The Annual Meeting of the Parish 22.05.2025
DRAFT MINUTES OF FARNHILL ANNUAL PARISH MEETING HELD ON 22nd MAY 2025
Present Cllrs.: S. Close, D.Atkinson, W.McDonald , J. Walton, A-M. Keenan-Dunne, A. Brown
15 members of the public in attendance
Chair introduced agenda of the meeting. Then herself.
Chairs Overview – To date this year the Council has held15 meetings, carried out 3 village walk abouts, leaflets and questionnaires have been delivered to all residents regarding the precept which was 17325. There was 23 responses from the residents received and it was decided to increase the precept to take on a proper contractor, and have a good tidy up. The new contractor is now doing the landscaping and villagers should soon see the difference. Several emails and phone calls have been received regarding the removal of trees, bushes etc. and the Council have responded to freedom of information requests.
Meeting minutes from the annual meeting of the parish held on 09.05.2024 were proposed by Cllr. D Atkinson and 2nd by Chair, all within the room were in favour.
Chair introduced all councillors
Achievements – Shelly Well is now working again and the new website is also up and running. All Councillors have .gov emails . Chair confirmed all of the full policies have been reviewed. The village Emergency Plan has been agreed and published on the website. The Council are looking into obtaining sandbags. DofE Bronze awards volunteers have been litter picking for 3 months . A sycamore tree behind Arbour house had to be removed as it brought down a drystone wall onto the public pavement. The Council also has permission to remove two trees on the Arbour which are not going to be done until after nesting season / Autum . Some of the street lighting has been changed to LED and some lights have been replaced with heritage lights, there are some more that have been ordered but currently awaiting them. All heritage lights are now LEDs apart from the one on Redmans bridge but this has been highlighted to the Lighting Team.
Towpath – the pedestrians right of way signs are now up on the canal
The play area is still closed and no closer to getting this resolved looking at £170,000.
The Parish Council are attempting to extend the 20mph limit to include Newby road Mary street and Starkey lane.
Still trying to get someone out to provide a quote for boulders being placed on the arbour.
There are 8 Garages on Bucklar Hill owned by North Yorkshire Council , The Parish Council suggested they need to be removed if they are a health and safety concern for the public. North Yorkshire Council will be amenable for the garages to be transferred to the Parish Council but the Parish Council first need to establish what costs would be involved in this and what can be done with the land after the garages are removed. The Parish Council has had a survey carried out to find out if there is any asbestosis present and then we can better understand the costs involved for us to remove them.
The milestone is currently being refurbished, and the Parish Council are still looking at the blue plaques scheme.
North Yorkshire Council Representative Cllr. A Brown.
Grants have been received from North Yorkshire Council and Bradford City Council to do the canal path they have all grouped together and completed the middle section now.
There are still ongoing issues with the School to home scheme.
North Yorkshire Central planning committee are having problems with such a large local authority. Cllr A. Brown sits on a body called the care scrutiny committee and he is looking into what is bankrupting the local councils. The full Council also finds it a surprise that Cllr. A Brown challenges a number of items such as Kex Gill which is now at 11.5 million over budget, calling for a resignation of the person managing the project.
Many villages involved in the North Yorkshire home to school project will only pay for parents to send kids to the nearest school. But the way it has been applied has been very crude. They have informed children who have Grammar School places that they cannot go there now. People who live on a hill have to go to a different school over the hill. This has all been raised with North Yorkshire Council but they have decided they are sticking to their policy.
There is still a little bit of the locality funds available for projects.
A guest speaker spoke about the history group and the way it operates. The History Group started in 2012 – the reason for the history group is because very little has been written or documented about Farnhill over the years. There was an attempt to start something but people just left or died so it never really got going. The group is open to all and is free. The group is funded by voluntary donations so if you anyone has a little shrapnel it normally gets left by the door. Any donations received covers the hire of the room once a month and occasional exhibitions. The group has no formal administrator in existence, no formal members. The group carries out research on all aspects of the village and share it with each other and make the results available on the websites and within exhibitions. The vast majority of people just come along and listen to the talks which are typically 7 meetings within the year that include talks by group members and occasional guest speakers but they do try to use local experts.
In addition, on the website there is an archive of photographs which are shared with other villages if there is any overlap. Exhibitions are usually held at the Institute. Recently had one for world war 1. There was an exhibition for the Jubilee for Queen Elizabeth the 2nd and an exhibition of methodism in the village. The group are currently planning a world war 2 exhibition . They also outreach beyond the group – doing classes at Kildwick school and they are involved with local libraries particularly Skipton and Crosshills when they run events for local history month .
The groups email address is where people can contact them from across the world who come to ask about the history of their ancestors. Just done a guided tour of Kildwick church for members of the upper Wharfedale group. The website is updated regularly typically with one or two articles or slide shows. They include anecdotes and snippets and history mysteries where people are invited to guess what is happing in the photograph.
Farnhill Parish Council pay around £70 per year for the website and the History Group administer it on their behalf. Farnhill.co.uk also hosts bits and pieces from other places. Each reflects a route or panels to other organisations, such as the Institute , The Parish Council, The History Group, the Peggy Wilson playing field and the village calendar where you will find all of the events being held for each group. The website also feeds into the local news column which is fed to Craven Herald. Its also on a Facebook page. All the pages that are held on this website is managed. The local history group serves and is an asset to the village without the website and email addresses they would struggle.
History of Shelly well. The official contracted name is St Helens well , St Helen is the patron saint for archaeologists and abandoned wives. She was the wife of the Constantine, and she claimed to find the true cross. Don’t know how old it is but its the earliest known named thing in Farnhill was from about 1130 as it was part of a property donation from the homestead adjacent
Chair read out response from highways regarding the parking issues within the village.
Resident thinks there may still be a problem with dampness by shelly well.
A resident asked about the play area and questioned If the wall is not going to be repaired can we move the equipment to say, Peggy Wilson playing field. If we put it in Peggy Wilson field then there would be issues for the school with the school children playing on it. A further resident asked about North Yorkshire Council and logically speaking what are the barriers we are getting. The barriers are how much this project will cost to repair. Residents would like to see the engineers report. Clerk confirmed that she has requested this herself numerous times but the Council simply are not providing it. Clerk will chase this up again and place a copy on the website if it is ever received.
Meeting was adjourned.
