2020 Parish Council Minutes

Draft Minutes of the Extraordinary Meeting of South Kyme Parish Council, held by Zoom on 24th August 2020

Present: Councillors Alexander (Chairman), Clark, Goode, J Head, M Head, Midgley and Shaw

Clerk: Chairman (post vacant)

20/21/9 Boat mooring

The meeting was requested by Cllr Midgley for discussion of the boat mooring.

The chairman opened the meeting by reiterating the Zoom protocols, and Standing Orders were applied.

There were no declarations of interest.

The chairman invited Cllr Midgley to speak.  Cllr Midgley said he had requested the meeting to get to the bottom of what happened to the boat mooring and to discover why the boat moored there for repair was moved on.

Cllr MIdgley stated that the Chairman of the Sleaford Navigation Trust (SNT) had sent an email advising that the boat would be arriving for repairs and may possibly exceed the 72-hour limit to which Councillors agreed would not be a problem.   The boat arrived and rumours began to circulate that it may be there for up to eight weeks.   Cllr Shaw said that she had visited Mr Wise (who was reputed to be doing some work on the boat) to find out what was happening  and had emailed Councillors to say that she was going to see the boat owner on the Tuesday and would update the Council afterwards.  When she went on the Tuesday the boat had gone.

 Cllr Midgley suggested that a Councillor had contacted somebody and he hoped the meeting would find out who and what exactly had happened.   Cllr Midgley said he wanted to know why the District Council had got involved – the boat owner hadn’t done anything wrong and hadn’t overstayed the 72 hours and as the parish council owned the land it had the right to decide who could stay, and nobody knew who or why the boat got moved.

He asked Cllr M Head to respond.

Cllr Head said the District Council had not got involved and reminded the Council of the various emails between Councillors in which he advised of the potential impact on residents and the planning conditions for the mooring by allowing the boat to remain there for what was now understood to be substantial work.

Cllr Head said his involvement as a District Councillor was because he had received a complaint from a resident in his role as District Councillor and that he had contacted Mr Wise, to explain the potential pitfalls and problems he might encounter if he were to undertake extensive repairs to the boat, and that he had contacted SNT to explain the situation they may find themselves in if the boat remained for any length of time and complaints were made to the Parish Council/NKDC re noise etc.  Cllr Head stressed that he did not know who the boat owner was and had never spoken to the person who towed it to the mooring.   Cllr Head also pointed out that if the Parish Council allowed boats to moor for an unspecified period of time it would end up in the same position as Kirkstead Bridge, where people moored there for long periods and leisure boaters had no access to the mooring.

Cllr Head said his involvement was to get the situation resolved for the residents who had approached him, and that nothing he had done could be construed as wrong or improper.

Cllr Midgley said that the Parish Council, as the landowners, could have found out what was going on,  approached the boat owner and told him what to do and that Cllr Head should have contacted the Parish Council about the resident’s complaint . Cllr Midgley said that the boat had a right to stay 72 hours as that was what the Council had agreed to.  Cllr Head stated that he had not contacted the boat owner and had not instructed him to remove the boat.

The Chairman said other residents had complained about the boat but had approached her in confidence, and she could do nothing other than advise them that it was a leisure mooring and that she felt that Cllr Midgley was misrepresenting how many people were unhappy and concerned about how long the boat would be there.

Cllr Midgley said it was a shame she hadn’t told the resident to contact the Parish Council.  The Chairman said she had advised resident to contact Parish Council, the District Councillor or NKDC to make a formal complaint in writing.

Cllr Midgley agreed that was good advice but the boat hadn’t breached any conditions.  Cllr Clark added that as it had not exceeded the 72 hours, nothing should have happened.

Cllr Midgley again asked who had told the boat owner to leave.   Cllr Midgley repeated that the Parish Council, as the landowners, were not told by the District Councillor that there was an issue and didn’t get a chance to speak to the boat owner.  The Chairman asked who exactly had told the boat owner, as only Cllr Shaw had had any dealings with him.

Cllr Shaw said went with her husband on the Tuesday to see Mr Wise, who agreed to go and look at the boat with them. She said she was surprised to see the boat had gone.  She said the following day she and Cllr Clark saw the boat afloat further down the river and went to investigate. They found the boat owner’s number and rang him to check everything was okay.  She said this was done as a villager and not as a Councillor, just to check that he was okay and if he had moved the boat or who had moved the boat.

Cllr Midgley asked  Cllr Head how he had dealt with the problem.  Cllr Head said he had only advised Mr Wise and the SNT of potential problems and was not privy to what, if anything, had been said by  the SNT and to whom, and that if Cllr Midgley wanted to know anything further, he would have to write to the SNT.  Cllr Midgley said they would be writing to SNT as a Parish Council.

At this point the meeting ended abruptly due to Zoom ‘timing out’.