Minutes for meeting held Tuesday 3 March 2026

Held in Ayton Community Hall at 7:30pm.

Present

• Alan McFadzean — Chair
• Trevor Smith — Secretary
• Alison Currie
• Toby Foster
• Amanda Wright
• Paul Cliffe

Members of the Public

• Rob Boyd

Apologies for Absence

• Paul Ingram — Treasurer
• Cllr C Hamilton
• Cllr A Orr
• Cllr J Anderson

Minutes of the meeting held 3 February 2026: TF proposed and PC seconded, and minutes were unanimously approved.

Community Council Consultation / Place Plan

Following the AGM it was agreed to prioritize several issues and we agreed the first issue would be the play park which had the biggest response in our community survey. It was agreed this would be discussed at our next meeting where we would agree a plan to move forward. It was agreed that TS would contact Carol Cooke at SBC to get an update on plans and request information on what we should do and he agreed to copy in SBC councillors to this.

Village Facebook Page

TS reported that Kenny Combe had handed control of the village Facebook page to the Community Council and that TS was now the main account holder. He has added a number of members of the Community Council as Administrators and would speak to Carol Cliffe, to seek further advice on how to control the page and ensure that the content posted on the page was both relevant and respectful to the wider population of Ayton.

Hemelvarrt Bier Café

It was reported that the proposed takeover was unlikely to go ahead and as far as the Community Council is aware, there are no other interested parties. As this is a privately owned business, it was agreed that we are limited in what we can do, however it was noted that many people from the village had noted the lack of a public house in the village as an issue in the community survey and we agreed to monitor the situation and offer support to any future, interested parties.

Ayton Castle

It was now widely reported that celebrity Alan Carr was in the process of purchasing Ayton Castle from the current owners. In addition to this Disney+ will be making a TV programme with the working title of Castleman. The producers of the show have requested a public meeting take place to talk about their plans and filming. It was agreed to approach Ayton Bowling Club with a view to holding a meeting on Wednesday 18th March. It wass stressed that this should be a meeting for local residents and that Alan Carr himself would not be in attendance. TS to approach bowling club and update village social media and TF would place a visual notice on the village notice boards.. Producers also provided the following information:

• At this point only 1 series of 8 episodes of the programme had been agreed.
• The castle will become Alan Carr’s main home, it will not be a hotel or spa.
• The production would involve a crew of 20 people and they would be looking to use local suppliers where possible to meet any of their needs.

MMWR

The January report has been circulated to all members and there were no items of interest to Ayton.

Planning

No planning applications were received this month ahead of the meeting.

Road Closures

Members were advised that no road closures in Ayton or surrounding areas had be received.

Treasurer’s Report

Account Balances:

Project Account: £916.04
Treasurer’s Account: £706.16

SBC Councillors’ Report

All SBC Councillors submitted apologies and, as a result, no reports were presented.

Date of Next Meeting

The next meeting of Ayton Community Council will take place on Tuesday 5th May 2026 at 7:00 pm in the community hall.