2025 Annual Parish Meeting

Minutes of the Annual Parish Meeting held on the 7 May 2025

at 7.00 p.m. in Lawrance Park Social Room, Thurlby

Present:

Councillors:  N Bradley, S Broadbent, H Daines, (presiding) L Day, P Haley, B Gunner, M Keene, L Lowe, and A Thomas

Residents:   R Rose. C Murrant, C Jarmen, J Stevenson, Rev C Bailey

Others: B M Champness (clerk). Former County Cllr Robert Reid, District Cllr B Dobson

I am Hayley Daines, and it is my honour to be Chair of the Parish Council.. I would like to take this opportunity of thanking all the Councillors for their help and support throughout the year.

Thank you for coming here tonight and I hope that you ask questions on any matter that we dealt with over the last year.

We held 10 ordinary meetings during the year and did not have to call any special meetings to deal with planning applications.

I am delighted to say that after years of us trying to get a crossing in place at the Thurlby crossroads this happened, and the new crossing is now in place. We would like to give our thanks to Councillors Barry Dobson and Robert Reid for their efforts in helping to make this happen. We should also like to thank the County Council for funding this as we had been advised that we. might have to make a financial contribution. Thankfully we did not have to.

We have also had a new noticeboard installed by the Post Office. This is a community noticeboard and not just for the Parish Council.

With regard to planning matters we have had the usual plans for house improvements but nothing that has been too contentious. We did receive a plan from the County Council regarding the matter of a quarry being opened on land near Greatford. The plan had been approved with a condition that work could not be started until Kind Street had been widened. The Applicant then applied to work to start on putting the infrastructure in place but not to start anu quarrying work. We opposed this application, and we recently learned that the application was not successful. 

When a planning application is received we are given 21 days in which to respond. Applications can be lodged with the District Council at any time so we have no idea when they might arrive which can cause us some concern as we might not be able to deal with the matter at the next meeting or the plans arrive after the agenda has been sent out. It is because of this that we might have had to call a special meeting.

Our council meetings are generally held on the first Wednesday of the month with the exception of January and August when we take a break unless a special meeting is called for urgent matters that call for our immediate consideration, such as planning permissions. Any member of the public can attend our meetings and there is an open forum of fifteen minutes duration prior to the council session. Last year we had people taking an active part in voicing their concerns about certain items.

This year we are pleased to have been able to support and help the celebration of D Day. This was a great success, and we would like to thank Cllr Lisa Lowe and her committee for arranging and organising the event.

We still employ a Litter Picker who walks around the village 4 times a month to pick up other peoples discarded waste, and we think she does a very good job. 

Our thanks go to the volunteers who look after the planters around the village.  They look splendid all year but at this time of year they looker really pretty

We employ someone to supplement the grass cutting of the verges which is usually done by either the County or District Council. The verges are cut 3 times a year but this is we feel inadequate so this man can be seen cutting the verges in between the cuts done by the County or District. This keeps the verges looking neat and tidy

Every month Cllr Richard Bill collects data from the reactive sign which he places around the village at different locations throughout the year. The data is reported to the Council and details are placed on our website.

The Christmas tree was up and shining brightly. We hope it gives everyone a welcome as they approach the heart of the village during December.

I would like to record my thanks to all my fellow Councillors for giving up their time and attending the meetings during the year.. I would also like to thank our Clerk for his help and support.

Hayley Danies

        SUMMARY of Receipt and Payments Account for the year

                          Ending the 31st March 2025

Explanation of payments and receipts

+ The cost of General admin and staff has been amended to show separately the payment to empty the waste bins and for the cost of cutting the grass verges. (the latter being a new payment in this financial year)

++  the grants given were to Village Link, Odd’unns , Royal Life Saving Group and Royal British Legion

+++ We purchased the new noticeboard by the Post Office which cost £1878.75

It has been a great pleasure with the mutual respect we have all had over the past 8 years, representing you all by The Conservative Administration.

I have had consent to document the highways future programme for improvements and repairs and indeed the budgets, in the recognition of where you all stand. It has taken a lot of effort to have provided the pelican crossing and many other improvements and repairs along the way. This forward thinking was not there when I took over back in 2017.Neither was the now Fix my Street web site portal. Can I remind you all this is the best place to record and date highways issues, it gives a platform for your county councillor to take up issues in progress or needing further address.

