Annual Parish Meetings – Heighington Parish Council

April 2026 Annual Parish Meeting minutes

Notes of the Heighington Annual Parish Meeting

The Annual Parish Meeting was held on Monday 27th April 2026 at 7.00pm, in the Jubilee Hall.

The meeting was attended by 29 members of the public, including Parish Councillors and the Clerk.

The Chair of the Parish Council, Councillor Sue Sockell, presided and opened the meeting with a welcome to those present.

There were displays around the room from the Parish Council, the Garrett’s Charity, Heighington Cricket Club and Heighington Community Group.

1) Paul Robinson from International Bomber Command Centre (IBBC) gave a very interesting and informative talk on ‘Lancaster, Lincolnshire & IBBC’.

www.internationalbbc.co.uk

2) The notes of the Annual Parish Meeting held on 28th April 2025 were agreed. (These are published on the Parish Council website).

3) The Parish Clerk shared a review of Council activities in the last year. The presentation will be published on the Parish Council website:

We continue to have a strong council, with positive internal and external audits. We said goodbye and Steve Catlow and Sarah Craig and welcome to new councillors, Diane Raphael and Angie Driver. We still have a councillor vacancy so look at for details on our website or contact the Parish Office for more information.

We continued to deliver a number of community events for children, including old favourites the Hoolahoop Megastructure Workshop, spooky Halloween Workshop, Bubble Workshop and new for this year, Giant Ball Run.

Seasonal favourites such as our VE80 Tea, Festive Tea and Easter Tea were hugely enjoyed, with fantastic feedback from residents.

Once again, the village looked lovely with the knitted poppies and knitted Tree For All Seasons.

We continue to invest in our play areas, with improvements at Station Road such as new sensory boards, ‘How Tall Are You?’ panel, swings for older children, bespoke signage for the exercise equipment, and colourful benches. We’re close to securing the Almond Avenue play area lease renewal with NKDC. Just a reminder that all our play areas are visually inspected weekly, inspected by an external assessor annually, and maintained to a high standard.

We care for our environment. We installed a number of new dual use bins and added recycled plastic benches across the village. We held community litter picks and would like to say a special thank you to our volunteer litter picker who contributed nearly 29 hours and collected 17 bags of rubbish this year. If anyone fancies a bit of ‘Wombling’ while you walk, we can supply litter-pickers and hi-vis. Our next Community Litter-pick is on Sunday 3rd May, 10:00 – 11:00.

We supported community planting projects such as wildflower seed bombs and have recently introduced a new herb planter for residents to enjoy (more details available soon). We’re also considering further tree planting opportunities in the autumn.

We have improved our facilities. Jubilee Hall and Station Road now benefit from upgraded CCTV and improved disabled toilet alarms. We’ve also enhanced the Guest wi-fi at the Jubilee Hall and the Station Road bowls lounge has been refreshed with new flooring and decoration. A new heating control system installed at Jubilee Hall should help us manage the temperature for hirers more efficiently.

Keeping Heighington safe. New ’30MPH Watch Your Speed’ signs have been installed around the village, following a resident’s request, although two of them have now been damaged. We plan to review the data from our solar speed sign. The battery powered speed sign continues to be moved around the village. We shared information with residents on being prepared for flooding. Just a reminder that our Community Emergency Response Team is ready to be called on if needed.

The Parish Council sets aside a budget for grants each year. The grant application window is open from 1 April - 30 June and our Grant Application Policy and application form can be found on our website. The Policy sets out the criteria - unfortunately, we are not able to award grants to individuals. In the last year we awarded £1000 to the Garrett’s Charity to replace the lead box gutter which had failed and caused a leak, and £100 to the Heighington Christmas Market towards costs of running the event.

What does the future hold? All parish councillor places are up for election in May 2027, so if you’re interested in joining the council, look out for this.

The impact of the Local Government Re-organisation is currently unknown. There will be a new authority of some size and description, replacing NKDC and LCC. A number of different proposals were put forward by these principal authorities and Government is due to announce its decision in July. Any new changes will come into effect on 1 April 2028.

Thank you. We believe Heighington is a great place to live, work and visit – and that’s thanks to our residents, volunteers and community groups. Thank you for being a part of it.

The Chair thanked the Clerk for the update.

