How does the Parish Council do its work?

The Parish Council meets in the Morgan Room of the Village Hall on the first Tuesday of every month of the year. These meetings are open to any resident of Horspath to attend and observe, and an opportunity is provided to hear any questions from members of the public near the end of each meeting. Meetings start at 8.00 pm and are usually finished at 10.00 pm, and in the half hour before the start of the meeting, any Planning Applications which are for evaluation during the meeting are on display and can be discussed informally. The business of each meeting is regulated by an official printed Agenda, which is prepared by the Clerk in consultation with the Chairman and Councillors, and is posted for public information at least by the preceding Friday, on the noticeboard on the Green by the Post Office, and on the noticeboard inside the Village Hall. The Agenda is also posted on this website as soon as possible. Any Councillor can request that an item may be added to the Agenda, and any resident of Horspath may also approach the Clerk with a similar request, for it to be discussed at least with the Chairman. Similarly any person may send a letter or e-mail to the Council addressed to the Parish Clerk, so that the letter and its concern will be formally registered as an item of Correspondence received, which may or may not be the subject of discussion at the next Council meeting. All communications and correspondence to the Council will need to be received at least one week in advance of the next Council meeting in order for the Council to deal with it at that meeting. A Chairman and a Vice Chairman, to supervise the meetings and to take some routine day-to-day decisions connected with Council business, are elected by the Councillors in May at the beginning of each Council year. When the Chairman is absent, the Vice Chairman automatically deputises and takes the chair at meetings, and when both are absent, a chairman must be nominated and agreed from amongst those Councillors present. At the beginning of every Council meeting, the Minutes of the previous Council meeting are checked, and corrected as necessary, before being approved as an accurate record, and these approved Minutes are then posted within a few days on the village noticeboards, and as soon as possible here on this website. At the end of each Council year in April, an Annual Parish Meeting, to which every resident is invited, is held in the Village Hall to review the work of the Council and to encourage public discussion of any relevant issues.