30/07/24 - Senior Highways Officer had a meeting with the F&W team about the Northorpe area of Thurlby. They are going to investigate all the east-west drainage including culverts and open ditches, with a view of enforcement and possible improvements in the future. We have let them know about the investigation already issued in the area and this will be fed into their work.

16/12/24 - No further update, although options to improve the non-highway surface water drainage are under consideration by the flood risk team.

Obthorpe - Nothing to report-

Thurlby - A15 - Thurlby to Northorpe (Speed limit changes)- 16/12/24 - Update provided by telephone to Cllr Reid. Scheme is currently on hold.

Crown Lane - Parking issues reported outside Thurlby Community Primary Academy-

19/03/25 - Mike Brown to arrange meeting with Jane, deputy head teacher, from the school to discuss options. The car park in question does not form part of the public highway.

High Street (adjacent to Obthorpe Lane Junction) - FPB 4557084- 10/10/23 - Forward Programme Brief is awaiting assessment by Surfacing & Patching team. Noted on brief that works are outstanding following recent resurfacing of other areas. Due to drainage issues, this area was omitted from original works package. Expect drainage issues are now resolved, to monitor over winter before escalating works request with appropriate team. Unable to provide timescales for works.

27/08/24 - No update. Site is being considered for inclusion in the 2026/27 programme year following recent countywide resurfacing scheme prioritisation meeting. Interim period we will monitor as part of our safety & condition inspections and in response to customer enquiries raised.

19/03/25 - In the Highways Forward Programme as a 2027/28 provisional resurfacing scheme - subject to continued funding, network priorities and resource availability.

Budgets.

• Northorpe lane carriageway re surfacing 2027/28
• Bourne Road Footway re surfacing 2027/28
• High Street to Swallow hill 2027/28

I would like to particularly thank Reverend Carolyn Bailey and indeed parishioners for their support to me during my Chairmanship year 23/24 of the County Council.

1. Perhaps a political shift in the leadership of South Kesteven District Council as the Independents, made up of several factions of smaller party factions, such as Liberal Democrats, Labour and a majority of different independent groups. Grouping these various groups together, gave them the majority with 30 councillors in the Chamber. After approximately 9 months following the election, the leadership changed. Cllr Richard Cleaver, Stamford, handed over the role to Cllr Ashley Baxter, Deepings West. This has worked better than many predicted.
2. The leader of the Conservative group introduced the ‘whip’ for all members to vote for devolution. I and a colleague of mine declined and were suspended from the party. I still believe that leaving a single council for the whole of Lincolnshire is not viable because of the subsequent remoteness of local contact.
3. This is why I stood as an Independent at the recent County Council Election – without success. For those who are not aware, the County Councillor for our district, Bourne South and Thurlby, is now a Reform member. I do not know for certain, but the new councillor, Alan Redfern, is not registered in Bourne South or Thurlby. There are no contact details for this councillor as I write this report.
4. The Reform Party now has the majority at LCC with 44 seats in a chamber of 65 members. As there has been no indication as to how Reform will run the Council (there was no dissemination of literature explaining their proposals), we will have to wait and see. My concern is that they were not elected on any definite plan for the county. It is a phenomenon that although the Reform candidate did not post or broadcast their proposals as a councillor in anyway, the vote was cast in favour of Nigel Farage. An interesting but remarkably successful ‘campaign’.
5. At this point, I would like to thank Robert Reid for his support over the last 8 years as my fellow councillor (4 years at County and 8 years at District).
6. During the year, we also discussed the future division of the County of Lincolnshire. Currently, we have two unitary authorities in the north and the county and districts in the south. There are several options as discussed here at Thurlby PC meetings: Divide Lincolnshire into 3: Each to have a population of around 500 thousand. Lincolnshire has 1.1 million eligible voters which would mean a division of two separate councils would appear best for Government approval. The division that is currently favoured is: Unite the two unitaries and divide the rest in two with a line between north and south. This may all change now considering the success of Reform at County.
7. South Kesteven District Council opened a new contact centre in Grantham where residents can visit to discuss matters with officers. Two personal meeting rooms are available for confidential meetings. The office is located two doors down from the cinema and is wheelchair accessible.
8. Support for the markets has increased with additional stalls to be available for budding artists, sculptors or similar and especially young talent. Stamford market in particular is a great opportunity. Unfortunately, the space available in Bourne is restricted, but there are other possibilities that could be discussed to boost visitors to our area.
9. Finally, despite many attempts, the leisure facility in the Deepings, which was closed some three years ago, has been finally handed over to the school to become additional teaching space. The equipment and the building had reached a state that was no longer available to repair. Many councils throughout the country have had to close leisure centres; SKDC is unique in that it still has three centres open and running.
10. We were lucky this year that there was no flooding in our immediate area. We have made a provision to store bags that can be used in an emergency should or rather when the situation occurs again. One of my immediate neighbours has done tremendous amount of work to alleviate the run-off from the field that has previously flooded the local area.

