WESTMINSTER PARK RESIDENTS’ ASSOCIATION

Committee meeting held on 3rd February 2021 on Zoom

MINUTES

Present: Jennifer Crew, Colin Dollimore, Sue Britton, Penny White, Dave Craggs, Brian Westcott, Olwen Bellis, Richard Short, Sandra Magilton, Annemarie Macfadyen, Pauline Brown, Karen Liddle, Tim Freeman-Dean.

Apologies: Carina Edwards, Tracey Casey.

1. Minutes of last meeting: the minutes of the last meeting held on 28th October 2020 were agreed as a true record by those who attended. Residents have asked that minutes of our meetings should be made public. We decided that members of WPRA would be permitted to see the minutes, with any sensitive items eg financial mattes redacted. Dave will see if it will be possible to have a ‘members’ zone’ on the website where we can post them, or a circulation list of members (current paid up 2021 members) we can email them to. We can also send out the notes of the meeting with the developers once this has been set up.

2. Treasurer’s Report: The Treasurer circulated a report and mentioned the move to online banking. The cost of planters and their maintenance was discussed and applications for funding from our Councillors’ funds.

3. Membership: The paid up membership as at 25/1 is 271. All Committee members have paid.
All those others, whose payments are outstanding have been reminded by E-Mail and this has stimulated a good response. Some have bounced back , so E-Mails have changed or shut down. Those without E-Mails listed will receive a letter as will new residents
My procedures are
i) I enter all payments onto a spreadsheet and pass copies to Sue Britton (with money collected) and David Craggs to update the portal. This is normally done weekly or more frequently if volume dictates.
ii) I also enter each payment onto spreadsheets per road and it is the intention once the bulk of memberships have renewed to canvass each road (when lockdown lifted) and will finish up with a meaningful databank and addition members.
iii) The Lache Park Avenue and surrounding roads have yielded an additional 25 members to date with plenty of scope for more.
iv) The new Wrexham Road development has been visited and maps obtained and will be canvassed later in the year.

As of 3 February, there are 310 members, 25 or more are from the Lache Park Avenue area. Colin has done some canvassing and finds asking people face to face brings results though this is difficult to do while the Covid lockdown is in place. We will be chasing up members who have dropped out last year in the March newsletter, Colin has spreadsheets of each street which would help anyone willing to assist with chasing up people. Various committee members offered to assist after lockdown has ended.

4. Social and Future Events: It is still impossible to make plans so we will not plan to have a Summer Fayre this year. There is talk of a Fun Day in the park on August Bank Holiday weekend in association with the Cricket Club which we can discuss again.

We will hold our AGM on Zoom on Wednesday 28th April at 8pm and try to run it so there is more community participation. The National Trust held theirs recently, and Annemarie said Niall had held the Archaeological Society one so will see what tips he can offer. The Council has an arrangement we might be able to make use of. There are some changes to be made to the Constitution which will need to be approved, eg including Lache Park Avenue etc in our area. Any business and committee members up for election needs to be advertised in advance, perhaps by one week beforehand rather than three, ie 21st April.

5. Wrexham Road Development/Kings Moat: Residents have been complaining about the noise from the pumping that has been going on 24 hours a day as there has been flooding recently. The Deve,oper’s Project Manager, our contact at the Developers, the Planning Officer at CWAC Planning and Environmental Health have been involved. The noise level is now being recorded and at a meeting of the Consortium today it was decided to place acoustic covering over the pumps to keep the noise down. Environmental Health is arranging a meeting with the Developers. The letter received from them today will be publicised via website and Facebook.

6. Winkwell Drive: The Planning Application is being put in, with no changes after the consultation on their Proposal in August, they obviously discounted our comments. Cheshire Wildlife is now looking at it. Residents have been contacting Karen. Does anyone have any photographs of flooding? We need someone to speak at the Planning meeting who objects to it. Only one person can speak, for three minutes and can only include matters that relate to the Chester Local Plan. Is there a flood risk problem? Being investigated; do we need more houses, we have already superseded the number of houses needed for the Local Plan.

7. CRAG: Pauline presented a revised Constitution. Jennifer and Pauline have been on the committee for about a year and have received information from them. This group consists of 17 or 18 Chester Residents Association and have now built a website and have very good communication with the Council which is useful and means we can speak collectively on matters relating to Chester. We paid an annual membership fee last year of £10 which is to be increased to £25 and Pauline asked if we would ratify that expense. We also need to ratify our affiliation at the AGM as our Constitution does not permit it.
Dave will email our members to let them know we are members and the constitution and position papers will be posted on our website.
This gives us more power as a RA in our dealings with the Council and we receive press releases we would not get otherwise. We can join with other city forums eg Chester Bid, Chester Growth Partnership and we will have a voice in the improvement of our city centre which will need a lot of help post Covid.
Karen expressed an interest in getting involved.

8. Newsletter/Media: the March newsletter is being produced and editorial is being requested. Sue has invoiced the advertisers who usually advertise on an annual basis. Adina continues to assist and Andrea Hopkinson has offered to help with the editing. Send copy in by 14th February.
Annemarie offered to write an article on birdwatching and planting at the park with photos.
Website: Adina has had a look at it and is quite keen and confident to update the information on it. It would be interesting to know how many people look at it. We will continue to reference the website when posting useful information, from Facebook. Dave said any more Admins would be welcome.
Facebook is up to 953 members and is very active, without much advertising now.

9. Evergreen: meetings have been suspended but the AGM is going ahead on Zoom on 18th February and there might be more activity on Zoom after that.

10. Gardening Club: still suspended.

11. AOB: Will the sunflower competition be repeated? Sandra will contact Julia Broadley to see if she (or anyone else) wants to start producing seedlings again, we can appeal for donations of pots, compost and/or help on Facebook if necessary. Something will be produced for the Newsletter.
Annemarie said there had been a plan to involve local children to plant seeds in the park which cannot now take place because of Covid.

12. Next meeting: to be held on Zoom at 8pm on Wednesday 14th April, before the AGM and will cover items for the June Newsletter.