Beckham East and West Parish Council

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Draft Minutes of East and West Beckham Parish Council
Meeting Held remotely by Zoom on Thursday 28th May 2020

Present.
Cllrs. R. McNeil Wilson, (chairman),G. Place, D. Barrass, R. Batt, J. Dovey, K. Lord, T. Toyn.
County Cllr. S. Butikofer. Dist Cllr. P. Butikoffer one member of the public J.Stibbons(clerk)

The chairman opened the meeting at 7.02pm, and welcomed everyone to the first Zoom meeting of
Beckham parish council.

1. There were no Apologies

2. There were no comments or questions from members of the public.

3.There were no declarations of interest.

4. The minutes of the meeting held on Thursday 12th March 2020, having been previously circulated, it was proposed by Cllr. Batt they should be confirmed as correct. This was seconded by Cllr. Dovey and carried.
The chairman will sign the minutes at a later date.

5. Matters arising from the Minutes Pictures of the new village sign for West Beckham were shown. The sign is ready to be delivered but the post may not fit the existing R,S.J`s. It was suggested that the base fitting was needed in order to make the necessary adjustments. The chairman agreed that the sign could be stored at Rookery Farm.

6. Reports from County and District Councillors.
Dist Cllr. P. Botikofer. To assist in the Coronavirus lock down eleven hubs were set up to give advice and help with supplies to the isolated population. These have now been reduced to three, being North Walsham, Sheringham and Fakenham.
Emergency phones are still active but all toilets and car parks have been shut.
A discretionary fund has been set up to help businesses that have not had help so far.
Count Councillor S. Butikofer There is a shortfall of £19 million at the moment. £4 million have been spent on personal protection equipment (PPE).
A consultation is underway to determine the route of the Northern Distributor Link.
The widening of pavements in some towns is being considered to help with social distancing.
Most shops have received grants from central government to help with business rates.
Track and Trace. Councils will have authority to put in place local lock-downs if needed.
Shops should be opening from 15th June. Beach huts can be used but chairs must be kept off the promenade to allow for social distancing. There will only be three lifeguards in the North Norfolk district at present.

7. Covid 19
Report from Mel ClarkeWe have had contact with 336 villagers (some in same house, so that is people not houses).
207 in Bodham, 15 in Lower Bodham, 1 in Gresham, 25 in East Beckham, 89 in West Beckham

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Demands have been steady throughout, there has been no slow down as yet.  We are covering Prescription collection from Holt, Boots, Cromer and Aldborough.  Weekly shopping and general calls to check up on people.
Through our calls, we picked up on an elderly gentleman who had a fall and was on his floor for over 24 hours, got him Social Services help and he is now back home and we are supporting him by cooking food, shopping and prescriptions.
To date we have covered 206 actual shopping/prescription calls.  The volunteers have been absolutely fantastic, particularly my own daughter Kerri and Roger and Fiona Ward, they have consistently done the very large shops, which have at times been really stressful.
To date we have spent £9.88 of the money given to us.  This is exclusively for the ones who use our account to pay for their shopping and then do a payment over the phone.  We get charged 2.5% of each transaction.  We only have one person using this means.
I am concerned that some of the people we are currently supporting are going to rush out when lock down eases and end up catching the virus.  We have only had a couple of cases in the villages to my knowledge and both recovered.  One actually caught it when she was taken to hospital for an existing problem!
This whole thing has highlighted that there are several people in the villages who need help all the time.  It is my intention to continue supporting those on our list for as long as they need us.
As an additional aside to the support group, over the weeks I put out requests for various things, wool, material, cotton and buttons among them.  As a direct result of these donations, to date we have been able to complete:
90 Laundry Bags
205 Covid Heart Pairs
373 Ear Guards
41 Scrub Hats
4 Complete sets of Scrubs
9 Blankets (For care homes)
21 Face masks
Some of the villagers have been helping with these, they do a few which makes them feel that they are helping.
We have four more sets of scrubs in the process and two more Scrub Tunics.
For small villages I think that this is a phenomenal effort.
The parish council sent Mrs Clarke their best wishes and thanks.

8. Solar Community Fund Committee
Cllrs. Wilson and Dovey are to have a meeting with Felbeck Trust at the West Beckham allotments on 1st July.
East Beckham common is looking good with a marvellous display of Bluebells in the early spring.
The leaflets giving details of walks within the parishes are going out very quickly and more need to be produced.
Work is underway on the noticeboard giving details of the part played during the war by the RAF in West Beckham.
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9. Playing Field. A guide price of the cost of replacing the fence at the Playing field was £
It was agreed to obtain further quotations to be presented at the next meeting.

10. Certificate of Exemption from a full Annual Audit. It was by Cllr. Place that the application for
exemption from a full audit should be approved. This was seconded by Cllr. Barrass and approved

11. Financial matters.
Bank Balances at 28/5/2020 Current a/c £13288.77 Savings a/c £12167.05

The following invoices have been paid during the lock-down:-
Mrs M Clarke (Covid 19 volunteer group) all members agreed by email £200
NALC Subscription £139.54
Mrs M. Clarke (Covid 19 volunteer group)To be refunded by grant £500
J. Stibbons Salary and expenses £595.25
HMRC PAYE £122.80

12. Overgrown Trees in Old Church Yard, W. Beckham
Branched need cutting back and weeds need strimming in the old churchyard at West Beckham but the Parochial Church Council has no money. It was pointed out that this work should be undertaken by the church not the Parish Council.
The councillors agreed to give a donation of £100 as a one-off payment to cover this cost of the work for this year only.

13. There was no Correspondence

14. Matters for information only or for the next agenda.
Agenda items for the next meeting are Village sign and Playing field fence.

It was agreed that the next Beckham parish council meeting would be held on Thursday 16th July 2020 not the 9th July as previously advertised.

There being no further business the chairman closed the meeting at 8.26pm.