Agenda item

·       Street Trading

·       Feedback on Localism Seminar

·       Library Services Update

·       Tisbury Campus Update

The Chairman made the following announcements:

Street Trading

A paper inviting people to comment on the final draft of the new council-wide Street Trading Scheme, had been attached to the agenda.

Councillor Jose Green commended the officers involved with the consultation for listening to the concerns and view of the local members and in making the required amendments to the document.

Councillor George Jeans explained that he and Councillor Beattie had also both worked hard to get the original proposals overturned and had worked with the officers involved to get an acceptable result.

Councillor Wayman and a member of Wilton Town Council thanked the councillors for their work in ensuring that the concerns of the Area Board were heard and that the required changes were  incorporated into the final version of the proposed scheme.

Community Speed Watch

The letter which was sent to motorists caught speeding was currently sent out by Elizabeth Ngero who had been employed to run the administration of the original Community Speed Watch Scheme. Originally there had been 18 schemes, which meant that letters were taking around one to two weeks to be sent out. Now that there were 44 schemes and still only one administrator, it was not possible for the administrator to send the letters so promptly, with some being send up to one month after the offence had been committed.

The Chairman suggested that funding was required to enable the scheme to employ a second administrator to provide assistance to Elizabeth in getting the letters out more quickly.

Feedback on Localism Seminar

Councillor Wayman gave an update from the Localism Seminar which was held on 12 May:

• More decision making would be passed down to Area Boards
• The Core Strategy has plans for each Community Area

Wilton Town Councillor Phil Matthews informed the Board that at the localism meeting he had raised the issue of the Land Command site at Wilton. Since then, the Highways Agency objected to the scheme.

Action

Councillor Richard Beattie would be asked to look into this matter.

Fovant Parish Councillor Tony Phillips noted that the parishes of Fovant, Hindon and Ludwell owed a debt of gratitude to the Board as if the Board had not made them aware that they had been marked down for 200 new homes, they would not have known about it.

Councillor Jose Green asked if anyone had experienced difficulty in accessing the web page to take part in the online consultation for the Core Strategy, as it had been reported to her that there were approximately 300 links to other documents from this site, which made the process of viewing the information laborious, with some people being put off or losing confidence in the consultation process.

Some other comments regarding this online consultation were:

• A suggestion that the consultation should list the changes to the document to save participants having to read the entire document over again to find any changes.
• It had been difficult to find a summary page.
• Concern was raised by some in attendance regarding the amount of money spent on online consultations such as this.

The Chairman noted that the Core Strategy which had started under the former SDC was now being fed into the overall Wiltshire Core Strategy, and could be seen as being a repetitive and confusing.

Alistair Cunningham had provided feedback to the Chairman, saying that the Neighbourhood Plans would need to conform with national policy and the Wiltshire Core Strategy, which would be consulting on housing boundaries and restrains.

The Chairman thought that these figures should be decided by the community themselves.

Action

Councillor Bridgett Wayman agreed to contact the Leader of the Council to discuss the matter and feed back with an update at the next Area Board meeting.

Library Services

There had been a good level of uptake from all three libraries (Mere, Tisbury and Wilton) from people interested in becoming volunteers. Around 100 people in total had come forward and the scheme would start in September 2011.

There would also be a review of the mobile library service in Autumn 2011.

Action

Richard Munro would include a complete update on the three libraries regarding the final decisions on opening hours, in a future Just a Minute (JaM).

Tisbury Campus

Councillor Tony Deane gave an update.  The COB had held two meetings to date, the first on 2^nd June, and the second on 16^th June, where the members had produced a draft consultation questionnaire which would be distributed shortly to households.

The COB consisted of the following members:

• Felicity Corp – Ex Librarian, involved with the church and driving for hospital patients.
• Cllr Tony Deane – Wiltshire Council local member
• Patrick Duffy – Chairman of Tisbury Parish Council
• Alan Gibb – Hindon Parish Councillor
• Sara Willan – Teffont resident and on the Odstock Hospital Board
• Isabelle Scott-Clark – Missionary in educating young people in life skills
• Zita Hooper – Young People’s Representative
• WC Campus Project Manager

Wiltshire Council had purchased the Nadder School building, which may be incorporated into the campus project.

The consultation would be administrated by TAPCAP and circulated to 8,000 houses within the Tisbury community area and some surrounding villages. It would also be available on the web as well as being circulated to parish councils.

There would be a four week period of consultation which provide a chance  for  local people to comment on how they would like to shape the campus facility for their community area.