Agenda and minutes

The Chairman, Cllr Richard Britton welcomed everyone to the meeting of the Southern Wiltshire Area Board.

Apologies for absence were received from:

• Fire Station Manager Matthew Maggs
• Police Inspector Tina Osborn

To approve and sign as a correct record the minutes of the previous meeting held on Thursday 9 September 2021.

Decision

The minutes of the previous meeting held on 9 September 2021, were agreed as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.

To receive any declarations of disclosable interests or dispensations granted by the Standards Committee.

There were none.

To receive Chairman’s Announcements.

The Chairman advised that he would be swapping the order of agenda items 7 and 8.

·         Fire & Rescue Service

·         Healthwatch Wiltshire

·         Clinical Commissioning Group

·         Wiltshire Council Updates

o   Changes to Wiltshire’s Taxi Tariffs

o   Leisure Centres transferring to WC

o   Youth Council Updates

·         Current consultations: https://consult.wiltshire.gov.uk/kse

The Board noted the information items attached to the agenda and available information online, including:

·         Fire & Rescue Service

·         Healthwatch Wiltshire

·         Clinical Commissioning Group

·         Wiltshire Council Updates:

o   Changes to Wiltshire’s Taxi Tariffs

o   Leisure Centres transferring to WC

o   Youth Council Updates – new Wiltshire Youth Council – all schools 11 - 18 invited to put forward pupils to take part. Video shown.

In relation to Youth Councils, Cllr Rogers asked whether it would be possible to see the data of what the take up across the county was. Karen Linaker agreed to find out and feedback.

Current consultations:

https://wiltshire.objective.co.uk/portal/

Councillors are asked to note this update.

Officer: Karen Linaker, Community Engagement Manager

Karen Linaker, Community Engagement Manager gave an update, the main points covered were:

The Work Plan’s top 6 pieces of work:

1.    Promote ‘Our Community Matters’  (OCM)

2.    Deliver Rural Youth Outreach Project (RYOP)

3.    Support village youth groups to get back up and running

4.    Deliver Make A Friend Be A Friend project in Downton and Redlynch

5.    Develop a local programme (directory resource) of health and wellbeing support and services

6.    Deliver Healthy Schools Project

Events:

·         Youth Engagement event delivered in July 2021

·         Health & Wellbeing event delivered in October and planned for January, involving Silent Discos

·         Parish Council event delivered in November 2021

·         Eco Friendly Villages event planned for early 2022

1.    Communications: Promote Our Community Matters

a)    offer OCM training to all contributors, including parish councillors and clerks

b)    target village newsletter editors and community groups each month requesting contributions

c)    invite parish councils to publish a good news story for each Friday OCM Newsletter

2.    Young People – covered in item 9

3.    Health & Wellbeing:

a)    Make A Friend Be A Friend (MAFBAF) – aiming to start this project when more groups are back up and running and covid rates have settled.

b)    Produce a local directory of health and wellbeing related activities, support and services – list nearly complete

c)    Healthy Schools Project – 8 new schools signed up and working towards bronze and silver accreditation

d)    Dementia Support – potential new Dementia Action Alliance to form in new year

e)    Silver Sunday Outreach Project

The Chairman noted that there was a huge amount of work going on behind the scenes, thanks to Karen Linaker.

a) Parish Councils and Community groups

b) Community Speedwatch: Report on recent conference with the Police and Crime Commissioner

c) Community Policing

    Local issues and priorities - Inspector Tina Osborn

d) Vibrant Wiltshire

e) Amesbury to Salisbury Cycle Route update

a)    Parish Councils and Community groups

There were no updates on this occasion.

b) Community Speedwatch (CSW): Report on recent conference with the

Police and Crime Commissioner

The Chairman feedback a summary from the recent online conference held by the PCC for the CSW team leaders.

There was a clear indication of a pronounced feeling of demoralization amongst the CSW volunteer teams, with attendees noting a feeling of lack of support and frustration with the ever-changing admin processes and inefficiency of the back-office workforce.

Sharing of speed guns between many locations was also noted as an obstacle in providing effective coverage.

The PCC had advised that he aimed to align CSW teams more closely with Community Policing Teams in terms of organisation and to encourage a more coordinated outcome.

There would also be an increase to the number of mobile camera units.

The Chairman felt that the session had been extremely valuable in making the PCC aware of the opportunities and difficulties in CSW at the moment.

c) Community Policing - Local issues and priorities - Sgt Chris Noke

Sgt Noke confirmed that in relation to the update on CSW, the one enforcement officer assigned to CSW had been off for a few weeks but was now back on duty, in addition, there were plans for a further 2 Officers to be assigned to CSW and would be able to issue speeding tickets and no seatbelt tickets.

He then went on to provide a verbal update in conjunction to the written update attached to the agenda, some of the main points included:

·         Crime had reduced significantly across the area

·         NPT continued to set up community consultations – especially in response to local incidents.

