140 electors attended the Extraordinary Parish Meeting held in the Village Hall on Wednesday 10 December 2014. The meeting agreed the following two items:
A Parish Poll should be held on the subject of Outline Planning Permission 14/02002/OUT submitted to Milton Keynes Council by R & S Shires (farmers) Ltd of Daventry for building 36 houses on the west side of the High Street.
The wording of the straightforward YES/NO question was agreed.
The Poll will be organised by Milton Keynes Council, not the Parish Council, but the costs will be met by the Parish Council. The poll will take place between 4pm and 9pm on a date between 5th and 20th January 2015. Voting is in person by local government electors of the parish. There will be no postal voting and no poll cards.
As this is the first time this has occurred in Sherington, the Parish Council has taken advice on the rules governing Parish Polls, to ensure this matter is dealt with in strict accordance with the law. The relevant legislation is the
Also, the following is an extract from an email from Pamela Loose, Elections Officer, Milton Keynes Council:
Peter Geary has asked me to contact you about the possible Parish Poll and to outline the procedures.
A Parish poll can be demanded at a properly convened Parish Meeting where at least seven days' notice of the time and place of the meeting has been given. If present the Chair of the parish council should preside. Press and other public are entitled to attend but only local government electors for the parish may speak or vote. Each elector has one vote on each motion and the chairman holds the casting vote.
Either 10 electors or one third of electors present and voting whichever is less, may demand a poll on a question. The request for a poll cannot be subject to a vote at the meeting but the wording of the question can be voted on.
The chair of the meeting should ensure that any motion is capable of being voted either "for" or "against" at the meeting and "yes" or "no" at a poll. Once the parish meeting has agreed on the wording of the question it cannot be changed.
As soon as possible after the meeting, the Chair or Clerk should provide the Returning Officer (via myself) with details of the question, the name and address of the proposer of the motion and the date of the meeting at which the poll was demanded.
The poll will take place no earlier than 14 days nor later than the 25th day on which the poll was demanded. If the meeting takes place on 10 December the period in which the poll will have to take place is 5 January to 20 January. The poll does not have to take place on a Thursday. The hours of poll are 16.00 to 21.00. There are no postal or proxy votes.
The Parish is responsible for the costs of the Parish Poll. As an indication of costs, the cost for the Parish Poll in Castlethorpe was approximately £300. However, this did not include a fee for the hire of the hall as it is owned by the Parish Council. At this stage I don't know how much Sherington Village Hall would charge.
No poll cards are produced. The Parish would normally arrange for publicity for the Parish Poll. However, in the past we have produced an explanatary leaflet about what a Parish Poll is and how to vote. It would include the question but nothing about the issues themselves. If you want us to do this I can arrange for a separate quote for the cost of this.