AGM June

KEMNAY COMMUNITY COUNCIL

MINUTE OF ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

HELD ON THURSDAY 28th JUNE 2001 AT 7.30 PM IN KEMNAY VILLAGE HALL

1. Present:- Mr A. Davies, Mr D. Evans, Mr P. Findlater, Mrs S. Milton, Mrs J. Newberry, Dr J. Piggins, Mr A. Thomson, Mrs M. Wainman
Attending:- PC P. Hall, Mrs A. Hendry, Councillor A. Leitch, Mr F. Milloy (Inverurie Herald)
Apologies:- Mr D. Caney, Cdr C. Hunneyball, Mrs S. Milton, Councillor G. Saluja, Mr A. Thomson

2. Minute of Annual General Meeting held on 30^th March 2000

Due to the March 2001 Meeting (A.G.M) being inquorate, the Minute of the Annual General Meeting held on the 30th March 2000 was approved.

Proposed: Mrs M. Wainman Seconded: Mrs S. Milton

3. Chairman's Report

The Chairman's Report, which is at Annexe A to this Minute, was presented and approved.

Proposed: Mrs S. Milton Seconded: Mrs M. Wainman.

4. Financial Statement

The Financial Statement which is at Annexe B to this Minute, was presented by Mr. Davies and was approved. (Note: Regrettably the format of the statement means it cannot be posted in this document)

Proposed: Mrs J. Newberry Seconded: Mrs S. Milton.

Annexe A to Minute of Kemnay Community Council AGM held on 28^th June 2001

KEMNAY COMMUNITY COUNCIL

CHAIRMAN'S REPORT 2000 - 2001

The Community Council's year from March 2000 - March 2001 was a varied one. We were invited to contribute to debate on an unusual number of matters beyond the seemingly perennial ones such as speeding and dog fouling.

Last summer, the draft Aberdeenshire Local Plan and Structure Plan were revealed for comment. Community Councils were asked to organise local consultation meetings, and Kemnay led the way by arranging ours promptly, to precede the peak holiday season. The format of the meeting proposed by Aberdeenshire Council had some deficiencies, of which we warned other communities, and which they in turn encountered. Nevertheless, the meeting was successful in that a large audience participated and many constructive comments were reported to the Council. Perhaps we and other communities were too successful, because we recently heard that the final report may be delayed by the sheer volume of comments, and the promised individual acknowledgements may be impracticable to implement!

It was disappointing after the welcome openness of this consultation to discover later that all the time, an enquiry into the earlier Consolidated Aberdeenshire Local Plans (CALPS) was still in progress. The resulting report at the end of year 2000 may yet lead to conflict with the views expressed during last summer's consultation in communities, including ours.

Another item which occupied much of the Community Council's time was the long-running matter of the proposed One-2-One mast near the Quarry. The artists working on the Millennium Mound Project were strongly opposed to the siting of any mast in the Quarry area, and it proved almost impossible to find a compromise that suited the telephone company, the Quarry owners, the would-be users of mobile telephones, the artists and of course the community we represent. After many discussions of alternative sites and designs, the best that could be achieved was to place a slightly less prominent mast at the original proposed site.

The constitution of the community council itself came under scrutiny, as Aberdeenshire Council felt itself under obligation to implement a uniform Scheme for the Establishment of Community Councils. Initially, it appeared we would be faced with a rigid scheme prescribing amongst other things, dates of elections and use of single transferable-vote ballots. Kemnay voted strongly against the latter, and community councils protestations seem to have been heard in that such prescriptions have been dropped and the model constitution in the Scheme is now just that - a model from which reasonable departures are permissible.

On less contentious matters, we have been enlightened at our winter meetings by a succession of external speakers on topics including forestry, community development and from time to time, the policing arrangements for this area. We have not benefited from a police contribution to every meeting, but we recognise the many other demands on police time.

We have been represented at meetings of a number of other discussion groups, including regularly the Community Council Forum and the Safety Group. I thank members who have given up their time to attend such meetings as well as our own meetings, and I thank Councillors Leitch and Saluja for their frequent attendance which is most helpful to the two-way exchange of information with Aberdeenshire Council.

At the start of this report, I mentioned the perennial topics, in which litter and vandalism are regrettably included. I must end by referring to the refreshing input on those subjects that we enjoyed at our November meeting, when pupils from Alehousewells so ably presented the results of their survey. If all our future citizens are the thinking citizens those pupils will become, perhaps these problems will yet diminish.

J. PIGGINS