the east-bound A303, and ensure exit at prior junctions is dissuaded (so no routing via E. Cholderton, Quarley or Amport)
- Ensure all the approach roads from the A303/A343 etc that could possibly pass through Monxton have the correct signs to dissuade HGVs
- Add to the ‘No HGV’ signs leading down towards Monxton, possibly at the roundabout by the Army HQ
- Move the ‘No HGV’ sign currently situated after the railway bridge to BEFORE the bridge and traffic lights
Neighbourhood Watch Alert – December
Summary of reported rural crime in north and east Hampshire
Burglaries to non-dwelling premises are, again, the most reported incidents in the rural areas of north and east Hampshire. These incidents have been reported across the north of the county, but the areas that have seen most of these offences are the rural areas around Basingstoke, Andover and Winchester. Power tools have mainly been targeted together with off-road vehicles. In addition there has been an increase in thefts from stables including horse tack and rugs.
Telephone scams continue to be a problem. Hampshire Trading Standards Service publish information on these, including prize wins, tax rebates and loan scams. For further advice or to report a scam contact:
Citizens Advice Consumer Helpline on 08454 04 05 06.
Advice from the Police for Christmas
PCSO David Trowbridge and the Stockbridge/Andover Rural Safer Neighbourhoods Team offer the following tips for Christmas:
Dwelling Burglary
- Don’t leave Christmas presents under the tree in view of a window
- Make sure windows and doors are locked every time you leave the house
- Avoid leaving tools and ladders lying around that could assist someone to get into your home
- When you go out at night make it appear that someone is home. Draw the curtains and leave a light on. Always use a timer switch to put on a lamp or radio.
Vehicle crime
- Before you leave your car, ensure all windows and doors are closed and locked
- Avoid leaving your purchases and presents in your vehicle. If you must, make sure they are not on display. Rather store them in the boot and make sure the car is locked
- Always lock your bike. Use a D lock and make the locked bike difficult to manoeuvre by keep any gaps between the lock and bike frame small.
Online shopping
- When online shopping ensure you go to the official websites and have adequate anti-virus software, especially when purchasing expensive items.
Personal safety
- Never leave a bag unattended in a trolley, even if for a couple of seconds
- Keep wallets in an inside pocket and bags closed
and out of sight from potential pick-pockets - Keep your PIN number confidential and when entering your PIN number at a terminal ensure no one can see you enter it.
Property registration
- If you are buying or receiving valuable gifts such as bikes, mobiles or electrical items register them for free at www.immobilise.com. In doing so you will assist the police in returning your property should it be lost or stolen.
Have a Happy, Safe and Secure Christmas!
Parish Council Minutes – 20 November 2013
Minutes of the Monxton Parish Council Meeting held on Wednesday 20th November 2013 in the Monxton Village Hall at 7.30pm.
Present: Cllr Mike Cleugh – Chairman; Cllr Sarah Dowding – Vice Chairman; Cllr Judith Balding; Cllr David Eaglesham; Cllr David Bateman; Richard Waterman – Parish Clerk; Members of the Public – 5
Apologies: Borough Councillor Mr Ben Few-Brown and County Councillor Mrs Pat West
WELCOME – The Chairman welcomed everyone to the meeting.
DECLARATION OF INTEREST
Cllr Sarah Dowding declared an interest in the planning application for School House Reference 13/01776/LBWN.
MINUTES OF THE PREVIOUS MEETING
The Chairman signed the minutes of the September meeting as a true record.
MEMBERS OF THE PUBLIC
The Chairman stated that members of the public have a 3 minute slots to speak, which they must register the issue 10 days before the Parish Council meeting. There were no pre-booked slots for this meeting.
PLANNING
- 13/01556/FULLN – Application for retrospective planning for the bridge at Upper Mill House is still awaiting a date for the TVBC committee meeting.
- 13/01776/LBWN – Change of front door – School, House, Amport Road, Monxton. The Parish Council had NO OBJECTIONS to this planning application.
- 13/02433/LBWN – Replace concrete paviours to drive with bound gravel and a line of sandstone paviours at the road boundary – Brewery House, Green Lane, Monxton. The Parish Council had NO OBJECTIONS to this planning application
- 13/02478/TREEN – Fell one Cherry Tree – Newcott, Amport Road, Monxton. The Parish Council OBJECTED to this planning application and suggested that pruning would be the preferred course of action.
PARISH REPORTS
ENVIRONMENT – Cllr Judith Balding
PILLHILL BROOK: Cllr Judith Balding was pleased to report that the current status of the Pillhill Brook is slowly improving, as the vegetation between the dam and the bridge, which was completely blocking it has recently had a channel cut through it.
Unfortunately, the channel is only approximately 3 foot in width, so it remains to be seen how effective this will be. The dam still only has a small notch in it, with the further proposed works to the dam, yet to be implemented. If these works allow an adequate flow of water to return to this stretch of the brook, any future flooding should be averted.
