Mar 2022 Minutes

Polmaise Community Council

Meeting

21^st March 2022 @ 7pm – Alpha Centre

1. Recording of those present (members of the press) and apologies received.

Billy Bruce, Chair

Alec Fraser, Vice Chair Karen Perrie, Treasurer

Dave Perrie, Council Member Kevin Jack, Planning Officer Karen Graham

Margret Brisley, Councillor

Apologies:

Gayle Jeffery, Secretary

2. Recording of declarations of interest

N/A

3. Adoption of previous meetings minutes, 17^th February 2022

One amendment that needs to be made about the £500 from the blue token. Draft states that the monies have been received but should have said they were awarded and still awaited.

Karen adopted the minutes. Alec seconded.

4. Community Council Business

(community issues brought to the attention of the community council for debate and to agree/vote on, actions that are in the interest of the community)

- vote on volunteer award – presented to Dawn/Ethan

The award has been presented to Ethan for his litter picking

- co-opted members

Tina Fraser and Dawn Dickson - all happy to adopt, Tina and Dawn happy to join.

- April meeting

The meeting date falls on Easter Monday so the meeting has been changed to Tuesday 19^th April 2022, all happy with this.

5. Matters Arising and Enquiries Update

- Bruce Drive car park update (Billy)

This is not getting taken forward with the project and will be taken forward to the next year. This is due to restrictions on contractors.

- Walkie/Polmaise subsidence (Billy)

The heave in Polmaise and the Walkie is still being looked into, the manager who is looking into that is on holiday, but it is looking like they may need to lift the gardens and put mesh in.

Alec thinks this is possible subsidence as there is a dent in the ground. Still investigating.

- Defib update (Dave)

Everything is ready. Fiona the Tesco Manager has left this site and is now in Callander and there is a new manager and he is going to contact Fiona. Tesco’s have given the go ahead but it was Fiona’s husband that was going to install it for free. Just waiting for the go ahead to install it.

Wednesday is when Dave went in. There is £500 towards the second one.

One defib up at Tesco and then one at the Goth to cover all the main points in town. It is

£2000 for one, but can get a new one themselves for about £1200, it needs to be in a heated outdoor box.

Need to think about a back-up fund as it only has two years and then you need to replace the pads and then the battery only last for five years.

- Residents parking on grass verges (Billy)

Chased that up. Don’t have the funds for that right now so that will be next year where the fence is they have said they can extend it. Someone need to do it quick because it is about two or three cars that are doing it. A housing officer has been out and taken a picture of it

- Bruce/Polmaise Walkway Trees (Billy)

Council have decided they are not going to take that forward and the resident have to do it themselves, but they can put the branches back in the walkie and the council can pick it up.

- Fly-tipping (Billy)

The council needs to do something about this as there are is a high amount of rubbish in the walkie.

- A905 street lighting and footpath

They need lights on the road, will continue to chase this. They are going to a deep clean on the footpath as overgrown vegetation is taking up some of the path.

6. Reports (external)

- Police Scotland/Enforcement Officer

One drug supply, road traffic and drug cases and they held a meeting at the church hall last week they had the NHS and the family hub and people are getting training on Naloxone and they have attended the school to talk about stranger danger and are going to do this at the kids club and alternate this once a month

Alex informed Steph about the kids that are vandalising. Had this problem last year with fire raising and it has started again up at the port-a-cabin at the pitch.

Raised that people are not brining there bins in and kids are going around kicking peoples doors. Billy has emailed them about it as well.

Alex has caught young people climbing the fence at the walkie, there is a wheelie bin there as well. The replacement of the wooden bridge is being investigated at the walkie. The children are congregating at the chippy.

- Elected Member

There was a few thing if he has taken them up he has not copied Margaret into it but he is emailing them with updates.

The rent has been set and reported on that. The revenue budget that got set in March it was a difficult budget a lot of toing and froing the first time I have ever known all

political parties. COSLA were all united and it said they are not getting enough resources. In actual fact they wrote to the first minister and they asked for a meeting and someone came forward from finance.

The officer has recommended a 3% increase in council tax and they asked what cuts would have been necessary and the level of cuts would be unacceptable if we never went for a 3% increase. The Scottish government have said band A-D are getting £150 towards council tax. They went through everything. Managed to find nearly £2 million in the ear marked reserved that could be released. It’s to try and help the hard pressed as everything is going up. The £2 million to have various kinds of funds to try and help people in need. Increase in school clothing grants £130 or primary and then £150 secondary this is going up. Thinks it will go into bank accounts. Going to have a payments for those who are struggling with fuel bills need to be on benefits for this. Scottish welfare fund for those who can get crisis payment putting more money into that. Payment for parents who kids normally got free school meals during the holidays. Where we have details of people then we will put it into their bank account. Extra money to help people with bills. People need to apply for a crisis grant.