·         Support from Special Observation Officers and Traffic Officers

·         A rise in criminal damage reports in Downton over the last few weeks – a car had been stopped in connection to this which contained 4 individuals, this investigation was ongoing.

·         In relation to ongoing Catapult incidents, some individuals had been brought in for interview.

·         There had been an increase in non-dwelling burglaries, with thefts of power tools and bikes and in dwelling burglaries of jewellery and devices

·         Support the encouragement of home security measures – Bikes could be brought in to be marked for security.

·         Rise in hare coursing and poaching during this season

·         Drink drive campaign – running throughout December

Questions and comments included:

·         Details regarding a horse volunteer scheme had been advertised on social media, with opportunity for up to 50 people to sign up to help on rural crime intelligence matters.

·         What was happening with regards to tackling the use of cannabis blatantly being used in public areas? Answer: Police had stop and search powers however there wasn’t a consistent approach by Officers as over the years some had been made to believe the grounds to carry out a stop and search needed to be more than just smelling it and were worried about complaints. Need to look at how the people present  ...  view the full minutes text for item 38.

Councillors are asked to note the following updates and approve the funding request in (c)

a)    Work to support village led youth clubs

b)    Outcome of phase 1 of the new Rural Youth Outreach Project

c)    Children in Care Council – a small funding pledge

Karen Linaker, Community Engagement Manager

The Board noted the updates provided by Karen Linaker and considered the funding request detailed in (c).

a)    Work to support village led youth clubs

There was a range of youth offer across the community area, with three volunteer led youth clubs:

• Old Sarum – doing quite well
• Whiteparish – have been knocked by Covid and not met since it began
• Winterslow – have a hopeful plan to find a volunteer

b)   Outcome of phase 1 of the new Rural Youth Outreach Project

The Board had invested £5k into a partnership project with other Area Boards which provided 2 Youth Officers. The report set out the engagement work undertaken so far with the findings of discussions held during Aug – Dec. The next phase would be implementation to bring together as many youth support steakholders across Southern Wiltshire and the rest of the county. This may then lead to an enhanced Youth Offer and a list of pop up and themed events. Karen would report back at the next meeting.

c)    Children in Care Council – a small funding pledge

This was a council just for children in care, foster care homes, adopted children and asylum children.

In 2022 there would be a fun activities programme and a facilitated session. All Area Boards had been asked to fund an activity towards the programme. 

Southern Wiltshire Area Board had already commissioned 4 sessions of Zorb Football from the 2020/21 budget, which had not yet taken place. It was proposed that one of those sessions be offered to the Children in Care Council’s programme of activities for 2022.

Questions and comments:

How many of the 400 children were bring looked after in the Southern Wiltshire area? Answer: Three children. The placements were usually in the more populated areas however the figure may increase over 2022.

The Royal Navy and Army youth engagement options could also be investigated as may be of more value to them.

Already actioned.

Decision

The Area Board Agreed to allocate one session of Zorb Football to the 2022 programme of activities for the Children in Care Council.

Summary of key points from the 18th November event.

Councillors will be asked to consider the next steps.

Karen Linaker gave feedback on the key points from the 18th November event.

The aim of the workshop was to ensure the Board was working collaboratively with parish councils. A number of questions were considered during the workshop, a summary of the responses included:

·         Collaborate on the key theme of climate change and biodiversity strategies and organise an Eco Villages Fair  

·         Strengthen communications, better use of technology

·         Help parish council sub-groups better interact with the area board 

·         Improved interface with Wiltshire Council services and teams

·         Improved liaison via clerks and area board, i.e. re-start parish cluster meet ups  

·         A fund to ensure clerks could take a more active involvement in area board meetings/work

·         Ensure parish councils feel better supported and responded to on the smaller things, so that they felt more inclined and able to help the area board with bigger things 

·         Help Britford explore how it might facilitate an older people’s group/project

·         Lover Repair Café was a good eco villages project to model 

·         Replicate model of asset/resource/idea sharing like SIDs, play area inspection/upkeep training, footpath maintenance, environment projects e.g. tree planting/orchards 

·         Join up to tackle cross parish issues such as the Porton-Salisbury cycle route 

·         Offer training on use of Our Community Matters, to help realise its potential as a key source of communication between the area board and parish councils, and vice versa, and parish council- parish council 

·         Develop a parish council knowledge hub (of projects, events, problems solved etc) and facilitate its communication via weekly posts on OCM 

·         Area Board to post out on OCM Friday newsletter – parish council good example of the week, like Alderbury Clerk’s round up of news/tips on how to recruit volunteers for projects

The Chairman noted that the key message boiled down to communications and how PCs could best share success stories through inter-parish council communications.

Cllr Richard Clewer, in his role as Leader of the Council was currently meeting with TCs across the county to look at precepts.

Questions and comments:

·         Charles Penn – There could be opportunity for discussion between Wiltshire Council and PCs in terms of who did what, as sometimes a task may drop off one list and nothing was done unless another organisation or group picked it up.

