Agenda and minutes

The Chairman welcomed everyone to Hullavington and invited William Harmer, Chairman of Hullavington Parish Council, to say a few words.  Mr Harmer spoke of the successful rebuild of the village hall and its popular use by local community groups.  Mr Harmer also thanked the Area Board for a previous grant awarded to create a hard standing for the village bus stop.  Councillor Allen introduced Cabinet Representative Councillor Fleur de Rhé-Philipe and the Area Board members introduced themselves.

Apologies for absence were received from the following:

Councillor Sylvia Gibson (Mayor of Chippenham Town Council)

Councillor Terence Bate (Chippenham Town Council)

Councillor Ray Stockall (Christian Malford Parish Council)

Councillor Christopher Dash (Yatton Keynell Parish Council)

Jane Clark (Chippenham Area Partnership)

Wiltshire College.

To approve and sign as a correct record the minutes of the meeting held on 1 March 2010.

Decision

The minutes of the meeting on 1 March 2010 were approved and signed as a correct record, subject to the inclusion of Councillor Rooke’s thanks to Martin Rose, Principal Highways Engineer, and the following paragraph, both under the A4 Rowden Hill Traffic Management item:

‘Councillor Rooke also expressed her disappointment that the mini-roundabout was not considered a feasible option but she was pleased that a pedestrian refuge had been recommended.’

The Chairman updated the meeting on the current progress of actions from the previous meeting.

Councillors are requested to declare any personal or prejudicial interests or dispensations granted by the Standards Committee.

Councillor Judy Rooke declared a personal interest in item 7a(iv) Funding – New ChAPTER’s request for funding for the Chippenham River Festival.  Councillor Rooke was a member of the Chippenham Sailing and Canoe Club.

There were no other declarations of interest.

The Chairman announced that, in accordance with Section 100B(4) of the Local Government Act 1972 having regard to the special circumstances pertaining in this matter – namely, an urgent deadline for decision, she was of the opinion that, despite its non-inclusion on the Agenda, the matter of the Expression of Interest to the Performance Reward Grants Scheme from Biddestone Village Hall and Recreational Trust should be considered as a matter of urgency.  This item would be taken under the Funding item.

The Chairman directed the meeting to the announcements attached to the agenda regarding the Air Quality Strategy for Wiltshire, the Contaminated Land Strategy for Wiltshire and the Summary of Area Board Achievements 2009-10.

Councillor Allen verbally updated the meeting on the following:

a.    Reducing Unnecessary Street Lighting - Wiltshire Council had been approached by a number of communities seeking to reduce their carbon footprint, reduce light pollution of the night sky and reduce energy costs. Street lighting and illuminated signs was identified as a major use of energy by the Council in a recent review.

A start had been made with a project to replace the lighting units in the county’s 1,600 illuminated bollards with new low energy units. Dimming and turning off unnecessary lighting for part of the night had already been successfully introduced in trial sites at Urchfont and Tidworth.

Anyone who was interested in participating in this project was invited to contact the Community Area Manager.

b.    Annual Programme of Highways Works - The annual programme of highway maintenance and improvement schemes for 2010/11 had been approved. This information was presented on an individual community area basis and was available on the Council’s website under Community Area Highway Information.  The information includes lists of proposed highway and related works for 2010/11 with facts and figures about the roads in the area.

c.    BBC Blast - Posters were available at the meeting that advertised the event which was to take place from 19 - 21 May.

d.    Chippenham Conservation Area Management Plan Consultation - At the Chippenham Area Board meeting on 1 March 2010, Judy Enticknap (Conservation Officer) made a brief presentation on the Chippenham Conservation Area Management Plan (CAMP).  The CAMP had been the subject of a recently completed consultation exercise.  The comments received had been analysed, and appropriate amendments had been made to the plan which benefitted the final document.  Councillor Trotman confirmed the adoption of the document as supplementary planning guidance on 27 April 2010.