4) The following updates were given from our local clubs, groups and organisations:

a) There was an update from the Garrett’s Charity – the full report and annual accounts were available for parishioners to view and will be published on the Parish Council website:

Background

Garrett’s Charity dates back to 1620 and the benefaction of Thomas Garrett which enabled the founding of a boys’ school in the chapel. Subsequently in 1865 school rooms were added and this became the village boys’ school, closing in 1976. Today we know these as the Thomas Garrett Heritage Rooms.

Garrett’s Charity owns the Chapel of Ease, the Heritage Rooms and the surrounding land and car park. There are nine managing trustees appointed or co-opted from the community.

2025

This year considerable work has gone into updating the 1995 Scheme with the Charity Commission to reflect how the premises are currently used.

Finances

The main source of income is from the hire of the Heritage Rooms to community groups. There are also fundraising events such as exhibitions, a 100 Club, Smarties Challenge. Overall, in 2025 expenditure slightly exceeded income.

Roof

Many of you will know that we have been focussed on making the building watertight. Thanks to generous donations from the community, users and grant funding bodies we succeeded in fixing the Chapel roof during 2025. The challenge of raising further funds to complete the Heritage Rooms roofs in 2026/2027 remains. The cost for this is in the region of £120,000.

Thanks

The Trustees are grateful for all the support they have had over the year and especially from the Friends of the Garrett’s Charity. The Friends Management Committee undertakes the day to management of bookings, and we are indebted to them.

The full Annual Report and the Annual Accounts are available for anyone wishing to take a copy with them this evening.

b) There was an update from Heighington Cricket Club, which has been going for over 47 years:

The club urgently needs support so that it can be secured for future generations and it specifically wants to encourage more girls over 12 to get involved.

It takes a lot of work to prepare and maintain the pitch and the club are currently fund raising for a new mower and roller. They are also fundraising for a softball kit, to help younger members get into cricket.

c) There was an update from the Pike and Eure George Walker Educational Foundation – the full report was available for parishioners to view and will be published on the Parish Council website:

The Pike and Eure educational charity was founded in 1627 to cover the villages of Heighington and Washingborough. Its aim is to help youngsters leaving school to start apprenticeships to pay for books and other equipment, or to further their educations at university or college. The George Walker Sports Foundation was started in 1997 and runs alongside the educational charity. The charity is run by 10 trustees, 5 from each village who meet twice a year.

The charity’s main function is to benefit youngsters between the ages of 16 – 25 for further education at universities, or for apprenticeships or vocational training or pursuing sporting interests. However, in 20223 a new Trust Deed was drawn up which allow the charity to benefit voluntary groups within each village. The voluntary group category covers the ages of 5 – 25 years and covers grants for equipment, instruction, or coaching. Groups such as Sports Clubs, Brownies/Scouts and amateur dramatics have all benefitted from this category.

Grants are considered once a year usually in October. The grants are not means tested and applicants can only apply once, for the main or sports sections. Grants are not available for students attending 6th form at schools. The trustees contact local secondary schools, Lincoln University, Lincoln College and Siemens each year with copies of application forms. Adverts are also placed in the Sheepwash Times and local village websites. The applications are considered in late October or early November each year.

For 2025 the number of applications received was 8 for the main section, 1 for sports, and 2 village groups, and awards were given to these applicants. The extension of grants to voluntary groups has been very successful and much appreciated. This is a very good example of a small local chrity that does a lot of good work.

d) It was noted that the WI had been going for 107 years, and the local branch were always looking out for more members.

e) There was a plea on behalf of A Good Yarn, who created the knitted Tree For All Seasons. The group are currently working on the autumn themed coat and ask any residents who knit or crochet to get in touch as they may be able to help. (There’s a large space to fill).

f) Father Yuce Kabakci introduced himself. He wants to get to know the community and wants St Thomas’ to be at the heart of the community.

g) There was an update from the Heighington Community Group, who desperately need volunteers to help get a number of events and schemes off the ground at the Clarke Avenue lounge, for those elderly or infirm residents who would struggle to get elsewhere in the village.

h) Cllr Sue Sockell mentioned the Friendly Faces (cuppa and chat) initiative that the Parish Council are starting (at the Jubilee Hall) on the second Thursday of the month (2:00 – 4:00pm) commencing 14th May.

5) There were no further questions from parishioners.

The Chair thanked everyone for attending, to our guest for their very interesting talk, and invited everyone to have further refreshments, with a reminder that Councillors were on hand to answer any queries.