Minutes of meeting - September 2025
Kettlethorpe Parish Council
Minutes of the meeting of the Parish Council held on Tuesday 9th September 2025
in Kettlethorpe Village Hall
PRESENT:
Cllr C Turner
Cllr R Elliott,
Cllr C McGowan
Cllr R Barnard
Cllr P Bussoopun
Cllr T O’Callaghan
Mr G Cleworth, Clerk
MINUTES OF THE LAST MEETING
The Minutes of the meeting held on 14h July 2025 had not been received by a number of councillors. The Clerk was asked to send these out and ask councillors to email their agreement to the contents.
The Clerk was asked to revert back to the old practice of sending out minutes shortly after each meeting rather than shortly before the next meeting.
PROGRESS REPORTS
Emergency plan
There had been no progress. It was decided to make the role of co-ordinator the subject of a flyer and to make an approach to a possible candidate unofficially. The item will be omitted from agendas until after the flyers have been delivered.
Cemetery
Rewilding: Cllr Barnard and Mrs Brownlow were gathering seeds and plug plants. Planting out will be deferred until Spring 2026 when the plants will be ready for planting in situ. The item will be omitted from future agendas until Spring 2026. The Clerk will diarise and provide Cllr Barnard with contact details for All Round Gardens to enable him to advise when work will commence and which areas are not to be mown.
Treatment of Fenton residents:
The Chair had not received any information from Fenton PC as to which option they favour. He will chase D/Cllr Pilgrim.
Issues with performance of Parish Council
The Chair had authored a response to the issues advised to the last meeting and had circulated this to councillors and the Clerk before sending to Mr C Smith. Mr Smith attended the meeting and thanked the Chair for her efforts.
Mr Smith also offered to take up the vacancy among councillors. The Clerk was instructed to prepare the necessary paperwork.
The discussion turned to ways in which the residents can be better informed of the Council’s work and the Council can implement ideas which have been discussed but not progressed in the past.
Speeding:
Cllr O’Callaghan asked if consideration could be given to utilising funds currently held in contingency funds to fund the acquisition of speed warning signs. The Clerk felt that contingency funds would not completely meet costs and highlighted potential issues if the contingency funds were needed for their original purpose but not there.
The costs of suitable equipment and any available grant funding will be investigated. The Clerk will investigate grants from LCC road safety partnership.
The monthly Police activity report details the apprehension of speeding motorists and the figures will be included in future Minutes.
Use of funds received via the Precept:
It was decided that in the run-up to the setting of our Precept, we will produce a year to date financial report for insertion in Minutes.
Use by Council of social media:
This was felt to be useful for publicity, but not for addressing issues whether raised by the Council or a parishioner. The Chair will draft a proforma social media comments answer, directing the poster to the correct methods for addressing issues/making comments.
Village Hall
Cllr Elliott had received notification of cluster meetings being organised by the umbrella organisation for village halls. He will forward this to Mrs S Wilcox and Mr A straw and will attend this year. meeting himself. The Clerk advised the meeting that he had not received an invoice from the Hall for our room hire
Flower troughs
Cllr Barnard had been in contact with Zena’s Nosh cafe, who expressed a wish to sponsor two flower troughs on the Torksey Lock boundary with Laughterton. He had advised that we were considering removing the troughs as they were rotten. He had said that an alternative would be heavy duty deep plastic troughs. This was acceptable to Zena’s, who would pay for them. Due to the prolonged dry weather this year, it had been decided not to plant up the troughs this year.
Jubilee Park
RoSPA safety report:
This had been received and circulated to Councillors. The Clerk had produced a precis of the findings. The meeting had no inclination to undertake action on many of these, whilst others had already been rectified. The outstanding items were:
(a) the fencing was decaying and some of the mesh is loose
(b) there is shrinkage to the wet pour tarmac in the slide/climbing frame area
The Clerk was asked to consult RoSPA regarding signage advising users that they do so at their own risk.
The big gate padlock is faulty and Cllr Barnard will obtain a replacement.
It was decided to sweep the pathway from Home Farm Close to Main Road and ask All Round Gardens to weedkiller in Spring.
CORRESPONDENCE
Correspondence for June/July to date had been circulated to all councillors
copy of Clerks & Councils Direct had been received by post
letter from LCC re local government reorganisation
anonymous letter from “A Resident” regarding dogs barking. As there is no indication of the address of writer, which village this refers to or which village this refers to, the meeting concluded that we could not offer a response.
PLANNING
There were no new applications.
It was decided to post a minute on the website outlining the outcome of previous applications. This will be linked to the WLDC planning department.
FINANCE
The payment of the following invoices for April were agreed by the Council:
already paid: HSBC monthly charge £8.00; All Round Gardens £262 & £85; F5 Computing £42.88; RoSPA inspection fee £120.
Clerk – PAYE AND SALARY for July & August
Accounts to the end of July: income £12983.96; expenditure £6735.33; balance £16935.39
Accounts to the end of August: income £13006.99; expenditure £7466.09; balance £16227.66
These were agreed and accepted by the meeting
The salary increase figures for 2025/26 were available. The Chair will forward these to the Clerk, who will process the arrears from April 2025.
ITEMS FOR DISCUSSION
(a) The Clerk asked for authorisation to purchase a wreath for Remembrance Day. This was agreed.
(b) The Christmas lights switch on was set for Sunday 7th December. Arrangements were started.
(c) It was decided to hold a Christmas window decorations / lights competition this year.
(d) The Clerk asked if we would be distributing a leaflet calling for consideration with firework displays this year. This was rejected, but an appeal will be displayed on the website.
(e) The Clerk asked for authority to purchase minutes of work from LALC to assist with website posting. This was agreed.
(f) It was decided not to stage a conker competition this year.
(g) The Clerk had received a letter from LCC about a survey on local government reorganisation. He has the link available to councillors wishing to take on the survey.
(h) The Clerk advised the meeting that he was away from 9th December, which is the date of the December meeting. He asked if this meeting could be moved forward to 2nd December. This was agreed and he will approach Mrs S Wilcox, using 16th December as a reserve date.
(I) Cllr Elliott had been advised that the batteries used for our defibrillator were becoming difficult to access and outdated. He will obtain prices for the next meeting.
DATE OF NEXT MEETING
The next Meeting will take place in Kettlethorpe Village Hall on 14th October 2025 at 7pm.
The Chair closed the meeting at 8.45pm.