Councillor Caswill expressed dismay at the lack of available conservation officer to monitor the work of the recently proposed Chippenham Conservation Management task group.

Action

This comment was to be passed to Judy Enticknap.

e.    Wiltshire 2026 Core Strategy Feedback - Officers were to attend the next Chippenham Area Board on 5 July 2010.  However, given the concerns that had been raised through the consultation regarding the location and amount of development being proposed in Chippenham, the Council would be undertaking further consultation within the Chippenham  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

To receive an update from any partners who wish to contribute:

a.     Parishes

b.     Wiltshire Police

c.      Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service

d.     NHS Wiltshire

e.     Chippenham Area Partnership

f.       Chippenham Vision

g.     Community Area Young People’s Issues Group

h.     Children’s Parliament

Updates were received from the following:

a.    Flood Fair - Councillor Fairly (Christian Malford Parish Council) spoke of the comprehensive set of presentations and the networking opportunities at the recent event; however, he was disappointed that it was not more specific to the North Wiltshire area.  A lack of confidence in the ability of the Operational Northern Flood Working Group (ONFWG) to meet the needs of the local area had led nine local parish councils to form a group to consider flooding concerns.

Action

Councillor Jonathan Seed (Chairman of the ONFWG) to be invited to a future Area Board meeting to give a presentation on the improvements had been made locally to alleviate flooding problems.

b.    Wiltshire Police – The written update was noted.  Inspector Pain thanked local communities for their role in helping to address crime, and pointed out that policing was most effective when delivered collaboratively with local people.  This had been the case with the recent drugs warrant execution and arrest in connection with a cannabis factory in the Kington Langley area.

Inspector Pain also updated the meeting on the current town centre night-time economy – Councillors Scott and Hutton had accompanied weekend duty police staff and observed lively but non-threatening behaviour.

A recent plain-clothed surveillance exercise concerning the sale of alcohol to under-age people and those already inebriated had been carried out successfully.  No premises checked were found to be contravening regulations for the sale of alcohol.

Police statistics remained the same compared with the previous year and Chippenham continued to report lower levels of violent crime than Trowbridge and Salisbury.

A report commissioned by Pippa McVeigh (Head of Crime Reduction for Wiltshire Council) had failed to secure additional funding to continue the Taxi Marshall scheme.  She recommended that two Area Board councillors work with Inspector Pain’s Night-time Economy Working Group.

Decision

Councillors Caswill and Hutton agreed to work on the group.

a.    Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service – The written update distributed with the agenda was noted.

b.    NHS Wiltshire – The written report tabled at the meeting was noted.

c.    Chippenham Area Partnership – no report was available

d.    Chippenham Vision Board – John Clark updated the meeting noting that ING were now working with the Board.  He introduced Tim Martienssen (Wiltshire Council) as the new Vision Director for Chippenham.  Mr Clark also gave an update on current projects including the skatepark development and river pontoon improvements.  He asked for the Area Board’s support in appealing the Performance Reward Grant Scheme panel’s decision to refuse the Vision’s funding request to improve the river pontoon.  The Vision continued to work with the Chippenham Conservation Area Management Plan and the Core Strategy.

Action

A letter confirming the Area Board’s support for the appeal to be sent to the Performance Reward Grant Scheme panel.

e.    Community Area Young People’s Interest Group (CAYPIG) – Richard Williams (Youth Development Co-ordinator) gave an update on the following projects:

·         Dirt Jumps - the project had been delayed but the problems were  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

a.        Community Area Grants

The Wiltshire Councillors will consider six applications to the Community Area Grants Scheme 2010/11, as follows:

               i.     Chippenham Children’s Parliament

             ii.     Nettleton Parish Plan Committee

           iii.     YattonKeynell Parish Council

            iv.     New ChAPTER

              v.     Castle Combe Village Hall

            vi.     Kington St Michael Village Shop

Grant application packs for the Community Area Grants Scheme areavailable from the Community Area Manager or electronically at www.wiltshire.gov.uk/areaboardscommunitygrantsscheme.htm

b.        Community Area Partnership

JaneClark, Chippenham Area Partnership, will present the partnership’s work plan for the year and ask the Area Board councillors to consider a funding request.

a.     Community Area Grants

Area Board Councillors were asked to consider six requests to the Community Area Grants Scheme.

