Minutes of the Finance Committee held on Wednesday 2 December 2015 at 7:30pm in the Mayor`sParlour, Town Hall, Abergavenny.
Present: Cllr Mrs M Powell (Mayor)
Cllrs Ms S Dodd, R Harris, S Horrell, D Simcock
In attendance: The Town Clerk
1. Apologies for absence were received from Cllrs Mrs S Woodhouse, C Woodhouse, J L Prosser and M Hickman.
2. Declarations of Interest would be made as and when necessary.
3. The following grant applications were considered:
a) Abergavenny Cycling Festival 2016
A bid for £5000 was received from the Cycling Festival Organiser. Next year they will host two National Events again and they have just received an award for best organised event for 2015. At present a sum of £4000 has been put in the draft budget. After some discussion it was agreed to recommend that this be restored to £5000 for 2016.
b) Seven Corners Youth Festival 9 July 2016
A bid for support funding for this new event as considered. The bid was for £1875. Members noted that bids were also being made to the Lottery Awards for All Scheme. It was agreed that this looks a worthwhile event and should be supported. It was agreed to recommend that up to £1000 be made available if the scheme gets its other funding, and that preferably the funding should be allocated to specific items rather than subsumed into the general pot.
4. Brewery Yard Concerts.
Members agreed that the concerts had been well received in recent years. There was some discussion about dates, locations and who should be invited to perform. It was agreed to recommend that the Concerts be continued for the coming year and a meeting in the new year should decide which groups to invite to perform.
5. Draft Budget for 2016/17
No further action was proposed on this at present. The Mayor and Clerk would be attending a meeting in Usk tomorrow to discuss Town and Community Council involvement in local service provision, and they would report back from that meeting if anything tangible came from it.
6. Finance Reports for November 2015
The draft reports were received and considered. The Clerk noted that the Internal Auditor had been doing a six-months audit and a few items had been raised which needed correction. Apart from that there was little to report.
7. Any Other Business
With The Mayor`s approval the Clerk gave members present some background on the progress of the scheme to renew the Highways in the centre of Town. MCC Cabinet had that day agreed a capital budget bid for £1.05M for this work. Subject to full Council Approval on 17 December, the scheme would be started in the new year. He referred to the Cabinet Report which he had circulated to members for information, which contained a sketch map of the proposed works. Some Town Council members had attended Public Realm Meetings organised by Team Abergavenny over the last few months, but there had not been a formal presentation to the Town Council. At Council next week it had been agreed to receive representations from representatives of Abergavenny Development Forum, who had some reservations about the proposed scheme.
On the following morning at 10am there would be a Public Realm Group meeting in the Council Chamber to hear from the MCC Highway Engineers about the details of their proposals.
MCC intend to hold an exhibition of the proposed scheme to make the public aware of it in early January.
Members noted this information and expressed views that it is very important that the scheme does not lose momentum and is completed before the Eisteddfod comes in August 2016.
The meeting ended at 8:05pm
Summary of recommendations
1. That a sum of £5000 be set aside for next year`s Cycling Festival
2. That up to £1000 be granted to the 7 Corners Youth Festival so long as they get the remaining money by other grant applications, and subject to it being identified to be spent on specific items.
3. That 3 Concerts be held next summer, details to be resolved early in the new year.
4. No further action should be taken on the draft budget at this stage.
5. The Finance Reports for November were received and noted.
6. The update on the Highway works be noted.