Report received from Tor Peebles, Project Officer, County Planning at HCC. A channel has been cut through the vegetation lying in the Pillhill Brook, this should allow water in the channel to move down stream rather than be held back. An environmental engineering company has been engaged to carry out the flood risk assessment of the lower watercourse and the solution to the weir. Any work on the weir will require consent from the Environment Agency of which the land owner is aware. He is not aware of any decisions made by Test Valley BC on the retrospective planning application submitted by the land owner for the bridge on the Pillhill Brook.
FOOTPATHS AND BRIDLEWAYS: An email was received from Peter Derbyshire reporting a large tree, which was brought down in the recent storms, blocking Hook Lane bridleway and making it impassable. Cllr Judith Balding contacted Cllr Charles Stephens from Amport Parish Council, and would like to thank him for his very prompt action to get it removed.
FRACKING: ‘Fracking’ is short for hydraulic fracturing, which uses high pressure water and chemicals blasted underground to fracture shale rock and release gas. The Department for Energy and Climate Change has issued drilling licences for possible fracking underneath an area a few miles from Andover, Stockbridge and many historic villages, including Monxton and Amport. Based on information available from DECC, the existing licences are located at the following locations: North of Winchester, from Kings Worthy stretching west almost to Stockbridge, and further north, reaching from Chilbolton west to Amport.
NEIGHBOURHOOD WATCH – David James
Reported Crime: Once again, non-dwelling burglaries have been the most reported crime in the rural area of north and east Hampshire. Power tools have mainly been targeted together with off road vehicles. In addition there has been an increase in thefts from stables including horse tack and rugs in Hampshire. A separate alert was posted regarding this on Monxton Matters.
Telephone scams continue to be a problem. Hampshire Trading Standards Service publish information on these including prize wins, tax rebates and loan scams.
Crime Alerts – Since the last meeting there have been no general alerts distributed in Monxton.
HIGHWAYS – Cllr Sarah Dowding
The bollards are now installed around the village green and various other vulnerable sites, including Old Hoyles’ garden wall. There were other sites identified that will be pursued by the Traffic Steering Group.
The Traffic Steering Group have produced a map of actions required and have given it to TVBC (the map and supporting information can be vied on the Monxton Web Site).
Cllr Sarah Dowding explained the various items on the map. TVBC are to start work on agreed actions week commencing 25th November 2013.
It was noted that Lorries using the Monxton Road to get to the Co-op site are fined £500 a time. The fines pot controlled by HCC stands at some £500,000. Monxton are getting some of this money to fund the traffic calming measurers. The Chairman will visit the Co-op in person to discuss the traffic problems in person.
The Police have carried out speed radar checks in Monxton and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.
The Chairman spoke about the problems the village are having with the Nelson Lorries visiting Georgia Farm. A recent aggressive confrontation with Mr Nelson was not a pleasant experience, and this was witnessed by a TVBC Planning Officer who happened to be present.
PORTABLE SPEED INDICATOR: Cllr Sarah Dowding reported that the chosen portable speed sign displays speed of vehicles and records speed and time. Funding has been discussed with various options including sharing the sign and costs with neighbouring parishes. However Monxton may purchase the speed sign outright asking if the HCC Coop fines fund would help with the cost.
SUNNYBANK – No issues to report at this meeting.
MONXTON WEB SITE – Cllr Sarah Dowding
18,610 views since the launch in March 2013. October: 1653 page views and 400 visitors. November (to date): 1063 page views and 233 visitors.
September – November = 4 pages/visit (peak 10 pages/visit in July).
FINANCE – Cllr David Eaglesham
The Audit has signed of the Accounts for the Year 1st April 2012 – 31st March 2013 on the 27th August 2013. There were no issues raised. The Parish Councillors signed a ‘Request for Dispensation’ form enabling them to discuss the Precept.
Cllr David Eaglesham gave a full report on the Parish Council finances. This will be available to view on the Web Site. The Parish Council have a healthy reserve so he suggested that the Precept for the year 2014/2015 is reduced by £350 to £5,200. This was discussed at length taking into account the various ongoing projects in the parish.
The Chairman proposed that the 2014/2015, Precept be reduced to £5,200, this was seconded by Cllr Sarah Dowding. All agreed. The Monxton precept for the Year 2014/2015 was therefore set at £5,200.
CHEQUES ISSUED IN NOVEMBER 2013
R.N. Waterman Wages September – December £800.00
Clive Hutchinson Mowing of the Village Green £360.00
N W Adams Sunnyside Play Ground Inspection £65.40
ALPINE GROUP
The Chairman reported that developers/builders have expressed scepticism regarding the support by the various councils, therefore Monxton PC & Abbotts Ann PC wrote open letters confirming their support in principle for a development.
The MPC Chairman met with the Planning Consultant appointed by Alpine to manage the new development (& the move to a new factory location) and the Head of Planning at TVBC to discuss the proposed development at the site. The consultant is twin tracking the search for a site and the development as one is needed to fund the other.
