Annual Parish Meeting

The Agenda is now available here:- BAPM Agenda 2022

What to expect

This year the meeting is being conducted via Zoom – full details are contained in the Agenda. Whilst we accept that the Covid restrictions have been relaxed, the massive surge in case numbers nationally and locally was clearly playing on peoples minds and common sense dictated that we exercise an element of caution and heed peoples concerns. We can cater for up to 500 people on our Zoom meetings and hope to reach a wider audience than usual.

For more information please contact the Clerk, Sue Bottoms (see our contact page).

The background to these Annual Parish Meetings

Once a year members of the community gather to bring each other up to speed on everything. Local schools, groups, the Parish Council, etc discuss what has been happening over the last 12 months and what is planned for the future.  The event is free and open to the public.

This is, in legal terms, a quite separate body from the Parish Council, but it is invariably us that arranges it. Its decisions are not binding on the Parish Council, although we always take heed of what is said at the meeting.

The Annual Parish Meeting is a legacy from the Middle Ages, when Local Councils did not exist, and all local decision making was carried out by meetings of the whole community, taking place in the church vestry.

The Annual Parish Meeting is open to all electors of our Parish, who have the right not only to attend but also to speak on any matter of local interest. This is in contrast to a Parish Council meeting, where electors who are not Councillors have no automatic right to speak – although we have a set time to allow electors to raise matters of concern to them.

This meeting should not be confused with the Parish Council’s Annual General Meeting.

This meeting has its own minutes, which are kept separately from the Parish Council minutes, and as is normal practice, these minutes will be approved at the next Annual Parish Meeting in 12 months time. In the meantime a copy will be provided to the Parish Council as there may be points it wishes to progress sooner. The Parish Council obviously cannot approve these minutes as they do not belong to the them.