Report to Thurlby Parish Council from St Firmin’s Church May 2025

This is an important year for St Firmin’s because the village has  been worshipping  there for eleven hundred years, meaning that it is older than the Cathedral.

We have a busy year to celebrate beginning with a festival weekend on July 5th and 6th.

St Firmin’s have been busy over the last year, thanks to the committed church family who work so hard not only to manage this beautiful building but to ensure it continues to show the love of God through our worship and service.

We have continued to support the people of the Ukraine through our prayers and by the collections of food, clothing and general supplied who we have sent through Richard Astle and his team. We would like to thank the villagers for their continued support, meaning that each time a convoy is going to the Ukraine it is generously loaded up with our donations.

The church has celebrated the festivals, with a variety of well supported services over Christmas and Easter and remain a place where important events are marked, whether it be as a community, with our remembrances Services and our Gone Too Soon Services or through the life events, such as weddings, baptisms and of course funerals.

We have had some excellent musical concerts which make the most of the churches wonderful acoustics as well as the Refresh Café and a Quiz. We have the Odd’Uns group which supports those who have lost a partner as well as a midweek Home Group.

We are now able to host the visits from the school which has been made much easier by the installation of the new crossing.

Churchyard and Naturehood

The churchyard is a beautiful place, this year we have seen a new hedge laid, and a dead hedge set between the churchyard and cemetery. We continue to have areas that are mown less frequently and are seeing a wonderful diversity of wildflowers. All this takes place with a small but willing hardworking volunteers supported by the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust who have worked on the hedging and the management of the grassland areas. and we would like to thank the Council for their precept and for the Thurlby Causeway Estate Charity for their continued support. The churchyard is well visited and has become a haven for wildlife which has been photographed by Paul Wade and can be seen on the Naturehood Facebook page.

Church Hall

The church hall is now sold subject to contract and while it is a loss to the community, it was in need to too many major repairs for the church to manage. However, the funds from the sale will go towards installing new toilet facilities and a servery in church and will help make the church a much more usable community facility.

The Future

We have a busy year ahead, with the Jazz night on the 8th May, with the Refresh Cafes, supporting the Repair Café’s and Open Gardens, we have a Ladies Choir Concert, the Stamford Stitchers exhibition and the Celebration weekend. This weekend we will of course be marking the 80th Anniversary of VE Day.

Again I would like to thank the village for its continued support.. Revd Canon Carolyn Bailey

An insight into 24/25 at Lawrance Park

Thank you, Lady Chair and Councillors for giving me the opportunity to report on Lawrance Park Recreation Ground & Community Association activity in the year to March 2025.

For this year’s report, I propose to give you an insight into how The Trustees manage the Charity with some focus on finances.

In terms of how we view our operations, we see the cost structure in broadly two sections, The Community Hall and then the Field/Playground. This is because the Community Hall is our main income stream, also the Community Hall is jointly used by the Academy with whom we have a Chance to Share legal agreement.

The fees for the hire of the Community Hall resulted in net proceeds, after Hall costs, of £5437. The total revenue from the Hall was nearly £15,000, with £12,800 coming from our regular hirers – Kids Club being our largest contributor. The casual hiring is only £2,057, an increase of £260 from the previous year – this represents about an extra 5 sessions. On average we have a casual booking in 40 weeks of the year. Although, we might increase casual bookings, we are constrained by the fact that we cannot undertake day bookings on week days: this is because of the Academy usage. This excludes us from taking bookings from the likes of U3A. Ideally, we need to find regular bookings for Monday and Thursday evenings and this will be a focus this coming year. We continue to give all  parishioners booking a 25% discount on the hire rates: we look to this maintain this as long as we can financially afford to do so.