·         Cllr R Clewer – Transfers could include assets but not budget. He was due to hold an event with TCs  to discuss asset transfers and infrastructure aspects to get more resource in to the parishes.

·         With more collaboration enables more efficient use of assets. There was better spending power if collaboration was in place for buying regularly used items.

·         The creation of a PC Hub which could be a shared system for use by all parishes to upload the minutes of any parish meeting which could then be referenced for research when starting a project or purchase. Enabling the parishes to tap into the knowledge and experiences of other parishes that had already carried out similar projects.

·         Sharepoint is a Microsoft tool, if that was suitable, perhaps the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 40.

To note the minutes of the last CATG meeting which took place on 17 November 2021 and to consider and funding recommendations detailed within the attached papers and summarised below:

·       5h - £1,312.50

·       6a - £635.25

·       6d - £3148

·       6e - £1546.50

·       6f - £100

The Board noted the minutes of the last CATG meeting which took place on

17 November 2021 and considered the funding recommendations which were detailed within the attached papers.

Decision:

The Area Board approved the funding for schemes as set out below:

• 5h - £1,312.50 - Winterbourne PC, Improvements to allotment access track on

            Down Barn Road (PC to allocate £437.50)

• 6a - £635.25 - Alderbury PC, Installation of NAL socket in Southampton Road to enable the deployment of a SID (PC to allocate £211.75)
• 6d - £3148 (25% of total cost) - Laverstock & Ford PC, Provision of bus shelters at St Teresa’s Close, Bishopdown Farm and Laverstock Village Hall (PC allocating 75% of total costs).
• 6e - £1546.50 - Odstock PC, Provision of a SID in Odstock (PC to allocate £515.50)
• 6f - £100 - Whiteparish PC, Replacement street nameplate at Green Close (PC to cover any additional costs)

The Chairman proposed to allocate delegated powers to the Highways Engineer for small project spends of up to £100.

Decision

The Area Board agreed to award delegated powers of spends of up to £100 from the CATG budget, to the Highways Engineer for small projects. All delegated funding requests would be made after consulting the Board Members and gaining a majority in support and reported back to the next public Area Board meeting as part of the CATG report.

The Board will consider funding applications as set out in the funding report and summarised below:

Community Area Grants:

•              • Underground Studios Music - £5,000

•              • Hamptworth Croquet Club Enhancing Community Links - £1,568

•              • Allington and Boscombe Defibrillator project - £1500

•              • Winterslow VH resurfacing Tennis courts - £5,000

Health & Wellbeing Grants:

•              • Silver Salisbury – Downton & Surrounds project - £990

Officer: Karen Linaker, Community Engagement Manager

The Area Board considered the funding requests as set out in the agenda pack. Applicants present were invited to speak in support of their projects.

Community Area Grants:

Underground Studios Music - £5,000

The applicant Alex Mobaraki spoke in support of the application.

It was clarified that the applicant had also applied for funding from the Salisbury AB and Stonehenge AB and that it was expected that young people would travel from all three areas to use the facility. There was also collaboration with the schools Wyvern St Edmunds and Trafalgar school, which had confirmed they were interested in making use of the facility as part of the extra-curricular programme.

Questions included:

·         Why were the costs to renovate so high, when works were carried out in 2015?

Answer: The bunker itself was a unique building in terms of maintenance, there were a number of requirements that were not met during the shutdown period. The ventilation and heating systems had not been running all of the time which had caused severe issues with mould.  The hours it would take to bring the facility back up to the required standard were extensive.

·         What had happened to the previous equipment, as the application includes £11k for equipment?

Answer: Underground Studios was a different entity than the Bunker. The equipment was not part of what was taken on. The Applicant was bringing in equipment from his personal stock, however what was required, was above and beyond what he could provide.

·         The Bunker struggled to be self-sustaining, how would you operate without council input?

Answer: Underground Studios would be offering a hybrid model and there had been positive talks with other local trusts that would contribute. In addition, young people from affluent backgrounds would be asked to pay for sessions. The previous models were limited, this model offered video and photography classes as well as coding and game workshops.

·         Was there a business plan showing the operation becoming sustainable?

Answer: Yes, we are living in complicated times, but we are fairly optimistic that we would be self-sustaining within the first few months.

·         The Board preferred to fund specific items or elements of a project, rather than to award funds into a large pot. There was also the unknown factor of how many young people would benefit from our community area.

·         Did you have help with the activities school liaison?

Answer: We work with Wiltshire Creative and the Wiltshire Music Connect. When we are at the point we need to take in more staff we would achieve that.

·         Why didn’t the previous equipment come with the venue?

Answer: We didn’t have any involvement in the previous management and have only taken on the lease of the building.

·         How would means testing be achieved?

Answer: Depending on Pupil Premium or social workers, that would be able to determine this.

·         Whilst this model is more appealing as there is a larger offer, there was still an issue of how sustainable  ...  view the full minutes text for item 42.

The next meeting is scheduled for Thursday 10 February 2022, at 7.00pm.

The next meeting is scheduled for Thursday 10 February 2022.