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MINUTES
Meeting Monday 8th January 2024 in the Village Club
Final
Members Present: - Julie Hutchison; Kate Ramsden; Grace Edmonds; Rob Davies;
John Gray; Ian Boardley; Pamela Lee; Andrew Thompson; Eleanor Balfour
In attendance: Councillor Rosemary Fraser SC; Margaret Vass SCDT; Dr Gillian McLean + 2 residents
Apologies: Graeme Kemsley.
(SC = Stirling Council. CC = Community Council. CDT= Community Development Trust * Denotes an action)
1. Welcome from the Chair and declarations of Interest
JH welcomed everybody to the meeting.
There were no declarations of interest.
2. Minutes of December meeting and matters arising.
The minutes had been circulated to all CC members and were accepted. Proposed by IB, seconded by JG.
Matters arising: JH thanked Duff Trees for supplying our lovely Christmas tree, Jonah
Jackson for switching on the lights and The Campsie Crooners for leading the singing at the event. We donated £50 to Strathcarron Hospice. JH also thanked the Wee Spuds Group who put festive lights in some of the flower tubs and Greens for supplying the mince pies.
IB congratulated the members of the CC who ran the event.
JH asked KR to book the Village Club for 6th December 2024.
3. Police Report
Theft
There was a distraction theft/bogus workman incident in Blanefield. An unknown person
purporting to be an employee of Scottish Water gained access to an elderly person’s home and took a quantity of jewellery believed to be high value. Enquiries are ongoing. Please continue to be vigilant and report any suspicious activity.
A number of quad bikes have been stolen from farms in other surrounding villages.
Please continue to report any suspicious vehicle or activity to the police.
Other incidents
Two members of the public reported scam messages/phone calls they have received
purporting to be from the Police/PPI companies. Fortunately, they did not engage with them and terminated the call. Please be mindful of these common types of scams and who you share personal information with.
4. Dr Gillian McLean
Dr McLean joined the meeting to discuss the removal of our district nurses from the local surgery. This is a trial situation but happened with no consultation with the local doctors.
We have written to Forth Valley Health Board regarding this issue and have encouraged local residents to write also. Nobody has had a reply.
The doctors are concerned that our residents are losing out on care. Dr McLean said that in her experience patients do not want to complain.
The nursing team is understaffed, and the nurses are quite junior. Any patient who cannot make the journey to Killearn can ask for a house call. The loss of the treatment room at our surgery means that more people have to ask for house calls, making the system less efficient.
The doctor is no longer available if a nurse in Killearn recommends further treatment.
The patient has to return to the local surgery to access the doctor.
Dr McLean highlighted that historically patients in our area have been able to choose to be referred to a Glasgow hospital for treatment. Now about 1 in 3 referrals are being returned to the doctor to be sent to Forth Valley. The cross-boundary arrangement was agreed many years ago and it is disappointing that it apparently no longer stands.
JG asked when the nurse pilot will end. Dr McLean said it ends next week. She has a meeting with the team after that and will keep us posted.
5. Date for Local Place Plan Group meeting
The date for the group to meet was confirmed as 12th February at 7.0pm in the Reading Room of the Village Club. JG and MV plan to have a pre-meeting this week.
6. Elected Member’s Report - Councillor Rosemary Fraser
The Council held a budget discussion today. The shortfall is substantial. The Government is mitigating the effects of the Council Tax freeze by giving councils 4-5% of the potential increase, so SC will get some extra funding. RF expects the budget discussions to play out over the next few weeks and the full council budget meetings will
take place in late February/early March.
RF said that she is in favour of asset transfers in some instances, but these are only successful if communities buy into them.
JH said that we need to push to keep buses and libraries. RF agreed and said that rural areas need more buses, not fewer. She pointed out that not all of the buses are subsidised by the council and they have no control over commercial ones.
7. Planning and Licensing
JG reported that there were no new applications of interest this month.
23/00450/FUL: 8 houses Land 625M East of Auchencraig, Strathblane. JH reminded JG that there is an appeal over the refusal of permission for this application. JG said that we only need to respond to this if we want to add any points.
23/00692/FUL: dwelljng house 35M East of Craig Barton, Old Mugdock Road. JG informed the members that he has filed comments on this application.
8. Finance
The account stands at £4519.19p. This includes a donation of £120 pounds from a resident for the BVB and £82 from the Christmas lights switch on. PL has not yet received the donations that were made via Apple Pay.
PL has not yet received an invoice from Duff Trees.
We plan to organise a different bank this month.
9. Correspondence
Cheryl Plane from SC’s Resilience Team has said that she will arrange a meeting with GE and JH later this month. GE will email her to ask for possible dates.
10. AOCB
A former member of the CC, Finlay Fountain, has died.
Members of the CC will meet at JG’s house on January 18th at 6.0pm to join a webinar course about being a Community Councillor run by the Open University on behalf of SC.
12. Date of next meeting
February 5th, 2024
Copy date for the BVB 19th January 2024
Contact us at contact@strathblanecc.org.uk Also on our website www.strathblanecc.org.uk. Telephone numbers for Community Councillors are
on the notice boards, in the library and in the Blane Valley Bulletin