From the Field and Playground side, our costs exceed income by £5,700. These costs are mainly associated with the cutting of grass and maintenance of the park. Last year, the cost of managing the trees was virtually zero, this is usually a biannual cost associated with our arborist inspection: two years ago, tree maintenance cost over £4000. During last year we erected a gate off Chapel Lane for emergency access purposes. We also concreted the area adjacent to the outside toilet. We are thus most grateful to TPC for the grant of £4,000 towards our Field and Playground costs each year: this year reducing the deficit to £1700.

Above this, our own fundraising netted £6,374), primarily raised by the fireworks (£4,700) and Saturday football refreshments (£1400), proceeds from Bingo contributed the balance. Additionally, we also received a donation from The Thurlby Run committee which is a completely separate organisation from Lawrance Park.

During the year we also made the deposit payment for new playground equipment. We commissioned the replacement of the Naseby Tower and the Climbing Frame, both becoming increasingly difficult to maintain and not cost effective to do so. We have replaced the old tower with a new two Tower structure connected by a bridge, a Traversing Forest, and a Monkey frame. The cost of these is £40,000, with more than half the cost in the rubber wet pour. We are most grateful to The Thurlby Causeway Estate Charity for funding this. Alan and I have decided that the new tower is called the Causeway Tower in recognition of their support.

The playground is aging, as is the case with most of our property, many of the trees are also coming to the end of their life: we had to fell sixteen (mainly Cherry) trees two years ago due to disease, also two last year through them dying as a result of soggy ground at the South East corner of the Park. The Field, Hall, Play area are now over 50 years old. The cost of maintaining all these in the future means that the Trustees must be mindful of the cost burden that that will bring.

The policy established by the Trustees many years ago, was that normal trading should cover the day to day running costs of the facilities: all our fundraising would be ring fenced towards maintenance and refurbishment of the Community assets. As Trustees we might be custodians of the assets but the Community own them: it is our job to maintain them for future generations. To this end, the fundraising amount of £6,000 last year has been transferred to our deposit account: this now totals £57,000. We also have money from a Charity Commission Recoupment scheme that can only be spent on the building assets. This leaves us with about £5000 sum in the current account to manage our trading income and expenditure.

Over the past three years we have, installed LED lighting in the Park, refurbished the toilets, and now replaced playground equipment – in total c£90,000. We will always seek grants to support this work and have been successful getting grants for all these cases: If we had not received grants, our reserves would be virtually gone. We are not always successful in our Grant applications, last year alone we had rejections from LNER, Postcode Places Trust, and VCSE Energy Efficiency Scheme: we currently have an approved grant from Tesco. The VCSE rejection was unfortunate due to our Chance to Share Scheme with the Academy impacting our eligibility. We know the heating system is 50 years old and will need replacing soon and it is unlikely we will be able to attract grant funding for it.

Next, I want to touch on our volunteers. All our Trustees are volunteers. Other than the Booking Clerk, not one Trustee receives as much as a penny. The normal processes of attending meetings, secretarial work, treasurer work etc, are understood and accepted as ‘what we signed up for.’ Beyond that though there are many hours put in by volunteers – both Trustees and non-Trustees. This will cover such things as repairing playground equipment, fixing park benches, project management, as well as fund raising.

My own personal estimate is that anywhere between 350 and 400 voluntary hours a year are expended: some of these are skilful jobs: conservatively averaging the rates one could expect to pay for these skills, an average could easily be in the region of £20 an hour: equating to c£7000 per annum. Given the £5700 excess cost of the Park and Playground: the parishes could be argued to benefit c£13000 a year from having the playground and field maintained by LPRG&CA. In most villages the cost of maintaining the facilities would be the responsibility of the Parish Council and on behalf of the parishioners: your continued support through precept, is vital to us in this respect.

Finally, at our AGM last week, we had one member of the public, and she was there to jointly receive the Lawrance Park Cup, alongside Lisa. We know people love the wonderful facility that we have, but we struggle to attract new, younger blood. Hopefully, we hear we might have someone joining us this coming year who fits that bill, and has the passion for Lawrance Park that we all have.

Thank you.

Report Colin Murrant

Thurlby PC AGM

7 May 2025

Thurlby and Northorpe Open Gardens 2025

The first Thurlby and Northorpe Open Gardens event took place in 2002. Since then, this biennial event has grown to become a highlight in our village calendar.

