Meeting date: Tuesday 12 May 2026
1 - Election of Officers
Councillor Hulett was nominated by Cllr L Lenton for the position of Chair to the Council for the coming year. The nomination was seconded by Cllr K Lenton and supported by all present. There being no other nominations, Cllr Hulett accepted the nomination.
The declaration of office was signed by Cllr Hulett previously.
Councillor K Lenton was nominated by Cllr L Lenton to continue as Vice Chair to the Council. The nomination was seconded by the Chair and approved by all present. There being no other nominations, Cllr Lenton accepted the nomination.
2 - Apologies for absence
Apologies were received from Cllr Purnell: holiday. These were accepted.
3 - Minutes of the Annual Council Meeting held on 13th May 2025
It was agreed to accept the minutes
4 - Matters arising from Annual Parish Meeting
The objectives for the council for the coming year, proposed at the Annual Parish Meeting were:
a. Continuing the previous work of the council to bring the 20mph speed limit through the village to fruition
b. Working with DNPA to upgrade the footpath to ancient spring, improving the site’s accessibility.
c. Continue with the prior work to bring affordable housing to the village.
All three objectives were agreed. (AP1– Clerk to draft an action plan for adoption)
Councillor Fife-Cook explained that there will be no funds available this coming year for the 20s Plenty project as Devon Highways have ceased funding for it. Consequently any initiative from the council will need to be self-financed. As an alternative, Highways are funding village gateways.
Cllr Robson agreed to take a lead on affordable housing, linking the council with a Community Land Trust. Cllr Gilpin suggested forming a sub-committee for the project.
5. Annual Audit
i. Feedback from internal audit
The Clerk outlined the feedback received from the Auditor. The principle points were:
a) The council email address must be hosted on an authority owned domain with a suffix as a .gov.uk or .org.uk
b) The website needs to include an accessibility statement
c) The council must adopt and publish an IT policy
(AP2– Clerk to arrange for these actions to be completed).
ii. Documents required for external audit.
To comply with the SBAA external audit requirements under the Local Audit and Accountability Act 2014, and complete the Council’s external audit for the financial year 2025-26.
Councillors resolved to approve -
a. The Certificate of Exemption 2025-26
b. The Governance Statement 2025-26
c. The Accounting Statements 2025-26
Proposed Cllr Hulett, seconded Cllr K Lenton. All in favour. The certificates were signed by the Chair and the Clerk.
The council agreed the dates for public rights to access financial documents 2025-26 (AP3– Clerk to publish audit documents)
6- Annual review
Following internal audit, the following Council documents require review and approval by full council.
Retention (of documents) V1 – 2022, Statement of Internal Control V5 – 2023
(AP4 – Clerk to circulate)
Meeting closed 8:10pm