The minutes of the January meeting of Sibford Gower Parish Council can be found below. SGPC Minutes 20.01.26
The minutes of the January meeting of Sibford Gower Parish Council can be found below.
News
At the last meeting of Sibford Gower Parish Council the Clerk was asked to contact Highways to ask why the …
At the last meeting of Sibford Gower Parish Council the Clerk was asked to contact Highways to ask why the roads have been completely resurfaced in Sibford Ferris but no action has taken place in Sibford Gower, despite the very poor state of the roads. The response received from Highways was as follows:
‘The works carried out in Sibford Ferris were part of a surface dressing treatment, which is a countywide programme designed to maintain and prolong the life of existing road surfaces. Surface dressing is a preventative maintenance technique that helps seal the road, improve skid resistance, and delay the need for more extensive repairs.
It’s important to note that not all roads are suitable for surface dressing. The suitability of a road for this treatment depends on several factors including its construction, current condition, and usage. In some cases, alternative treatments may be more appropriate to address structural issues or more advanced deterioration.
To help identify and prioritise roads for treatment, we use data from mechanical surface condition surveys, which produce a score based on factors such as overall road condition. This data informs our maintenance planning and helps us determine the most appropriate treatment type and timing.
Looking at our system, we can confirm that roads in Sibford Gower have been surveyed. Based on the condition data including scores, sections of Main Street and nearby Hawkes Lane are currently being considered for treatment in the 2026/27 financial year.
Please note that condition scores for other roads in Sibford Gower and the surrounding area may change over time, as they are regularly updated through our mechanical surface surveys. These scores will help us assess future maintenance programmes accordingly.
We do encourage continued reporting of any specific issues via https://fixmystreet.oxfordshire.gov.uk, which helps ensure that our assessments remain up to date.’
The Clerk asked some additional questions in regards to Colony Road due to it being in particularly poor condition, and what the real term timescales would be when they talk about Main Street and Hawkes Lane being considered for treatment in the 2026/27 financial year. Their response was as follows:
‘Colony Road has been surveyed, and the data suggests that surface dressing may be an appropriate treatment based on the significant length and current condition. This recommendation is still subject to review by the appropriate team before any decision or program year is confirmed.
Regarding the statement: “Based on the condition data including scores, sections of Main Street and nearby Hawkes Lane are currently being considered for treatment in the 2026/27 financial year” – this means that, based on our current assessments, these roads are included in the draft programme for resurfacing during the 2026/27 financial year. I appreciate this does not mean works will take place immediately, but it does indicate that these roads are prioritised for treatment within the 2026/27 programme which falls in line with the new budget from April 2026. Unfortunately, there is still a vast amount of planning necessary for the countywide programmes, therefore I couldn’t give exact timescales at this stage. In the interim of any planned schemes, the roads will continue to be monitored through routine safety inspections, and any urgent defects reported will be addressed promptly through reactive defects regime.
If appropriate, please do advise the community to continue to report any defects via https://fixmystreet.oxfordshire.gov.uk.’
Coming up...
Sibford Gower Parish Council Meeting
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Village Hall (Small hall)
Planning Applications
(Click to open) The planning applications below are currently open for consultation. To view the details of an application, or to submit comments, click on the reference number to visit it on the Cherwell District Council website. There may be other applications of interest to parish residents on the fuller list
here.
Variation of Condition 2 (plans) and removal of Condition no. 3 (stable block) of 19/01002/F, to allow for the retention of existing stable block.
Consultation closes on Wed 11 Feb 2026
Construction of a new twin cell reinforced concrete service reservoir structure with associated ancillary works, including landscaping, fencing, car parking area, drainage works, provision of new access road with an access gate, and decommissioning and removal of existing reservoir cell
Consultation closes on Wed 4 Feb 2026
Sibford Gower Parish Council
Welcome
Welcome to our Sibford Gower Parish Council (SGPC) Home Page.
You should find all you need to know about our Parish Council here, under the following headings:
- Who we are and what we do
- What we spend and how we spend it
- What our priorities are and how we are doing
- How we make decisions
- Our policies and procedures
- Lists and registers
- The services we offer.
