Agenda item

a. Planning future Council service delivery into the Melksham Public Service Campus – presentation from Neil Ward (Strategic Property, Wiltshire Council) followed by a round table discussion.

b. Lorry Parking in Melksham – initial feedback from survey resulting from issues raised by residents near King St car park -  Kirsty Wilson (Mouchel)

Any Other Urgent Questions of Public Concern

Planning future Council service delivery into the Melksham Public Service Campus – presentation from Neil Ward (Strategic Property, Wiltshire Council) and John Rogers (Customer Services, Wiltshire Council).

John Rogers gave a brief outline as to why Wiltshire Council were  proposing Public Service Campuses for the delivery of many council services across the county.

Neil Ward then gave a presentation as to the proposed planning process for a Melksham Public Service Campus.

Points made included:

·        Wiltshire Council’s services in the Melksham Community Area were currently offered from a range of buildings in nine different locations.  Their locations were rarely a deliberate response to a clear service strategy, but more a reflection of historic inheritance and responsive acquisition.

·        The Council’s drive toward transforming service delivery, presented a great opportunities to take stock of this inherited approach to providing services, and to drastically reduce costs associated with running a dispersed estate.

·        Many services are housed in poor quality buildings that made accessibility difficult, were inefficient to run, and in the extreme were not fit for purpose.  The cost of maintaining this dispersed estate was not sustainable.

·        It is intended that Melksham would be the pilot for this type of service review.

·        The main aim of this review is to define an approach to co-locating services into a “Service Campus” where appropriate and seek opportunities for joining up with other public sector organisations.  The goal was to reduce building running costs to enable savings to be returned to transform the front-line services.

·        The presentation and Area Board consultation exercise gives an opportunity to capture thoughts on three main areas:

How best to engage with the community on the topic.

                   What people feel to be the current issues facing public services in the Melksham Community Area.

To describe what the key issues are around improving service quality and accessibility in Melksham.

·  The Council was undertaking this exercise to genuinely enable the wider community to have their views heard.  It was very much hoped that this consultation would lead to a better end result for Melksham.

Attendees were given the opportunity to part in a simple consultation exercise which would gauge what services they wanted from a proposed Melksham public service campus.

Points made from the floor included:

Next Steps

It was agreed that the data from the consultation exercise would be compiled and Neil Ward would attend the May 26 Melksham Area Board meeting to give a further update and feedback the consultation findings.

In the longer term Wiltshire Council officers would carry out wider consultation, including household surveys to provide a robust evidence base around the accessibility of public services during  Summer 2010, with conclusion of service specification, including key service accessibility criteria September 2010.

Recommendation to Wiltshire Council Cabinet expected December 2010.

Lorry Parking in Melksham – Kirsty Wilson (Mouchel) outlined with a power point presentation the initial feedback from survey resulting from issues raised by residents living near the King St car park.

 Points made included:

·        50% of the lorries parked over night were un-occupied local lorries.

·        King St car park did not meet the criteria set to be used as a lorry park, therefore the lorries should be removed from the Kings St car park.

·        The progression of a new lorry park possibly using the Leekes store car park should be explored as Leekes were happy to use their car park for this purpose and the site was the most suitable.

Points made from the floor included:

·        Local companies should not be parking their vehicles in Melksham over night, they should be back in their depots.

·        The survey vindicated the feelings of local residents over this issue.

Decision

That the Melksham Area Board fully supports the findings of the Mouchel survey and recommends that Cllr Dick Tonge (Portfolio holder for Highways & Transport, Wiltshire Council) investigates the proposal for Leekes to site the new Melksham lorry park.

Note

Cllr Griffiths requested that all occupants in Avon Road and Beanacre Road be consulted by mail or door to door, and that if agreed, there is a bedding in period of no more than six months allowing the Melksham Area Board to review the ongoing viability of the new location.

Any Other Urgent Questions of Public Concern.

Rubbish collections – there had been several issues with rubbish bins not being emptied as the lids would not close fully, residents were advised to ring Wiltshire Council if their bin had not been emptied, the bin would be emptied on the following Friday.

Car parking in Union Street - the parking is under review, the Town Council are expecting the review to be completed during April 2010, this issue will then come to a Future Melksham Area Board.