Has a copy of the budget. Met with the CO of land services, they were not the projects that the community were prioritising. The community should know why the projects are not getting done if there is no reason should pay more attention to the community priorities and needs programme of projects

Unsuccessful in the bid to be the city of culture.

We have had the last council meeting at the beginning of March prior to the elections. Keep with the portfolio up until the election. There will be changes in the ward as she is the only one still in the party that she was in. Maureen is in the Alba party and not sure is she will be standing again and Alasdair is going to be standing as an independent. Candidates are to have their nomination form in by the 30 ^th March.

Alex wished Margaret all the best and said there has been nothing about local transport services thought there would be some money. There is people working on Sundays that cannot get to work. Last year there was half a million on the Forth Valley area and asked why was there no money for this and Maureen said it was first come first serve and was disappointed there was no one who went forward for money. Asked how long it will take for council services to get back to normal and how long will it be that the transport has not been prioritised by council.

Covid we are still getting hit because Covid is rife it is not an excuse to say that people are off with Covid and there is not a lot you can do about staff being off and they kept

on additional staff to cover waste services were still no managing. Don’t know when this pandemic is going to be over. Would still be talking Scotland is worse now. 1 in 14 people is the number of people having Covid it is not hospitalising people. They are starting to get people back into officer and government advice is still to work at home where possible. Hopefully things will start to get back to normal

Alasdair Maureen and herself were trying to get a better system for Throsk and Fallin the trouble is trying to get someone to run a service if they are only getting a few fare they need a lot of people to get on the bus to make it economic for them. It went through the council as a commitment and were trying to look at a public transport company and public energy, there is legislation has stopped that but this may have changed could be something that they can look at. Will keep looking at it there is not an easy solution. There ws money that was made available and no one put up for it and two years ago and that Fallin was highlighted as being the most needy for public transport. Two years ago. Could we not run a survey again? And if people think there is no transport there is school leavers and people can’t get driving tests.

And if you want the young ones to get a job and they are getting bus passes for under

21. Margaret agrees. Keep saying they want people using public transport. Now legislation has changed they might be able to progress that as well. The Asda application has been called into government and they are going to decide it because the officer recommended to decline it. Even for walking the lights are poor and walking is hard. They think they are using Covid as an excuse. Communication is poor.

The biggest thing is when they are trying to talk to the council and when you get through to them they want to know why you are phoning and they will pass your information on. And everything is email. This is why people are getting frustrated feels like everywhere else is getting on to it.

Margaret we do have people that are needing to be working and they are and it is the CEO decisions and they have followed Scottish government issues. If a private company do not want to do that then that is there choice and the funding comes from the government, she was meeting everyday with the CEO getting up to date information daily. Any actions she took would never have suggested people to come into work.

Will have a word with the officer who is in charge with housing.

7. Reports (Internal)

- Subgroups

Miners Museum

· Dave. Alex has spoken with set up a group and Alex has put a message out to have a meeting and invite SVE down and look into volunteering and speak to P7 to see if they want to volunteer. Have a meeting up next week. Not been able to get the costing done but spoke to John Thomson who had done costing before.

· Campaign; Dog Waste - posters are up and the Stirling Observer are going to do a story on it and have had funding for a litter pick, waiting for the school and nursery to give date.

· Events: Started with the Christmas light, have sent a message to BofA they are not run by Lightways, Airth does not have timers on their lamppost. Not heard anything back from Stirling Council. Alasdair is going to look into getting the lampposts checked and Margaret said Bannockburn had to do this last year and she spoke to the Council about it, said there is no reason for them paying for structural engineers and the new ones done need them. Margaret will highlight the situation. Alasdair has raised it in a month or two because they are thinking about scraping it. It is £500 to get someone out for Edinburgh to do it. We cannot wait another two months. Spoke to him last week. Timers, Airth’s is not like that they just come on with the street lights. Need to start fundraising. Can apply for funding. Need the information before they can apply for funding. Easter- we have tokens for kids. Needs 16 houses and just print the maps off. We have bought the eggs. Secure the Alpha for Easter Sunday and some of the members are going to come in and do sports with the kids and will have arts and crafts stuff. Recyke a bike as well. Stalls if we can get table top stalls. Tea and coffee to be served at a cost of £1, biscuits and cakes need to be individually wrapped

- Chair

No update posted an update on the capital spend on Facebook they have painted the library there is a wall owned by Scottish power it is the substation. See if they could get the paint and paint it themselves. Imagine the safest thing is to ask Scottish power.

- Secretary (including correspondence)

Nothing out of the ordinary to report, all participate in responding to correspondence/messages.

- Treasurer

£40 paid to minute taker, £234 on the dog waste campaign leaving total £1,152. 61 in the bank. We had £817.75 left from the Arnold Clark money which is ring fenced as community gifts/foods grant.