Minutes of Committee Meeting held on Wednesday 27th July 2016

The meeting was held at 21 William Price Gardens at 8.00pm. Those present were: John Saunders, Deana Tarrant, Ray Marsh, Madeleine Lindsell, Steve Lindsell, Micheal Zeffertt

Apologies: Paul Johnson

1. Minutes of last meeting held on 15.06.2016

Minutes of meeting agreed and adopted.

2. Matters arising

John forwarded new residents email addresses to Paul for email Group list.-action closed.
Steve has submitted an article re burglar alarms – action closed.
Action: Steve to send email to Paul to check the email address link within the burglar alarm article, it seems to be edited. Or add a note to website to advise of the full website address.
Deana to add this site visit report to the main site visit report list and also send copy to Paul – action closed.
Action ongoing -John has not written to Harrison Road School to secure the AGM date for end of September, should not be a problem , he will undertake first day back for the school.
Paul drafted an email to FirstPort about the Account preparation fee and emailed to the Committee, it was then forwarded to FirstPort – action closed.

3. Treasurer’s Report

Balance to date £2041.37

£8.99 petty cash

+ £1.00 cash -membership for 6months only

Ray advised, last year we had 82 Members, Now we have 68 members – this covers 32 Houses.

Website expenses, hosting and rental costs have been submitted by Paul Johnson. – action closed.

4. Audit Fees (Paul to Lead)

Paul was not at the meeting, John advised an email was sent to FirstPort querying the increased audit fees and FirstPort responded advising the Accounts preparation fee is paid to FirstPort to cover some of their cost to employ an in house accountant. Audit fees are paid to an external firm of accountants who provide independent review of the service charge accounts.

5. Parking (John to Lead)

Following an email request from Mike Purden to John regarding inconsiderate and unsafe parking opposite their driveways, John is reviewing parking options. The inconsiderate parking, particularly on a Saturday, is making it difficult to get their cars from their own driveway. The ultimate option is to request resident only parking for the whole estate. This would alleviate the problem with the Fedex vans parked at the top of WPG for example.

FBC have advised that it is not their policy to introduce anymore resident parking permit areas.

There are 4 parking problems on the William Price Estate:

Weekend and evening parking that so blights the lives of those at the bottom of the Estate;
All day parking bay hogging by non residents;
Dangerous / Inconsiderate parking on corners and the cut through to Harrison Rd;
Fedex – parking of 2 Fedex vehicles at the top of William Price Gardens.

John obtained the following costings on Residents Parking Permits: cost £40 per annum or £75 for 2 years providing parking for 2 nominated cars and £10 worth of all day car parking tickets per annum for guests. Additional guest parking £1/day 50p for half day ( sold in £10 packets).

Timings vary throughout the neighbourhood but all are Mon – Sat, suggest we would request 8am – 5pm. If a resident does not wish to participate, there are no costs.

13 households asked so far at the bottom of William Price Gardens have all said they would support a petition for Residents Parking Permits. A proposal can be made to the Council who would then carry out a public consultation.

The Residents Association needs to indicate the majority want the Resident Parking Permits on the Estate. Coghlan and Poyner Close do not seem to be affected by the inconsiderate parking, but need to take the best action for the whole Estate.

John is proposing that the Residents Association push for the whole estate, including laybyes to have residents permit parking and canvass the level of support.

It was suggested this was brought up at the AGM as an item when there is a quorum and we can receive feedback on this item.

6. AGM Preparation

Action: Deana to add the Agenda item ‘Parking’ and ‘AGM Preparation’ and ‘Contact at FirstPort’ for the next Committee Meeting.

7. A.O.B

John attended the Site Visit with Sarah Wareham on 14.7.16.

Dead timber (fire risk) on estate side of the boundary with No 19 Harrison Rd. Sarah has written to the resident and the timber will be removed and costs will be collected from 19 Harrison Rd.
Replaced galvanised strips on hitching rail at the top of the estate
Fence repair looks good – needs vertical palings next time, not cheap fencing panels.
Hedges – requested costs to trim all hedges dramatically in width, £1600 was quoted but this does not define the specification, how thin and where. John agreed it could be done in 3 phases, and requested they should be cut back to no more than 6ft from the wall and clear up the ivy with a more detailed breakdown of costs. Reseeding the grass in March or September to achieve best results establishes the time table with the earliest opportunity being march 2017. This will be an AGM item to establish whether the AGM are content with this additional expenditure.
Ref the bin fire – Insurance will pay for a tree survey in that area and any action required.
Hedges that are unevenly trimmed, started to tidy these up.