St Monans & Abercrombie Community Council

Minutes of the Ordinary Meeting of the St Monans and Abercrombie Community Council held on Monday 17^th October 2022, at 7.30pm in St Monans Church Hall.

Present: Vicki Salvage (Chair), Marjory Ashworth (Vice Chair), Billy Morris (Treasurer), Morven Syme, Trish Hardie, Eileen Montador, Mervyn Blank, Cllr A Hayes & Cllr F Corps.

Apologies: Stuart Bridges, Richard Croker & Cllr S Dillion.

Members of the public: 9

No Declarations of interest.

Mrs Salvage welcomed everyone and apologized for the cold hall, which was due to faulty heating & awaiting an engineer’s visit the following day.

1.  Minutes of previous meeting and matters arising.

Cllr Hayes reported that the Allotments Officer from Fife Council had been in touch with the Chairperson of the Allotments Group. Allotment sheds will be 6’ x 4’.  Cllr Hayes will circulate information to CC.  Replacement Sign at Cemetery is in hand.  Parking on Braehead not so bad due to holiday season being over.

Minutes Proposed: M Syme  Seconded E Montador

• Chair Person’s Report

Mrs Salvage announced that Helen Ironside has resigned from the Community Council.  V Salvage said Helen’s connections with the school and the church were an added bonus for the CC and commended Helen’s hard work in helping to arrange extra funding for the playpark (at the Mair) This has already been much appreciated as we now have a park that is so popular with the children it is difficult to get photos of the new play items as there are always children playing on all the exciting new equipment! It is popular with locals and holidaymakers alike. They all just love it. V. Salvage thanked Helen Ironside for her service and contribution to our Community Council and behalf of our CC members wished Helen best wishes for the future.

V. Salvage reported, ‘As a volunteer at the Heritage Collection this summer it has been a pleasure for me to help welcome some of the great variety of visitors we have had from home and abroad. Our St Monans Heritage Collection is a very special village asset and one we should really be proud of. Indeed we should try to keep adding to and enhancing the collection, as well as doing our best to help Billy (Morris) to ensure that the Collection is conserved in the best way possible for all items.

Billy’s suggestion to open the Heritage Rooms for 7 days a week during July, August and September has been a real success.’ 

Mrs Salvage asked to query the ‘practice’ by Fife Council of demanding to take village Common Good Items into ‘safe keeping’. How widespread is this practice? St Monans has 3 ancient ‘baillies chairs’, one of which is one of the is oldest of its type in Scotland – dated 1618. (And one is a later copy).

Fife Council feel our iconic ‘Baillie Chairs’ are too precious to leave in St Monans and wish to take them away for ‘safe keeping’. In modern times these chairs have been in recorded use here since at least 1959. (BUT they have also been known in local history for hundreds of years.) With regionalization in 1979, Fife Council took lots of items ~ such as oil paintings & other artifacts away from (probably) nearly all the Fife villages and towns. Nowadays many local people rightly question the legal situation of this policy. It seems that not only have villages like St Monance/St Monans not been able to see these items since they were taken in the early 1980s, but in many cases it seems there was no full documentation of all these paintings, artifacts, books, antiques and even items of jewellery (Provost chains etc.) The feeling is that these chairs should be kept in St Monans rather than going to Fife Council’s central storage at Bankhead, Glenrothes. For several years the East Neuk Preservation Society (based in St Monans) became self-appointed guardians of our historic chairs, and agree with them being taken to be conserved. The ENPS have offered to gift a replacement large chair, with 2 smaller chairs to the Heritage Collection, to use as the throne for the Sea Queen and 2 smaller chairs for her two Attendants. This is a thoughtful offer and if we cannot use our traditional antique St Monans Chairs ~ the Sea Queen Committee will no doubt be grateful for this offer. With regard to our antique ‘Baillie Chairs’, St Monans residents and expats have commented that there is not much point in having them if you can’t ever see them because they are supposedly to be kept in the correct temperature in storage. So far there is no answer to that.

 Billy (Morris) also tracked down 4 oil paintings out of the old Town Council’s collection – that were removed from St Monans in the late1970’s or early 1980s. (Most of which were known to be gifts by local residents to be displayed here!) Aparently there are prints of 4 of them in an office in the village library.  Billy tried to get them back to St Monans for viewing when he had the antique Robert the Bruce sword visiting St Monans for a special Sea Queen weekend, but Fife Council refused. One of the paintings is in the Kirkcaldy Museum, but is not attributed as belonging to our village. Surely that in itself is wrong?

Apparently other villages and towns in Fife are also having trouble finding out the whereabouts of the precious objects that were removed from them in the 1970s/1980s.

