Agenda item

a.            Customer Services for Marlborough

Councillor Alison Bucknell, (Portfolio Holder for Customer Care, Wiltshire Council) andWayne Smith, Customer Services Operations Manager, will give a presentation on proposals for a new customer services point in Marlborough.

 

b.            Car Parking Strategy Consultation

Cllr Richard Gamble and David Bullock, Highway Improvements Manager, will give a presentation and respond to any questions.

 

c.            Local Transport Plan Funding Allocation

To note the recommendations made by the Community Area Transport Group.

 

d.            Highways Winter Maintenance

To note the recommendations for the area board’s 2010 allocation of grit bins.

a. Customer Services for Marlborough

Councillor Alison Bucknell (Portfolio Holder for Customer Care, Wiltshire Council) and John Rogers (Head of Customer Access) gave a DVD presentation on proposals for a new approach to face to face customer access.

 

Points made from the floor included:

 

• The importance of the public getting through to the right officer, an example was given of a member of the public who had found it frustrating talking to various call centre staff and getting nowhere. John Rogers advised that he would investigate this issue.

 

• Wiltshire Council needed to think about its customers who do not have internet access.

 

• People would welcome not having to travel and wait at council offices when they needed to access council services.

 

 

The Chairman thanked Cllr Bucknell and John Rogers for their presentation and attending the meeting.

 

 

b. Car Parking Strategy Consultation

Cllr Richard Gamble (Portfolio Holder for Public Transport) gave a brief presentation and responded to questions.

 

Points made by Councillor Gamble included:

 

• It was necessary to review car parking policy as the move towards One Council had brought together four policies from the former district councils.

 

• There had been some six hundred responses to the consultation and one petition.

 

• Countywide responses on the objectives of the strategy, banding and town council opportunities showed:

 

i. Overwhelming support for economy as the most important objective.

 

ii. Next highest support for meeting residents’ needs for parking.

 

iii. Majority support for concept of banding towns andproposed land- use zones.

 

iv. A small majority disagree with proposed bands.

 

v. A large majority agreed that town and parish councils should be offered ‘buy back’ and car park management opportunities.

 

Points made from the floor included:

 

·        Marlborough town council would like to operate its own car parking, is this likely to happen?

A – not in the short term.

 

• Are Marlborough parking costs expected to be lowered when the new Tesco store opens?

A – no change of the tariff is envisaged.

 

• The large consultative document had discouraged people to complete it and take part in the survey.

 

• If there were to be any future changes to parking tariffs would you be coming back to the area board to discuss?

A – yes, area boards are the forum to discuss such matters.

 

• There were concerns over the banding policy that residents and users of town A may pay more than town B.

A – Eventually all towns across Wiltshire will have a single tariff.

 

• Have Wiltshire Council looked how neighbouring councils operate their car parking policies?

Yes, Wiltshire Council had looked at others councils policies.

 

The Chairman thanked Cllr Gamble for attending the meeting and his presentation.

 

 

c. Local Transport Plan Funding Allocation

The 18 Area Boards had been allocated a discretionary budget of £250,000 for the assessment and selection of small-scale transport schemes to be progressed in their community areas - Marlborough Area Board had been allocated £13,600.

 

The Head of Traffic and Network Management stated that all five schemes selected by the Community Area Transport Group would be considered during the next year.

Decision

 

• The recommendations made by the Community Area Transport Group for the small scale transport and highway improvement schemes for the Marlborough community area were noted.

 

• That the Marlborough area board approved the proposal made by the Community Area Transport Group to upgrade the zebra crossing in George Lane, Marlborough to a PUFFIN crossing as its priority scheme.

 

 

d. Highways Winter Maintenance

Following the severe weather last winter a large number of requests for additional bins had been received. While it was not feasible to meet the cost of providing and filling the 422 additional bins requested, it was possible to provide about 100 new bins across the county.

There were at present 70 grit bins in the Marlborough community area. There had been requests for an additional 34 grit bins across the community area. Marlborough Area Board had received an allocation of 7 additional bins.

Of the 34 requests received, local highways officers considered the following locations to be the priorities:

 

Marlborough

1. Vicarage Close/Cold Harbour
2. Blowhorn Street
3. Homefield/Five Stiles Road
4. Bergamot Close

Winterbourne Monkton

5. To be placed where the phone box used to be.

 

Ramsbury

6.      Crowood Lane/Ashley Piece

 

Decision

 

• The Recommendations made by the highways officers for the allocation of grit bins were noted.

 

• That the location for the seventh grit bin was provisionally Hilldrop Close, Ramsbury and the final decision was delegated to the local highways officer in consultation with the Chairman.