To receive an update from Alastair Cunningham, Corporate Director and Cllr Pauline Church, Cabinet Member for Economic Development and Salisbury Recovery, on the Amesbury and Salisbury Recovery, following the recent major incident.
Minutes:
The Board received an update from Alastair Cunningham, Chair of the South Wiltshire recovery Group and Cllr Pauline Church, Cabinet Member for Economic Development and South Wiltshire Recovery, on the Amesbury and Salisbury Recovery, following the recent major incident.
Alastair Cunningham gave a brief update on the investigation, two suspects had been identified by Counter Terrorism Police and charged for the attack on Sergi and Yulia Skripal. The suspects had been named as Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov. European and Domestic arrest warrants had been issued and there was extensive media coverage and interest in the situation.
Major incidents were covered in the local resilience forum and the first phase was response, which was usually covered by the police. Then the response moved into the recovery phase which was usually covered by the Council.
The week prior the response phase had ended in the Amesbury area and the police had handed back all sites to the Council for the recovery phase and clean up. At Boots the chemist clean-up was underway. Clean-up at the Baptist Church and Muggleton Road was to commence soon.
In Salisbury:
· Clean-up was complete at The Mill pub, it was currently being refurbished and was due to open by Christmas 2018
· The Town Path had re-opened 31 July
· Queen Elizabeth Gardens reopened 24 August
· Clean-up at the Skripal home in Christie Miller Road was underway
· Clean-up almost complete at Zizzi restaurant – hand back imminent
· The Air Ambulance Station at Semington was declared safe following precautionary testing
· Clean-up almost complete at Tudor Close (former home of DS Bailey)
All sites were in the recovery phase and were getting back to normal. Far more had been learnt about the substance used and what had been learnt proved that the due diligence and rigorous processes involved in cleaning up a site was correct. Public confidence was good with people making use of sites immediately after handback and re-opening.
Cllr Church stated that footfall in Salisbury was recovering. Prior to the second major incident footfall had recovered to 4.2% below the 2017 average. However the second major incident had a bigger impact. In early August 2018 footfall was 16% down compared with the 2017 figure. There was a national issue with footfall decreasing in town centres however these figures showed quite significant falls. The latest update had footfall down by around 12.5% on the 2017 figures. Unfortunately there were not accurate footfall figures for Amesbury.
The long term recovery plan involved supporting businesses, economic regeneration and boosting tourism and visitors to Salisbury and Amesbury. Free parking had been provided in Council run car parks in Salisbury and Amesbury, however this was now under review. More than £6 million had been provided in financial support from central government. £327,000 of government and council funding had been provided to 60 businesses. The Swindon and Wiltshire Local Enterprise Partnership had provided £92,000 of grants to support 29 businesses. £208,000 had been provided in business rate relief to 50 businesses.
Wiltshire Council were working with VisitEngland and GREAT to implement a calendar of events and activities, boosted with celebrities and national publicity via influential writers and bloggers. Forthcoming 2018 events included:
· Salisbury Literary Festival - 16-22 October
· Food and drink markets
· Salisbury Christmas Lights switch on - Thursday 15 November
· A Very Vintage Christmas at The Guildhall - Sunday 25 November
· Salisbury Christmas Market - 29 November - 23 December
The OVO Energy cycling tour would be taking place in Salisbury on 23 May 2019. This had been a very successful event in 2018, boosting city centre footfall by around 11,500 and yielding an estimated net visitor spend/benefit to the local economy of £312,000. The estimated value of media coverage was around £482,000.
Another major event coming to Salisbury in 2019 would be National Armed Forces Day, which would take place on 28-30 June 2019. This would be a major national event with and anticipated attendance of 250,000 and would recognise:
· The role of the military in protecting our country
· The role of the specialist military teams and emergency services Salisbury and Amesbury this year following the Novichok incidents
· To welcome the Armed Forces personnel and their families returning from Germany to the Plain
· To recognise the veterans living in and visiting Wiltshire and the role they carried out serving our country
· To promote the Armed Forces Covenant
In response to questions from Amesbury Town Council querying the lack of initiatives for Amesbury, it was stated that there was a group set up drawing up a business plan for the history centre. There was also government commitment around high level solutions such as highways, as well as cultural and heritage assets. Cllr Church would be leading a cabinet committee which would include town councils and the MP. The town council was advised to take any ideas they had regarding initiatives for Amesbury to this committee. It was also stated that the Economic Development team would meet with Amesbury Town Council to look at plans they had developed.
Cllr Graham Wright thanked Cllr Church and Alastair Cunningham for the presentation and for the all the good work they had undertaken on the recovery. The Chairman also thanked them for the presentation.