Service updates

April 2024 Minutes

Last updated

24 Jun 2024

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 Minutes

Throsk Community Council Meeting

7pm Tuesday 9 April 2024 Throsk Community Centre

  1. Present: Jimmy Morton (JM) Chair, Bernard Reynolds (BR) Secretary, Fiona McKenzie (FM), Councillor Margaret Brisley, (CMB), Hamish Taylor (HM) Lib Dem Candidate visitor, Robert Fleming Roads Maintenance Officer (RF), Yvonne Dickson (YD) Minute Taker
  2. Apologies: Police, Ian Corlett, Paul Ginandrea (PG) Throsk Community Enterprise William Liddell (WL)
  3. Welcome: (JM) The chair welcomed everyone to the meeting. This is a very strange meeting as our treasurer, Helen Yuill, sadly passed away 18 March 2024. Helen was one of the founder members and a good friend she started on 18 March 2008. There will be financial things to sort out in the near future.
  4. Minutes of Previous Meeting 12 March 2024: Proposed (BR) Seconded (FM)
  5. Matters arising: (JM) mentioned the Observer has been printing notes of the meetings over the last few weeks. (BR) Cleaning up the village by volunteers was discussed and RF said he would look into this issue of council bags and where and when they are picked up.
  6. Police Report: N/A no report sent through. We have an email address for the police if there are any serious issues we wish to make.
  7. Roads Maintenance Officer report (RF) – the legislation re marker post - coming in from the Stirling side there is a bend it is 30mph. There are no markers on the Falkirk side (this is a 40mph) and drivers and trucks don’t slow down. He discussed national markers and said that Throsk should be a 40mph and it is currently 30mph and nationally this is deemed to be adequate. The speeding problem is a police issue and should be discussed with them. (FM) children are crossing the road for a school bus, there is no crossing, no patrol or any facilities to help them. (JM) This is a main road with a lot of heavy traffic and Lorries. (BR) There is a zebra crossing at the industrial estate. If there were traffic lights this would help and possibly slow the traffic down. (CMB) doesn’t see the need for traffic lights and asks where the crossing is and how far the children are having to walk to cross the road. JM some of the children need to walk from the other end of the village. Collapsed Drains: (RF) Action - said these are an issue and he will take this back to the team as he is prepared to come and check these out. (CMB) This has been going on for quite some time now and we need a date when this will happen. (RF) would hope this can be done during the summer. There will be disruption due to this. RF and JM will go out for a walk to look at this issue, RF will check his diary and get back to JM to arrange a time and date. (HT) asked why this is so bad, is it the weather or what? (RF) suggested it may be due to the fact that it hasn’t stopped raining since November, the water ratio is up and it saturates the ground. (HT) did a road safety report in Dollar when he was on the CC there in the past. It is very worrying about children crossing the roads and if there are potholes vehicles will swerve to miss these and it can become a safety issue. (RF) stated safety checks are done monthly.

 

 

  1. Councillors Report: MB wanted to express her sadness at the passing of your treasurer and a good friend in the community Helen Yuill. She will be sorely missed as a long-time advocate and friend. Budget – The Freeze in council tax - the Scottish Government would fund it but this came with commitments and actually meant a cut to our core funding’s. - The financial situation is dire. Although we got 5% from the government, we would only get this if we met specific commitments. We received the settlement at the end of December unfortunately it was worse than our finance officers had predicted. Services: All the Heads of Services were instructed by the Chief Exec to identify non-statutory services provided. These options were not through choice and elected members were just as unhappy. The final budget agreed had many cuts to services that will affect the community. Community consultation was good this year. We did manage to avoid closing libraries but there are £100, 00:00 savings spread over all of them. We will face the same issues next year and therefore need to look at leaner ways to run the services. Cowie and Plean are looking at taking over their own facilities and this may be a way forward, we will consult with people and see if they can offer suggestions. All the budget cuts are online, there are some amendments that were put forward with a little saving. The Chief Executive and Chief Officer are going to ensure these changes will go ahead. Most of the savings are with staff but our staff are important – the workforce will reduce by around 160 posts - we have a no-compulsory redundancy policy at the council at the current time and we may need to revisit this. Now we can offer VS, non-filling of posts and staff redeployment. There is a 6% increase in the rent for 2024/25 as supported by the consultation with tenants. Action: CMB will take up some of the issues from the previous meetings. Enquiries: All enquiries must go through the corporate mailbox for audit purposes and to ensure these emails are being tracked and actioned.
  2. Throsk Community Enterprise: N/A
  3. Co-opt new members: A discussion was held around co-opting new members. Everyone agreed that we should co-opt for new members and hopefully get interest prior to the AGM in May 2024. Action (JM) will get in touch with Stephen Bly to ensure we are carrying out the correct process.
  4. Planning: N/A
  5. Any other Competent Business: N/A

 

Next meeting will be the AGM to be held 7pm Tuesday 14 May 2024 Throsk Community Centre