Foreword - Becoming a Community Councillor

Dear Penally residents,

 Eligibility is fully detailed below, but as a general guide any resident in the Penally ward (ie votes at Penally Village Hall), and is over 18 may apply. We have  absolutely no affiliations to any political parties and encourage applications from ANY member of our community. Our meetings are always conducted in a friendly manner with mutual respect for all members.

Penally ward not only covers the village of Penally, it also covers a large percentage of farmland,( a small proportion of which is in The National Park), stretching from Kiln Park up The Ritec to St Florence and from there down to The Ridgeway and heading south to Lydstep Caravan Park.

Currently, five of our Community Councillors live within a five minute walk of The Village Green, one on The Ridgeway and the other on the border of St Florence. As you may have also noticed, we now only have one male councillor and all of us are over 40, so it would be nice to have applications to re-dress this balance!

Why become a Community Councillor?

Quite frankly, to ensure that Penally survives without being swallowed up within Tenby town. The financial "precept" that we pay on our "Community Charge" bills is decided by us and paid through to Penally Community Council . We keep our demands as low as possible and try and ensure that it is spent to improve our Community. Should we not have enough volunteer Community Councillors we are in danger of having to close and merge.

Do you get paid for being a Community Councillor?

Please note we are not paid for attending meetings or for time spent discussing community issues with others. Very occasionally there may be an important meeting in a different area for which a mileage allowance might be claimed, but this is rare.

 What is involved in being a Community Councillor? :-

We hold "Monthly Meetings" on the last Thursday of the month (not August) at Penally Village Hall. They start at 7.15pm and normally end before 9.30pm.

Occasionally, mainly due to Planning Applications having to be processed within a certain time-frame, we need to have a second, much shorter meeting. For any meeting we need a quorum of a minimum of  four councillors.

At our monthly Community Council Meeting, The Chairwoman, (myself -Ann) and the Village Clerk, Vince Holmes, go through a list of paper-work , a brief summary of which has already been sent to each Councillor at least a week in advance.

These include:-

Approval of Minutes of previous meeting and matters arising; Letters, advertising and documents recieved; Local planning applications;

Report from Village Warden (Brin Letton); Yearly tenders for grass-cutting etc;Yearly meetings with the MOD and Police.

Payment of bills.

At all stages, Councillors are allowed to make suggestions and ask questions, unless they have any strong relationship with the matter in hand where they would be obliged to "declare an interest" and leave the room during that particular stage.

Our County Councillor, Carol Cavill reports back on issues which  have needed input from County Hall , (Housing, Licensing, Planning, Roads, Drainage etc) and gives advice throughout on every-day matters and previous history.

The Meeting then concludes with every Councillor being asked for details of "any other business", where they are encouraged to report suggestions for improvements, problems or comments from villagers on a wide-variety of issues.

Any issue raised in the Meeting which needs an official decision or payment will be voted for. The Majority vote will be recorded with a Proposer and a Seconder.Where more information is required a decision may need to be deferred.

Other than these Meetings, it would be polite for you to attend the Memorial Day wreath-laying at The War Memorial on the Village Green and in general just be receptive to ideas and comments from neighbours to discuss at our meetings.

Do I need to attend every meeting?

No. Obviously we would like you to attend as many as possible, but once  we have our full complement of Councillors, there will be no problem for you to miss meetings occasionally..just let us know as soon as you can.

How long do I need to serve as a Community Councillor?

There is no time-limit at present to the length of time you can stay a Community Councillor. You may feel after a couple of months that it is not for you. In which case all you need to do is a  hand in a resignation letter and preferably give us one months notice. However you may happily serve the Community for decades!!!

 Summary

As you can see, most of the things we discuss and do are not difficult , time-consuming, confrontational or problematic.If and when they are, you are a member of a team of nine and a wonderful community, who are there to help!!

Chair Person

Penally Community Council