Agenda item

Written Updates attached are:

a)    Police

b)    Fire & Rescue Service – verbal update

c)     Wiltshire Council Updates – Public Health & Wellbeing Grant, Housing Allocations

d)    Community Area Transport Group (CATG)

e)    Southern Wiltshire Issues System

f)      Any other comments or reports

Police - Inspector Noble

Recent structural changes would reduce the tiers of management; there would be no new Chief Inspectors or Chief Superintendants. The new Superintendant for Salisbury, Warminster and Amesbury was Charlie Armstrong, with Inspector Noble moving to a new post, working under her. He is being replaced as Sector Inspector by Inspector David Minty.

A new scheme which was being trialled by Beat Managers would provide more of an insight into possible causes of local trends.

A recent public meeting on the decommissioning of the Wilton Road site held on 19 May 2014 had been poorly attended. Representatives from the PCC, Technical College and Police had been in attendance to present an update. A series of future meetings would be scheduled, these would be publicised in due course. 

Police teams would be moving into Bourne Hill in Salisbury on 18 June 2014. A site for the new Custody Suite had now been confirmed subject to contract.

Questions and Comments were then received, these included:

·       When prisoners are taken to Melksham, and later released in Melksham, how do they get back to the Southern Wiltshire area? Answer: When individuals are arrested their civil liberties are taken away when they are taken into custody. Before release, they are assessed, if an individual has specific needs or is deemed vulnerable then they would be assisted and transport would be arranged.

·       The Bourne Hill council building was designed to be a non public office, it is not laid out to receive public. Answer: There will be some alterations at Bourne Hill to allow for that use. We can divide our work into clean and dirty business, we would not deal with any of the dirty business at the customer counter at Bourne Hill.

Fire – Mike Franklin & Station Manager Dan Cooke

The standard written update was currently not available due to an issue with IT software, it was hoped that the problem would be resolved and a report would be available in time for the next meeting.

Wiltshire Fire and Rescue (WFRS) had been in discussions with the Dorset Fire and Rescue Service, to look at possibilities for a joint working relationship. WFRS had a shortfall in budget of between £3.1 million to £3.9 million which had to be resolved by 2018. They had appraised their options and put forward a business case to combine the Wiltshire and Dorset authorities, on which a decision would be made in September 2014. A consultation would take place between 16 June 2014 and 24 August 2014 which would include the public, police and council. This would be promoted through their website, social media and press and a helpline would be set up.

Councillor Devine, who sits on the Wiltshire Fire Authority, added that it was not a done deal; the Authority was looking strongly at the proposal of a merger.

Wiltshire Council Updates

The Board noted the information items attached to the agenda:

·       Public Health and Wellbeing Grant

·       Housing Allocations

Community area Transport Group (CATG)

The Board considered the recommendation to prioritise 2 schemes of the 6 that were put forward to the 20mph scheme, to CATG by Parish Councils.

Agreed

The Southern Wiltshire Area Board agreed to support the two 20mph schemes in Coombe Bissett and Whiteparish, for study and assessment as detailed in the report.

Online Issues System

Tom Bray, Community Area Manager explained that he issues report showed the issues split into two groups now, one for Highways Maintenance and the other for CATG, HGV and other issues.

He urged people to continue to raise issues online. Highways issues are best raised via the My Wiltshire App.