Action: Cllr A Hayes and Cllr F Corps

3 Secretary’s Report

The Secretary position is still vacant. 

V. Salvage reported: The Community Larder has had a change of Opening hours. It is now open from 12noon – 3pm on Friday afternoons. 

A letter which was  emailed to church members was read out by M Ashworth. It doesn’t seem to answer many of the public queries about the situation with the church. Mrs Salvage commented, ‘It is hoped there may be more answers for the November CC meeting’.

V Salvage had no Police Report sent to her in time for the meeting, but Cllr Hayes said there had been 23 calls to the police and 3 crimes recorded.

The date for the 2023 Burns Supper has been booked for Saturday, 4^th February. The hall and caterer are booked. Audrey Clark our Piper has been booked, plus Cllr Hayes is going to sing and other members of the CC and our local councilors are asked to contribute too please.

• Treasurer’s Report

           Everything paid on CC account.  The Floral account has paid the 

 Pathhead account.  Heritage A/C £1200.00.

5.  Member’s Report

1.  M Syme reported that planning had houses replacing their doors and    windows and that the ex Mayview Hotel owner is applying for permission to demolish the function suite and turn it into a house.

2.  Concerns have been raised regarding the speeding passed the new   houses on the new housing estate to the west of the old manse.  Drivers are not paying attention to the 30mph. 

Cllr F Corps said the signs are going to be moved further out.

• E Montador reported the concern of Gourlay Crescent residents, saying one resident was smoking and drinking and walking around naked with a record of domestic abuse.  It was suggested that a residents meeting should be held ASAP – as the last meeting arranged by Fife Council and held at the Fire Station was not known about in time as posters & flyers were not displayed due to the Queens Funeral.  Action Cllr A Hayes to arrange a meeting or surgery that residents can discuss the problems and things can be investigated. (Specific contacts are needed. Information is being gathered, but there is not enough yet.)
• There are also problems in Roland Street as well as some other areas, by the urgency is in Gourlay Crescent. 
• M. Blank asked where the Community Police officer, Rob Wallace, was – it was explained Police Scotland do not have enough officers due to lack of funding.
• Billy Morris reported that The Heritage Rooms had 2016 visitors. 

Roof repairs cost £1340.70, (for the Heritage share,)

Water bill was £1224.84.

Work to be carried out will cost approx. £1760. 

B. Morris will apply for planning as the first step to changing the lease at a cost of £240.

Legal fees to allow the Heritage Collection to sell souvenirs etc will cost £800.

New Lighting could cost £520.

Common Good Fund pays the rent.

Ratable value £3300 up £1000 from last year.

6  Councillors Reports

  Cllr S Dillion had looked into a paid Minutes Secretary; it is a matter to be discussed by our CC and a decision to be taken by us.  Kingsbarns CC have one. Pittenweem had one for £20/night. 

Water to the Cemetery has been looked into but is too expensive due to piping the water over the bridge. Plus the water would be metered and would have to be paid for.  Fife Council estimates £10,000 to reinstate the piping and they don’t feel it is necessary at present with the cost of living crisis.

Cllr A Hayes: A business in St Monans has been reported for charging 50p to use a credit card and is being investigated. 

A report by Marine Scotland for the Anstruther District Fish landings are up 23%. The value is £4,782,000 ~ this is 90% of Scottish landings in the UK. 

Royal Mail strikes 20 – 25 October and Monday 28^th November 2022.  The Veterans fund is open for the Armed Forces.

7. Public Questions

1. Sandra Mayes reported that she was struggling to get water along to the J Braid garden.  P Peddie had been asked to fill the water barrels but reported he is too busy.  B Morris suggested that there should be an old water pipe nearby as there used to be a drinking-fountain nearby where the bathing huts used to be.
2. No further update on the Right of Way at Station Road.
3. Autumn Club is asking for £500 from the Common Good Fund to go towards the heating. This will be supported by the CC
4. Johnstons Close someone has been throwing tins out of window and the weeds have not been killed. This will be reported to FC Housing Dept.

8.  AOCB

1. Flood at the Coal Farm.  Action Cllr A Hayes
2. Traffic speeding through Abercrombie.  Action Cllr A Hayes (to get a number from Morven).
3. HGV sign at the B942 and C17 is falling over.
4. Abercrombie is getting Your Speed signs.

9. Date of Next Meeting

Date of next meeting 21^st November 2022 in the Church Hall,

St Monans. 

Coffee & Tea at 6.45pm.

AGM 7.10 pm

Ordinary Meeting at 7.30 pm