Parish Councillor Responds To Lost-Property Notice Posted After Two-Hour Verge Debate

The writer has served on the parish council for eleven years and is a retired chartered surveyor. He has lived in the parish for thirty-four years.

On the Thursday after September's parish council meeting, an index card was pinned to the noticeboard by the bus shelter. It read, in block capitals: "LOST. One sense of perspective. Last seen at the parish meeting, Tuesday 8th September. If found, please hand in at the village hall."

It was not signed. I have a fair idea who wrote it, and I will not speculate. But as the only member of the council who spoke at any length that evening, I think I am entitled to assume it was meant for me, and to reply.

Thirty-One Point Four Metres

Item 7(b) on the agenda was the verge maintenance schedule. Since 2019 the council's contractor has cut the parish verges on a twenty-one-day cycle from April to October. I proposed that one verge, the stretch of Church Lane approaching the bus shelter, should move to a fourteen-day cycle.

I did not bring this forward lightly. Over the summer I measured the verge with my own wheel. It is 31.4 metres long. On a three-week cycle the grass reaches roughly nineteen centimetres before it is cut, and at that height it begins to affect the sight line for a driver pulling out of the lane. I photographed it at weekly intervals with a ruler in shot. There were eleven photographs. I had them laminated, because loose prints get passed round and come back out of order.

The additional cost is £70 a year. People have since made a great deal of how small that figure is. My point exactly. If the council cannot settle a £70 question properly, I do not know what it is for.

On The Question Of Time

I accept the item took a while. It was opened at 7.52pm and the vote was taken at 10.06pm. The hall is booked until ten, and the caretaker was kind enough to wait. I have thanked him by letter.

But the length of a debate is a function of the questions asked in it, and questions were asked. A colleague suggested the matter could be left to the contractor's judgement. I asked what judgement a contractor could exercise over a schedule he was paid to follow. The Chairman moved twice to close the debate. On the second occasion I challenged his ruling, as Standing Orders permit, and that challenge had to be heard and voted on before we could return to the substance. None of that was my doing. It was the procedure.

I also requested a recorded vote. There is nothing unusual about that. The motion fell four to one, and the minutes will show who voted which way. People are entitled to know.

The 2019 Minutes

At around half past eight I asked the Clerk to read out the minute from 2019 in which the twenty-one-day cycle was adopted. I felt the council should hear exactly what it had agreed and why.

The minute records that the change was proposed in the interests of prudence, and that the proposer was me. I have never hidden this. Prudence was the right call in 2019, when the precept was under pressure and the verge on Church Lane was not a verge I had any particular reason to look at. Circumstances change. Since 2022, I have looked at it most days, as it is the verge outside my house.

The Clerk asked during the meeting whether I wished to declare an interest. I did not, because none applies. The interests regime covers money, and I stand to make nothing out of shorter grass. Being able to see a problem from your front window does not disqualify you from raising it.

What Was Deferred

Items 8 to 12 were held over to October. I regret that. Item 8 concerned the playground, where one of the swings has been taped off since July because of a worn chain. A resident had come specifically for that item, and I understand she left at around a quarter past nine. I would have been glad to hear from her.

But a council that rushes one item to reach the next has simply chosen which item to do badly. I would rather we did each of them properly, in the order the agenda sets out.

Next Month

Since the notice appeared I have written to the Clerk. The noticeboard is for parish business, and notices on it are supposed to be approved by the Clerk before they go up. This one was not. I have asked for it to be taken down and for the question of unauthorised notices to be added to the October agenda.

I have asked for it to be taken early in the evening, so that it does not hold up the swing.