To note the written updates attached to the agenda and to receive any verbal updates from representatives present.
a) Salisbury City Council (SCC)
b) Laverstock and Ford Parish Council
c) Police
d) Fire
e) Salisbury BID
f) Community Engagement Manager
Note: Speakers are reminded that they each have a 3 minutes slot, unless they have previously discussed alternative arrangements with the Chairman.
Minutes:
To Board noted the written updates attached to the agenda and received verbal updates from representative’s present.
a) Salisbury City Council (SCC) – Cllr Sven Hocking:
· Butcher Row / Fish Row – Improvements to the footway had stared with the contactor now on site. The black top and broken stones by the Poultry Cross would be replaced with similar removed from Fish Row and the rest would be replaced with York stone slabs as per the other pedestrianised parts of the City
· SCC was setting up a working group to look at other areas of the City which might benefit from pedestrianisation, short, medium and long term. WC was in the process of providing the previous reports around this work, so SCC did not have to start completely from scratch and once we have that we would draw up a wish list and go from there.
· City Stewards were on station on a daily basis, they were assisting the public generally, keeping ASB at a super low level in the City Centre and monitoring and assisting the Police with intelligence around more serious cases. Cllr Hocking and the stewards would be meeting with WC Licencing officers tomorrow to look at the ease at which high strength alcohol still seemed to be accessible to some of the street drinkers in the city. Working with WC officers and charitable partners to help those in this group with their various problems and assimilate them back into normal society.
· The process to recruit a new City Clerk to replace the recently retired Reg Williams was underway.
· Litter Working Group was gathering evidence around those businesses who dump their commercial waste on the street regardless of what day it is supposed to be collected and was also starting to have conversations with the waste collection companies around collecting on the days they were supposed to. We are also working up policies and procedures for enforcement and the issuing of fixed penalties and were talking to other Councils which had the same in place currently.
· The Parks and Grounds Maintenance team have a had a big splurge on graffiti in and around the City. To keep a lid on the issue, they were now carrying a few tins of paint with them when they were out and about to cover new tags when they find them.
· We have had an initial presentation around the Maltings development which was still in its infancy but, while there was still a way to go before there was a finite plan, the developers brought a whole gang of people from the Architect working up the designs to the Agents who would be selling the space so there was a clear sense that they were serious in their aspirations and committed to the project – far more so then the original outfit Stanhope – so all very positive.
· The first meeting on Neighbourhood Planning (NHP) would be held on 29th July.
· The Bike Show looked like it would be back on again this year in April and would be complimented later in the year by a car performance and race car show.
b) Laverstock and Ford (L&F) Parish Council – David Burton
· Work was progressing with the NHP, L&F would love to attend the SCC public meeting on this and invited SCC to attend theirs.
· School run issues. Karen was doing great work with Greentree’s. SCC would love to share our learnings on this.
· The Country Park was still progressing on its way.
· On 20th Dec the Lantern Parade would take place.
· An Iron Age village project was underway at St Marks and Greentrees.
c) Police – Inspector Pete Sparrow
· Following a series of purse thefts around the city during the Christmas market period, we introduced a system called pulse patrols. We throw all of our available officers out on to the street at once for short bursts. This was also advertised on social media. Since new year we have only had 2 thefts.
· There had been huge success with county wide drug dealers.
· Working with Turning Point to engage with people suffering from substance misuse.
· Salisbury Officers had changed their focus from dealing with people taking drugs to dealing with the dealers.
· Crime had gone up 6.4% over last year’s figures for the same period, however this figure was below the average increase.
· Tackling the right areas.
d) Fire – Jason Moncrieff
· Response calls for the months of November and December were standard. One hoax call to HQ had been received.
· There had been a number of Road Traffic Collisions to attend.
· Availability had remained high, and had maintained good averages of 85%. 2 pumps available.
· A recruitment campaign was underway, which included press articles, radio adverts and displays in the market square in Salisbury. So far 12 possible applicants for the on-call service had come forward.
e) Community Engagement Manager – Karen Linaker
· Leaflets had been circulated by the Odd Fellows organisation, advertising an event on 21st February. To look at older people’s isolation and loneliness – they did also operate on all age levels.
· Wiltshire Council was running a Rough Sleepers campaign ‘Real Change’: encouraging people who wanted to help rough sleepers to contribute to charities which help them, rather than just give money to people on the streets.
· Celebrating Age, was a series of 10 events celebrating older people, to access art and cultural events.
· Anne Trevett and St Johns Place were doing amazing things in lower Bemerton.
· The Council’s Clean up Wiltshire campaign started in October 2017, focusing on fly tipping. This year the campaign would start with a phase one to focus on emphasising the ethical issue of litter. Phase two would expand into encouraging community litter picking events.