Chairs Report - 14 July 2021
GRAINTHORPE PARISH COUNCIL
Chairman’s Report – Cllr. Richard Drinkel - 14th July, 2021
You may or may not be aware, that last year, we were unable to hold an Annual Parish Meeting, this was entirely due to Covid. We were advised in March 2020 to stop face to face meetings and we had to find an alternative way to hold the ‘normal’ Parish Council meetings. We opted to hold meetings via the ‘Zoom App’ which most of our Councillors were able to attend. We did not hold an Annual Parish meeting.
We started 2019/20 with Cllr Pridgeon as our Chair and two new Councillors. During the year we sold the BT phone kiosk as it was deemed to be redundant, a defibrillator was installed at the Village Hall funded by the ‘Lions’ and all the community is very grateful for this facility being available in the village. We maintained, with the help of a contractor, the grass verges and a volunteer maintained the War Memorial for us. New signage for St. Clement’s Church was agreed and we continued to share the speed sign with the three other Parishes that contributed towards it.
The past year 2020/21 started off with us appointing a new Clerk/RFO, Mrs Pauline Plumridge, who has been Clerk to Marshchapel Parish Council for 35 years, she will continue to work for Marshchapel as well as Grainthorpe. Due to Covid all of the officers remained in post from the previous year. (We followed central Government advice on this issue.) In July Cllr. Pridgeon gave us her resignation, we were very sorry to see her go, she has been a valued member of the Council for many years. As Vice Chair, I stepped up to the position of Chair and we were able to hold our meetings via the Zoom App. This was not an easy task due to the poor internet connections in and around our village, however we managed. We have welcomed two new Councillors again this year, Cllr Beech and Cllr Burton and are currently looking to co-opt a third.
We have continued to monitor various planning applications for the village and were grateful to S.A. Mossop (Farms) Ltd and Bernard Hutchinson for sponsoring our poster competition for the village children. We had some lovely bright and attractive posters saying ‘Thank-you’ to Keyworkers.
Throughout Covid lockdown our County Councillor and District Councillor have kept in touch with us, helping and supporting where they could. We cannot let the opportunity go by to say a big ‘thank you’ to Gilliman’s Stores for all they have done, during lockdown, to support vulnerable villagers and people ‘shielding’.
This year has also seen the adoption of a new web site for the Parish Council which the Clerk maintains and is helped by Cllr. Burton who does a great job maintaining the village homepage.
We have been in contact with Anglian Water this year and have requested that they keep their compounds in a tidy state, as they have been neglected in recent years. The street lights in Fen Lane caused us a lot of concern over the winter months but we did finally get the County Council to fix them. Our litter pickers have worked tirelessly in the village to keep it as free from litter as possible. Our thanks also go to Mr & Mrs R Lingard for storing our mower for us and for helping with the maintenance of the redundant part of the churchyard.
In May, we did manage a face-to-face meeting for our Annual Parish Council meeting, which was very brief, as we needed to appoint officers and approve paperwork for the annual audit, however, going forward, we hope to be able to return to the Chapel Schoolroom and hold regular meetings on the second Wednesday of every other month.
Finally, I would like to thank all the Councillors for their patience and dedication in keeping the Parish Council running over the past year, it has not been an easy task but I think, under the circumstances, we managed very well. I look forward to the year ahead being ............................different.
Cllr. Richard Drinkel
Chair, Grainthorpe Parish Council
14th July, 2021