BRPC

There is no need to be offensive. I was merely pointing out that the Proper Officer of the Parish Council is the correct person for the receipt of correspondence addressed to the parish council. It is my job to ensure it is then brought to the attention of all parish councillors during a parish council meeting and their response can then be appropriately minuted. Decisions are never made by individual councillors, they are made by the council as a whole.

The footpath is a project of Belmont Rural Parish Council and not a project of an individual parish councillor. This is to provide a solid surface for an informal route that has been used by many for many years. Lighting is not proposed. There has never been any lighting along this route. This is very much in the same line as the footpaths around Abbey View Park. If anyone wishes to comment - positively or otherwise - the correct contact for all Belmont Rural Parish Council correspondence is to belmontrural@yahoo.co.uk or you can write to Belmont Rural Parish Council, c/o 5 Deerhurst Drive, Belmont, Hereford HR2 7XX.

Colin, the advert for BV did go in all BRPC notice boards last year but other priorities and a tendency for notices to disappear when the door is opened in windy and wet weather means some have disappeared. If you e-mail me the notice, I'll try to get them back up when I next go around the notice boards to put things in. The boards at the Oval are not BRPC notice boards so I can't do those ones Liz

I'm not going to pretend to be an expert on this but I don't think this is quite the way it works. The actual tax band your property falls within is based upon a national calculation which is based on property values. However, what you pay within each band depends upon the council tax set by your local authority and is made up of lots of different parts including a levy by the police and a parish element which is based upon the precept or funding requested by the parish council. Unitary authorities such as Herefordshire Council (which provides many of the services for local residents such as bin collecting for example) are capped but parish councils are not, which is why many of the larger authorities are now trying to pass on financial responsibility for some services to parish councils. Both Hereford City Council and Belmont Rural are parishes and hence able to set what they feel is an appropriate precept element to your overall council tax bill. As residents living in a parish only pay the parish element for where they live and this can be the reason why there's a difference in the amounts paid by Newton Farm (City Parish) and the Belmont Estate (Belmont Rural parish) for the same banded property. The City is, of course, a much larger Parish and provides much more in the way of facilities and services it its own right than Belmont Rural does hence it's precept requirement is much higher than BRPC but then it's split amongst many more households. Hope this helps explain it a bit.

BRPC holds meetings roughly every six weeks and publishes it's Minutes of meetings once they have been approved at the next meeting. This is because things sometimes get changed and it can be misleading to have different versions of minutes in the public domain. Once they're approved, they cannot be changed. Once approved they are, and always have been, published on www.belmontrural.co.uk. Hard copies can be obtained from me but there is a small charge for copying (to cover copy costs). I have tried to send a copy of the most recent approved Minutes to Victor but the e-mail has bounced back. The next meeting is Thursday evening when the minutes of the meeting held at the end of June will be approved and they can then be published.

This is a subject matter which is outside the jurisdiction of a parish council so it not something a parish council would discuss or have a policy on. Child safeguarding policies come under the jurisdiction of the Children and Young Persons Directorate so maybe this should be directed to the District/Ward Councillors.

There is a very good website that lists all planning applications and has copies of all supporting documents. www.ukplanning.com can be very useful if you're interested in any particular application or want to track an application's progress and result. You need to search for Herefordshire Council applications and can then search by postcode, partial postcode, address or application number and by searching by partial postcode you can see all the applications in the immediate area. Much quicker and easier than heading off to the Council Planning Offices.

I noticed you have quoted an extract from Belmont Rural Parish Council minutes which records BRPCs observations on a planning application submitted to Herefordshire Council. I'm not sure of the significance of quoting this extract? Do you have a query on the comments made by BRPC? Parish Council's have a statutory right to be consulted on planning applications which fall within the parish or are near the boundary of neighbouring parishes. Ultimate responsibility for planning within Herefordshire rests with Herefordshire Council's planning department and BRPC have submitted observations Herefordshire Council on this application. For the record, Herefordshire Council has now approved the application, with certain conditions imposed.

Rebecca, the allowances you are referring to are paid by Herefordshire Council to District Councillors. Belmont Rural Parish Council is a completely separate entity from Herefordshire Council. It came into being some 10 years ago (not 5 as stated in Councillor Powell's post), having been formally part of Clehonger Parish. Parish Councillors are elected every four years with the next full parish council elections (when all parish councillors will step down and, if they wish, seek re-election) will be in May 2011. BRPC meets approximately every six weeks and details of meetings can be found on parish notice boards. None of the individuals who are Parish Councillors, whether they have separate paid employment or not, received any payment of any kind for the work they do as Parish Councillors.

As Clerk to Belmont Rural Parish Council could I please correct this post. Belmont Rural Parish Council is just one of two parishes working within the Belmont Ward of Herefordshire Council; the other being Hereford City Council which is also a parish council. BRPC covers the area which is broadly known as the "Belmont Estate" and has Waterfield Road, the River Wye, the brook alongside the Three Counties Hotel and Haywood Lane as it's boundaries. Councillor Edwards is a Herefordshire (District) Councillor and also Chair of Belmont Rural Parish Council and a parish councillor for Hereford City Council. Parish Councillors are entirely voluntary and receive no payment for carrying out their duties as parish councillors. BRPC Parish Councillor contact details can be found on all six notice boards within the parish. Parish Councils can only work through duly convened parish council meetings in accordance with strict legislative guidelines, so any items for consideration by the parish council should be forwarded to myself as parish clerk at the following address: Belmont Rural Parish Council, c/o 5 Deerhurst Drive, Belmnt, Hereford HR27XX. Telephone 07722 872 180, E-mail: belmontrural@yahoo.co.uk. The next meeting of BRPC will take place on Thursday 29th July at 7.15pm at Northolme Community Centre, Northolme Road, Belmont. All residents of the Belmont Rural Parish are very welcome to attend. Liz Kelso Clerk Belmont Rural Parish Council