February 2024 Minutes EOM
Cranwell, Brauncewell and Byard’s Leap Parish Councilooter
MINUTES of the Extraordinary meeting of Cranwell, Brauncewell and Byard's Leap Parish Council held at Cranwell Village Hall, Old School Lane, Cranwell Village, NG34 8DF on Monday 26th February 2024.
Present:
Chair: Cllr Mr D Graves
Councillors:
Cllr Mrs M Cassidy, Cllr M A Cassidy, Cllr D Wilson, Cllr Mrs J Wilson, and Cllr Mrs C Batten
Also in attendance: 25 members of the public and
Ms Lesley Frances - Clerk to the Parish Council
Apologies: Cllrs T Batten and M Collier had offered their apologies.
There were no pecuniary interests.
The Chair then gave a little background information – advising that we will have £47,000 available when we get the precept in April but that this includes costs of the demolition of the existing building. The Council had looked at longevity, simplicity, durability, ease of installation and consideration of likely users. They had spent 3 months trying to find funding for a brick option but there were no funds available and it was therefore too expensive and beyond the means of the Parish Council. They had also looked at wooden ones which again appeared too expensive whereas converted steel ones were priced within our reach and offered a fairly quick turnaround delivery time.
With the steel option the connections for water, sewage and electricity are already in situ and all facilities are already in the containers. There is a lead time of 6-8 weeks and installation takes one day (maybe two with sewage connections). The Chair then showed the photos and plans of each of the cabins and advised that they could have pitched roofs if required and be clad if required but these options are at an additional cost. The price in total, including pavilion demolition and transport, is £44,920 excluding VAT so that leaves a contingency of £2,080.
The Chair showed photos and plans of the wooden option which would be built on site and take several days. The base would either be concrete on ground screws (the recommended option). Delivery time is 6 – 10 weeks and the costs include a delivery charge. The total cost of the wooden cabin would be £55,621 including the pavilion demolition. The other consideration with the wooden cabin is that NKDC has said that we would have to reapply for planning permission – Dan Killick was then asked to elucidate. The steel cabins would only need a Non Material Amendment to the existing permission at a cost £289 – the existing planning permission states that we have to have commenced work by 29th July this year. NK has said that for the wooden option we would need a new application at £298 but we would have to provide specialist consultants reports e.g. energy, ecology, arborologist and biodiversity - and the estimated cost of these is £7,000-£10,000.
Public forum:
A question was asked about the base for the metal cabins and they sit on 4 slabs (each cabin) – we have had an offer for this work to be done for nothing once the full specification is available. Cladding options were raised and these are plastic, wood, UPVC or we could camouflage with planting of some sort.
Maintenance of the metal cabins is simply painting as and when required, and this would be done by the Parish Council. We had been advised that the wooden option requires 3 coats of preservative every 3 -5 years at a cost of £750. A member of the public thought that this was massively overstated.
We were asked if we would use our “best endeavours” to get metal cabins clad and councillors were happy to agree this.
The containers have anti vandal locks and windows and are fireproof; the wooden cabin would obviously not be fireproof. A member of the public said that she felt that visually, metal cabins are okay and not an eyesore.
There was a question about how we could fund a shortfall of £15000 (£62000 - £47000) and the Clerk explained that we would need to use reserves set aside for tennis court refurbishment (£8,340) as well as monies set aside in the current year for a new bowling green next year (£5,732) and that would be if the Bowls Club agreed that. This still leaves a shortfall.
As no further questions were raised, a show of hands was taken with only one person voting for the wooden option – the remainder (24 people) voted for the metal option.
The meeting closed at 8.20 pm.