{"id":6115,"date":"2019-04-23T08:29:57","date_gmt":"2019-04-23T08:29:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/horsington.blog2.idnet.com\/?p=6115"},"modified":"2019-04-23T08:29:57","modified_gmt":"2019-04-23T08:29:57","slug":"parish-council-clarifies-its-role","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/horsington.blog2.idnet.com\/?p=6115","title":{"rendered":"Parish Council clarifies its role"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Horsington Parish Council exists to care for local amenities within the parish and to represent our community\u2019s interests to South Somerset District Council and beyond.<\/strong>\u00a0 In common with other town and parish councils across the country, councillors are elected on a four-yearly basis if sufficient candidates stand.\u00a0 Horsington Parish Council comprises seven councillors.\u00a0 For the upcoming election in May 2019, only seven candidates are standing and so all will automatically be elected unopposed.\u00a0 Parish councillors are unpaid and work entirely on a voluntary basis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each councillor must, by law,\nregister personal interests which may influence their decision making.  A register of councillor\u2019s interests can be\nfound on the South Somerset District Council website.  Additionally, councillors are required to\ndeclare any interests related to any agenda item at the start of each meeting;\nwhere a conflict of interests could exist, councillors are required to leave\nthe room whilst that agenda item is discussed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Parish Council meets on\nthe second Thursday of each month at 7.30pm at Horsington Village Hall.  An agenda is posted to the noticeboards in\nHorsington and South Cheriton, and to the Parish Council website, in advance of\neach meeting.  Each meeting commences\nwith a Public Forum \u2013 an opportunity for anyone to formally communicate views\nor raise issues to the council.  There is\nno need to provide advance notice that you are coming however, if you do let\nthe Clerk know, he will normally notify the Chair and\/or other councillors to\nensure the council is prepared.  Please\nnote that, in most circumstances, views or issues raised in the Public Forum will\nbe noted but won\u2019t be debated there and then \u2013 if there is a need for debate\nthis will be added to a future agenda to advise other parishioners and allow\nthem to register their views.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Parish Council\u2019s work\nincludes looking after our community amenities including the play area, the\nwildlife pond, the churchyard and cemetery. \nThe Parish Council works hard to ensure that these are safe and well\nmaintained \u2013 this involves working with contractors for things like grass\ncutting and tree surgery, ensuring all the appropriate insurances and\npermissions are in place, arranging safety inspections and liaising with\nmultiple parties when administering the cemetery.  The Parish Council also undertakes a number\nof other activities including working with other organisations to ensure that\nfootpaths are clear and well maintained, helping ensure that problems with the\nhighways are reported and ensuring that grit bins are topped up for the winter\nmonths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Parish Council also has a\nrole in the planning process.  The\ncouncil objectively reviews all applications made within the parish and, taking\nviews received from parishioners into account, makes comments to South Somerset\nDistrict Council.  The Parish Council has\nno decision-making authority and can only make comments based on valid planning\nconsiderations \u2013 there are a surprising number of aspects which do not form\nlegally admissible considerations!  South\nSomerset District Council may or may not choose to incorporate the Parish\nCouncil comments into their planning decision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Parish Council is funded\nlargely through the precept \u2013 the part of your council tax that comes to the\nparish.  The precept funds the grass\ncutting & tree surgery, pays the Clerk\u2019s wages and covers insurances,\nmemberships, inspections, accountancy etc. as required by law.  The Parish Council does not aim to build a\nsurplus and, with the exception of a small fund that is used to clear the silt\nfrom the pond on a two to three yearly basis, the precept is generally spent\nwithin the financial year.  A small\namount of funding is also obtained from the sale of cemetery plots \u2013 this represents\na very small part of the budget.  Larger\nprojects, such as the rejuvenation of the wildlife pond or the replacement play\nequipment, are funded through grants. \nThe Parish Council applies to South Somerset District Council, local\nbusiness or other community groups for any such grants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Financial accounts, meeting\nagendas, meeting minutes and other documents as required by law can be found on\nour website (kindly provided by the Horsington Village Hall Committee): http:\/\/horsingtonvillagehall.co.uk\/?page_id=99<\/strong>.  This site is linked from the South Somerset\nDistrict Council website or can also be found by Googling \u2018Horsington Parish\nCouncil\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Parish Council is keen to\nensure that our community is represented effectively, so if you have views or\nissues that you feel have been overlooked please let us know or come along to a\nPublic Forum \u2013 you\u2019ll be very welcome!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

April 2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Horsington Parish Council exists to care for local amenities within the parish and to represent our community\u2019s interests to South Somerset District Council and beyond.\u00a0 In common with other town and parish councils across the country, councillors are elected on a four-yearly basis if sufficient candidates stand.\u00a0 Horsington Parish Council comprises seven councillors.\u00a0 For the … Continue reading “Parish Council clarifies its role”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2757],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6glYD-1AD","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/horsington.blog2.idnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/horsington.blog2.idnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/horsington.blog2.idnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/horsington.blog2.idnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/horsington.blog2.idnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6115"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/horsington.blog2.idnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6115\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6116,"href":"http:\/\/horsington.blog2.idnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6115\/revisions\/6116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/horsington.blog2.idnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/horsington.blog2.idnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/horsington.blog2.idnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}