The Chairman reported that work to repair the garden wall at Old Hoyles has been agreed by the Alpine Group and should commence shortly.
VILLAGE PROJECTS – Cllr Mike Cleugh
VILLAGE GREEN CLEAR UP: The response from the village to the request for help to clean up the green was a total of 3 people over five dates which was extremely disappointing and therefore the council will revisit this early next year. After some discussion it was agreed that another clear up will be organised in the spring with refreshments in the Pub after the event for any volunteers.
VILLAGE POND PROJECT: There has been some conflicting information distributed around the parish on whether this is actually a pond or a soak away. It was confirmed at the meeting by residents that it is actually a natural pond. However it was agreed that the area should be tidied up regardless and the work required to re-instate the pond carried out next year with the villagers support and if NOT abandoned.
VILLAGE VERGE WEED REDUCTION: It was agreed that a working party will be organised to tackle the various overgrown areas in the parish. Mr Clive Hutchinson (current Garden services provider) will also be asked to quote to take on some of the more overgrown areas and verges in the event that villagers do NOT come forward to undertake the works.
DATES FOR THE NEXT MEETINGS
Wednesday’s 7.30pm in Monxton Village Hall
15th January
19th March
CLOSE OF THE MEETING The Chairman thanked everyone for coming and closed the meeting at 8.45pm.
Nelson Lorries
The very large number of lorries going through Monxton currently to enable the movement of material for the works at the top of Georgia Lane (halfway between Monxton and Grateley turn left at the crossroads at Fox Farm) is for the development of roads in the forest for timber logging work, which will take place over the next few years.
The first phase is to build roads using hard-core and other materials through the forest to allow heavy forestry equipment to be moved to the places where trees will be felled and to extract the timber.
The number of lorries has been unprecedented and is more than 100 movements per week according to Nelsons, which is exacerbated when these meet lorries from the Alpine Group.
The council met recently with Mr Nelson and the owners of the site, Mr Patrick Langdown, Junior and Senior plus the TVBC planning enforcement officer Mrs Sam Francis to discuss the lorries and the potential reduction in the number of journeys by having the lorries go fully loaded to the site via Quarley and return from the site via Monxton (the least worst option) which would yield a 50% reduction.
Recently they have acceded to this request by splitting the traffic 50:50 Quarley and Monxton, which has reduced the lorries by 50% but we are still seeing lorries fully loaded coming through the village as a result.
I have urgently requested Mr Langdown this week to request Nelsons use the circular route MPC proposed to further reduce the nuisance caused by the loaded lorries and the vibration caused to the cottages along the High Street, which may be one of the contributing causes of the damage to the walls of properties bordering the High Street and Green Lane including the cottage on the corner of the Abbotts Ann Road and Green Lane namely Monks Foyle Cottage where an internal wall facing Green Lane collapsed.
Chairman
Monxton Parish Council
Monxton Parish Council Agenda and Presentation from the Meeting of the 20/11/13
MPC Meeting Agenda Presentation 20-11-13
Monxton Parish Council meeting was held at the village hall at 7.30pm on the 20th November and the attached presentation formed the basis of the items discuss by the Council.
If you have any comments on the content please respond to this post.
The minutes of the meeting will be published early next week.
Monxton Parish Council
Parish Council Meeting Wednesday 20th November
Just a reminder that the Monxton Parish Council meeting is on Wednesday 20th November at 7.30pm.
It was scheduled for 7pm but it is being delayed by 30 minutes for this month only.
Alpine Group Manor Farm Potential Development & Move
Monxton PC recently arranged a meeting between TVBC Planning and a company called Corporate Property Solutions, who have been appointed by Alpine Group to address two planning challenges – one to obtain outline planning permission for a development of a limited number of acceptable properties at the Manor Farm site, situated between Monxton and Abbotts Ann, and secondly to find a suitable location for a new factory for the steel fabrication business at the site.
Corporate Property Solutions have been having difficulty obtaining any interest from any builders due their scepticism regarding the potential of getting planning permission at this site and they had therefore requested a meeting with TVBC to obtain their views on the likelihood of permission being granted. MPC and APC have already provided written confirmation that they would support a sympathetic development of a limited number of mixed units.
The meeting was held at TVBC office on the 8/11/13 with Paul Jackson, the Head of Planning at TVBC, who confirmed that the application was supported by TVBC in principle, due to the representations of Monxton and Abbotts Ann. He would also be happy to write to Corporate Property Solutions to confirm TVBC’s support, so that the various potential building firms who are nervous about committing money to a project would be re-assured and would have a level of confirmation that the various councils would NOT object to a reasonable development balancing the number of units with the cash generation required to cover the migration of the Alpine business to a new site.
Villagers should be re-assured that this in effect gives Monxton and Abbotts Ann Parish Councils a significant role in determining the future development on the site, in collaboration with TVBC and we are also supported by HCC Pat West and TVBC Ward Councillor Ben Few Brown.
Monxton Matters 