The concept of PPC (Pailton Parish Council) applying for funding to buy the Pailton Shop and PO to run as a community venture was a major item at the Parish Council meeting of Monday, January 5th, 2009.
At the previous PPC meeting it was agreed that the Parish Council would consider applying for funds to buy the Pailton shop to run it as a community venture if the sub committee appointed to investigate possibilities reported that 50% (i.e. 204) of people from the village's electoral roll voted in favour of doing so.
The chair of the sub committee established to investigate the issue, Mark White, reported:
257 votes from a possible 406 were received
174 voted for the proposal for PPC to buy the shop & PO (43%)
83 voted against
11 abstained
Mark said he felt that although the target of 204 had not been met, he envisaged 216 Yes votes could be obtained if more time could be made available to collect responses from people who haven't voted up to now (the deadline set out for receiving votes on the voting form was 28-12-2008).
After much discussion, the PPC chairman proposed a motion to delay a decision for two weeks. The motion was carried with the chairman voting "for" with one other. One PPC member voted against and another abstained.
In a later discussion PPC felt they could
not apply for an increased precept to cover a provision
for owning the shop as the previoius discussion had been inconclusive. The final day
for application for an increased precept was 6/1/2009.