1. Who we are and what we do
The Sibford Gower Parish Council consists of 5 elected members from our local Community of Sibford Gower & Burdrop, who each serve as Parish Councillors for a period of 4 years. The next election of the full Council will be in May 2026. If, for any reason, a Councillor cannot serve their full term, our remaining Councillors have the power to co-opt a replacement Councillor to serve until the next full election, subject to the publication of certain formal notices.
Our Parish Councillors are non-party political and are not paid for Parish Council work.
Our Chair and Vice Chair are appointed annually.
The Parish Council employs a Parish Clerk to carry out the day-to-day business of the Council. Our Parish Clerk advises the Council on correct procedure, but has no vote at Council meetings.
The current members of the Sibford Gower Parish Council are:
- Jackie Noquet … cllr.jackie.noquet
@thesibfords.org.uk - Alan Berks (Chairman) … cllr.alan.berks
@thesibfords.org.uk - Roger Mallows … cllr.roger.mallows
@thesibfords.org.uk - Zoe Wesson … cllr.zoe.wesson
@thesibfords.org.uk
Our Parish Clerk is Kirsty Buttle, who is our primary point of contact …
by email at: sibford.gower.pc
by phone on: 07419 126 206
by post at: 74 Beaulieu Close, Banbury, Oxfordshire, OX16 4FQ
The Responsible Financial Officer (RFO), appointed by the Council to administer the Council’s finances, is our Parish Clerk.
Sibford Gower Parish Council holds 3 types of Meetings:
- Annual Parish Meeting … is an open meeting, usually held in April or May, which seeks feedback from the Community, and helps to steer the Parish Council’s agenda for the coming year
- Parish Council Meetings … are open meetings, held 4 times per year, to conduct the regular business of the Parish Council, and to encourage Community participation
- Extraordinary Meetings … are sometimes held to review Planning Applications when planning timescales prevent discussion at a regular Parish Council Meeting, but these meetings can also cover other Council business where deferral to our next regular meeting is inappropriate.
Agendas, minutes and other papers for all the above meetings can be found on our SGPC Meeting Archive page.
Our meetings are usually held at the Sibford Village Hall, Acre Ditch, Sibford Gower OX15 5RW, but may be held via video conferencing when circumstances dictate.
Details of our upcoming meetings can be found in The Sibfords Village Calendar on this website.
2. What we spend and how we spend it
The Parish Council is financed by a Precept which is a local tax on the residents of the Sibford Gower & Burdrop Parish, and is collected by Cherwell District Council as part of the Council Tax. The amount of the Precept is decided annually by the Parish Council.
In the Autumn of each year, the Parish Council estimates likely income and expenditure for the coming financial year (1st April to 31st March) and develops a draft Budget. The draft budget is discussed, amended where appropriate, and approved at a Parish Council Meeting in December or January, and our Precept Notification, which is based on our approved Budget, is then submitted to Cherwell District Council by late January.
Financial progress against our approved Budget, including delegated banking activity, is reviewed at each Parish Council Meeting.
Financial management is governed by the Parish Council’s Financial Regulations which are reviewed annually, and all documents relating to our current Finances can be found in our Finance & Governance Archive.
The main items of our Parish Council expenditure are:
- Administration & Governance, including: Parish Clerk salary & expenses; Meeting facilities; Insurance; Training; IT & Website
- Membership subscriptions to relevant support associations, including: OALC (Oxfordshire Association of Local Councils);
- Donations & Grants to local organisations, including: Sibford Village Hall; Sibford Scene
- Supplier Contract payments for Services provided by the Parish Council.
Sibford Gower Parish Council currently has 2 Supplier Contracts:
- The Holy Trinity Churchyard & Burial Ground: mowing & landscape maintenance (50% funded by the Sibford Ferris Parish Council)
- Highway Verges: mowing (alternating with Oxfordshire County Council Highways mowing).
Along with most other Parish Councils, we do not pay any salaries, allowances or expenses to our Parish Councillors.
3. What our priorities are and how we are doing
As an arm of local government we work closely with and provide a direct link to Cherwell District Council and Oxfordshire County Council. A number of our responsibilities relate to our obligations to them – for example in the exercise of their planning functions or the maintenance of the village’s burial ground – and are defined in the terms of reference provided for us in the 1972 Local Government Act. But within that framework we hold ourselves accountable to our local electorate, the villagers of our community.
