The purpose of this short communication is to let people know what was discussed at the community council meeting.

If you have any comments or queries, please do speak to a community councillor or email secretary.kilfinancc@gmail.com

Present: Ed Pybus (Convenor) John Butcher (Member) Catriona Renfrew (Secretary) John MacColl (Member) Nicola Greenall (Vice Convenor) Victoria Wince (Treasurer)

Apologies: Robin Webster (Member)

Three members of the public were welcomed to the meeting

Community Council processes: There were a number of processes which were signed off by the meeting including a Model Complaints process, Standing orders, and a constitution.

Co-option: There was a discussion about co-option of additional vacancies to fill the three vacancies and this will be discussed again at the next meeting.

Community engagement and communication. Members were keen to ensure that we engage effectively with our community. People are invited to register their email address to get CC papers. We will develop a website and use Facebook and noticeboards to communicate. After each meeting we’ll put out a communication.

Meeting Schedule and venues we’ll meet at Kames Hall and vary meetings between 1500 and 1800 hours to enable a range of people to attend. We will look at being able to offer remote access through Teams or Zoom. We also agreed we need to think further about how we connect to local elected members.

Council Budget survey: we are to late to contribute for this year but will think about how we engage in future years.

Visitor levy consultation: Agreed this is an important issue with different views across the community and lots of forums for discussion which the CC should publicise and encourage people to engage with.

Kilfinan Local Place Plan: The CC agreed to initiate the Local Plan process and accepted the proposal that Argyll Climate Action Network (ABCAN) Bute and Cowal Rural team, facilitate. A steering group will be established to bring all stakeholders together.

Argyll Rally: The CC agreed that we need to find out what views are in our community on the rally proposed routes and what the economic impact is. A short engagement process will be established with people invited to express views by email to rally.kilfinancc@gmail.com or by speaking to community councillors. We have let Argyll and Bute Council know that we will be writing to them when we have views in from the community so that those can be considered in their decision.

Broadband issues: the CC was concerned by lack of progress to deliver comprehensive broad band coverage and agreed we need to raise this in the local plan work.

Storm mobile coverage: A and B Council had highlighted a process underway to collate issues with telecoms during Storm A. Issues are being collated by email Iain.Macinnes@argyll-bute.gov.uk The CC agreed to return to the issue of storm resilience.

Bute and Cowal Area Committee and Community Planning Group were noted as important ways for the CC to engage with Councillors and wider statutory bodies.

Ferry Issues: the reduction to the Portavadie to Tarbert Ferry service was causing real issues Unilateral ferry decisions were made without consideration of community needs and concern that non-island services are not treated as lifeline. We’ll write to CalMac asking for engagement in decisions

Date of next meeting Monday 24^th March 18.00 at Kames Hall