18 August 2022 at 19.00
The Adur Room at The Shoreham Centre
Agenda:
Approval of previous meeting minutes
1. Locality Grant Application Status (JM)
2. NP Health Check funding (MG)
3. SEA/SA Application Status (MW)
4. Open Green spaces meeting with Adur Planners (DC)
5. SBNF AGM Planning
6. AOB
Approval of previous meeting minutes
DC opened the meeting and proposed that the minutes of the June and July committee meetings be approved. There were no objections and the meeting minutes were duly signed.
Circulate copies of June and July meeting minutes.
Action KH
Urgently complete uploading of any meeting minutes missing from the SBNF website.
Action MW
1. Locality Grant Application Status
JM confirmed that the Forum’s 2022/3 grant application has been approved by Locality, subject to an Accountable Body being appointed to receive the funding. DC stated that he had been contacted by James Appleton (Adur Planning) by phone regarding the Forum’s request that Adur Council act as the Accountable Body (as suggested by Locality). DC was informed that the Adur Cabinet Executive Committee was reluctant to approve this action because of allegations that the Forum was not acting according to its Constitution.
The Forum Committee has not been formally informed of this response, nor has it been given the chance to respond. This £1,060 grant funding is essential to enable the long awaited Neighbourhood Plan to be completed. After a lengthy discussion the Forum Committee resolved to take the following actions:
1. Contact Locality for legal advice about Adur DC’s possible refusal to act as the Forum’s Accountable Body.
Action MG
2. Draft a letter to the CEO of Adur DC requesting an explanation of the reasons why the Executive Committee is reluctant to approve Adur DC acting as Accountable Body for SBNF.
Action MG
2. NP Health Check funding
MG confirmed that Locality could provide the “Health Check” for the draft Neighbourhood Plan free of charge. Adur Planners have offered to fund such a check, but as the Locality health check would save the Council money this was the preferable option.
3. SEA/SA Application Status
MW reported that his update of the draft Neighbourhood Plan to revision 5, to enable the SEA/SA assessment to be applied for, was about 80% complete and approximately 7 hours of work remained. Some actions to respond to Adur Planners comments are also outstanding and will be addressed by a meeting between MW, DC and JB on Monday August 22nd. It is hoped that Revision 5 can be submitted to Adur Planning by the end of August and the SEA/SA application put forward by them as soon as possible thereafter.
1. Complete draft Neighbourhood Plan, Revision 5.
Action MW
2. Complete responses to Adur Planners comments.
Action MW, DC, JB
NOTE: subsequently, we discovered much more work was needed to complete Revision 5
4. Open Green Spaces Meeting with Adur DC
The Committee agreed that this proposed meeting should take place as soon as possible. DC will contact Moira Hayes to request possible dates for such a meeting with Pippa Reece and other interested parties.
Action DC
5. SBNF AGM Planning
This item was deferred to the next Committee meeting in view of the urgency of resolving the issues arising from Item 1 and completing the actions from Item 3.
6. AOB
The next committee meeting will be held on Thursday September 15th at 19.00 at the Shoreham Centre.
Meeting closed at 20.35.
Attendees:
Dave Collins (DC) Chair
Kevin Hall (KH) Vice Chair
Jonathan Marshall (JM) Treasurer
Mike Whelan (MW) Secretary
James Breckell (JB) Architect
Mike Gibson (MG) Planning Consultant
Apologies for absence received from:
David Johnson (DJ)