We do that formally once a year in the Annual Parish Council Meeting, but we would like to think we do that more informally at every Open Meeting – a forum where we would like to feel villagers from Sibford Gower & Burdrop are welcome to come together to talk over matters of common concern or shared interest.
Ultimately we take responsibility for the decisions made by the Council in the light of these conversations, but they have served not only to inform our decision-making and influence our priorities for the coming year but in their own right have often become the source of many initiatives led by villagers themselves.
The provision in the 1972 Local Government Act for an Annual Parish Meeting which takes place in the same part of the year is actually not a council-led meeting but is an opportunity nevertheless for the parish’s councillors to get a measure of the community’s interests, concerns and aspirations – and to find out how we are doing as a Council.
4. How we make decisions
As far as possible, all Parish Council decision-making is carried out in public, at Parish Council Meetings. These open meetings are held 4 times per year, and are advertised on the SGPC Notice Board, and on this website in The Sibfords Village Calendar.
Members of the public may attend Parish Council Meetings, but have no legal right to speak. In practice the Sibford Gower Parish Council actively encourages participation, and our Chair invites questions and discussion at appropriate times, subject only to maintaining order and reasonable timekeeping.
By law, the Parish Council may only make decisions (especially those involving expenditure) on matters that have been itemised in the meeting agenda, which must be published on the SGPC Notice Board and on this website three clear days before the meeting. To propose a topic for a meeting agenda, please contact our Parish Clerk or a Councillor in good time.
Agendas, proposals, reports and minutes of meetings are published in the SGPC Meeting Archive.
Extraordinary Meetings are conducted in the same way as Parish Council Meetings, and are usually focused on relevant Planning Applications. All Council responses to planning applications are published on the Cherwell District Council website.
Whenever appropriate, the Council establishes informal Working Groups to research, review and recommend future policy or procedure to the full Council, eg for the development of a draft Budget for the coming year; for the review and update of our Policies & Procedures; for our inclusivenes and celebratory aspirations for our Annual Parish Meetings.
5. Our policies and procedures
The Parish Council develops, reviews and adopts various Policies & Procedures to ensure reasonable consistency in the governance of our Council business.
A full list of all the Policies & procedures that we intend to publish can be found in our SGPC Publication Scheme, and the draft or adopted version of each currently published policy or procedure can be found on our Policies & Procedures webpage.
The Sibford Gower Parish Council undertakes a regular review of all our Policies & Procedures on a rolling basis. Our reviews are aimed at balancing National and County best practice with simplicity and appropriateness to scale. Revised documents will be published on this website once adopted by the full Council.
6. Lists and registers
Our Asset Register lists all assets owned by the Sibford Gower Parish Council. This register is updated each year as part of our Annual Governance & Accountability Review (AGAR), and our Asset Registers for past financial years can be found in appropriate page our Finance & Governance Archive.
All our Parish Councillors are required to declare any Disclosable Pecuniary Interest (DPI) which others might reasonably consider to influence their words or actions as a member of the Parish Council. Each Councillor must make a declaration on appointment, and subsequently update their declaration, if and when a new DPI arises. These declarations are recorded in a Register of Members’ Interests maintained by the Monitoring Officer at Cherwell District Council, and they can be viewed on Cherwell DC’s website, by clicking on each Councillor’s name.
7. The services we offer
Sibford Gower Parish Council manages the following services for the Community:
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The landscape maintenance of the Holy Trinity Churchyard & Burial Ground (50% funded by Sibford Ferris Parish Council), and the arrangement of burial plots.
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The mowing of Highway Verges within the Parish boundary (alternating with Oxfordshire County Council Highways)
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The provision and maintenance of the SGPC Notice Board
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The provision and maintenance of roadside rock salt bins for use on the public highway in icy weather
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The support where possible of local community and voluntary organisations in enhancing life in our Village.
Any other questions?
The Freedom of Information Act requires every public authority to have a Publication Scheme, and to publish information covered by the scheme.
This Home Page follows the format of the Model Publication Scheme for public authorities published by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) and contains links to relevant documents that we publish under our SGPC Publication Scheme.
The Sibford Gower Parish Council aims to improve our website over time, and to publish further relevant information but, if you have any suggestions for information you would like to see published, please let us know via our Parish Clerk.
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