When we heard that Yvonne Scott had decided to step back from the organisation of this event after nearly ten years of sterling work, we waited to see who would take over. And we waited… and we waited…!  Having participated in the last three Open Gardens ourselves we were desperately disappointed that this wonderful community event would come to an end. So from a purely selfish perspective we started to think about taking it on ourselves.

Our first thoughts were that despite not being experienced gardeners ourselves we could probably bring other benefits as organisers. We are both artists, and as retired teachers have organised a range of public events in the past such as university and trade exhibitions, parents evenings and speech days

Whilst this is always a successful weekend and raises money for both churches, we felt there was some room for development by bringing fresh ideas and attractions, thereby offering more diversity of entertainment to visitors and residents, making the Open Gardens an enjoyable experience for everybody in our community.

Initially we looked to find a wider variety of garden styles for our visitors to explore and have been lucky to find a few new participants this year – this means the range of gardens being exhibited have become more diverse and include some very colourful borders, imaginative planting, wildlife areas, a bog garden, a delightful shepherds hut, vegetable patches, statues and water features, along with a recently discovered 18th century well. Not everybody wants to open their garden so we have devised a trail around the village which highlights features of interest in front gardens such as a willow woven fence, cottage garden planting, topiary and displays of potted plants. All these can be admired whilst en route to the open gardens.

 With our own backgrounds and  the contacts that we have, we wanted to expand the Arts and Crafts element. We are lucky to have so many talented residents who will be exhibiting, selling and demonstrating in their gardens. These include wood turning, wool crafts, Felting, Spinning, Stained glass, Handmade Jewellery, ceramics, Paintings, prints, giftware and greetings cards.

Throughout the two days we are planning some performances in the gardens by local musicians. In the hall there will be a display by the Baston, Langtoft and Thurlby Naturehood group and the’ Odduns ’, a group who meet weekly in our village for crafting.There will be the chance to buy some delicious meat, sausages and bacon from our very own village farm – Parkwood Pork.  Lincolnshire Plant Supports will be outside with their beautiful garden accessories too.

We have settled on the theme of garden birds and will be running a’ bird hunt’ competition for the children and a photography competition for adults. Most importantly there is an extensive plant sale which is always a huge attraction. By popular demand, the proceeds from the plant stall will this year be going to the Lincolnshire Air Ambulance which in recent times has served our village so well.

On a practical note, we realised that much of the existing signage is now a bit tatty and in some cases is literally falling apart, so we have bought timber to build new sandwich boards and display boards to put up around the village. To smarten things up we have also bought some new vinyl banners to erect on the A15 at both the Northorpe and Thurlby junctions as well as the entrance to Manthorpe . Here is where we would welcome advice from the Parish Council regarding any restrictions on the siting of these signs.

The purchasing of some display boards for the hall has proven to be difficult as the more reasonable ones are not strong enough for our purpose. However, some existing frames have been recovered with new fabric and will be used to display the village map and information on the day as well allowing space to promote the varied groups and activities which exist in the village.

 Printing costs are also something which we need to take into consideration – as well as 200 garden passports and maps, you will soon be seeing these posters appearing all over the village and surrounding areas. We also need to provide prizes for the competitions and thank you gifts for the exhibitors. This is where your contribution comes in and we cannot thank you enough for your positive response to our application for funds.

In fact we have been bowled over by the support we have been given so far. Hilary Addison has taken on the raffle and has liaised with many local businesses who have kindly donated some big raffle prizes .These include Waterside Garden centre, Munton’s Butchers, Bourne Outdoor pool, Thurlby PO and stores , C&R Plumbing,  Switchserve  and the Horseshoes.  We must mention Pippa Atkins who has devoted hours of her time to grow an amazing array of plants for the plant stall.  Also Yvonne Scott who has become our Open Gardens ‘consultant’!

Of course the highlight of the weekend is always the homemade cakes and refreshments! As usual, fine array of treats will be available in the hall. We have to thank Mary Trumble and Carol Lythgoe and their helpers for again providing this important aspect of the event.

We want to make this weekend accessible for everyone, especially families so with this in mind we are keeping the costs at the same level as 2023, Adults £5 with children free. This is in line with average ticket prices charged nationally for Open Garden events.

So thank you for giving me the opportunity to tell you about our plans and we would like to invite you all to join us on 7th and 8th June. All we need now is the weather….

Thank you.

Charlotte and Phil Jarman