Judy Edwards addressed the meeting on behalf of the Chippenham Children’s Parliament.  She apologised that the children were unable to attend due to their SATs.  Mrs Edwards read two statements from local children regarding road safety and speed limits in the town centre

John Clark responded to questions on behalf of the New ChAPTER application.

Decision

Chippenham Children’s Parliament was awarded £1000 for a Road Safety Campaign.

Reason The application met the Community Area Grants criteria for 2010/11 and would support several Wiltshire Council priorities, including a link to the Local Agreement for Wiltshire to ‘Investigate ways to reduce rates of serious injury and fatal road accidents in Wiltshire’.

Decision

Nettleton Parish Plan Committee was awarded £650 towards the production of a parish plan.

Reason

The application met the Community Area Grants criteria for 2010/11 and would support several Wiltshire Council priorities, including a link to the Local Agreement for Wiltshire to ‘Help local communities to develop their own priorities and improvements’.

Decision

Yatton Keynell Parish Council was awarded £776 towards the erection of picket fence village gateways.

Reason

The application met the Community Area Grants criteria for 2010/11 and would support several Wiltshire Council priorities, including a link to the Local Agreement for Wiltshire to ‘Investigate ways to reduce rates of serious injury and fatal road accidents in Wiltshire’.

Decision

New ChAPTER was awarded £4000 towards the Chippenham River Festival.  This lower amount (original request was £8000) was proposed by councillors who felt that the Festival should seek to secure additional sponsorship.

Reason

The application met the Community Area Grants criteria for 2010/11 and would support several Wiltshire Council priorities, including links to the Local Agreement for Wiltshire, to create stronger and more inclusive communities ‘Improve community relations’ and ‘Encourage communities to take part in sporting and cultural activities and events that bring different age groups together’.

Decision

Castle Combe Village Hall was awarded £1,182 towards the installation of insulation and secondary double glazing in the village hall.

Reason

The application met the Community Area Grants criteria for 2010/11 and would support several Wiltshire Council priorities, including links to the Local Agreement for Wiltshire priority actions ‘To reduce Wiltshire’s carbon footprint’.

Decision

St Michael Village Shop was awarded £2,755 towards the upgrade of the freezer and shelving in the village shop.

Reason

The application met the Community Area Grants criteria for 2010/11 and would support several Wiltshire Council priorities, including links to the Local Agreement for Wiltshire priority actions ‘Help small businesses get better access to finance’.

b.     Community Area Partnership

This item was withdrawn as ChAP had advised that they would submit a funding application to the next area board meeting on 5July 2010.

c.      Performance Reward Grant Scheme

Biddestone Village Hall and Recreational Trust - it was noted that the bid would restore and convert the existing building to provide changing and storage facilities suitable to support  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.

Kevin Sweeney, Senior Manager of Operations and Staffing, will outline the rationale behind the recent consultation on the youth staffing consultation to ensure an equality of service provision across Wiltshire.

David Whewell, Head of Youth Work, gave a brief presentation on the rationale behind the recent analysis of youth staffing across Wiltshire.  This had identified criteria by which the youth service was able to identify the needs of young people and deliver a fair service in each community area.  The criteria were as follows:

Core Funding – 25%

Population aged 13-19 – 50%

Deprivation – 10%

Rurality/Sparsity – 10%

Emergency – 5%

He wished to change the public perception of young people and pointed out that 10 times more young people took part in the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme than were referred to the Youth Offending Team.

Maggie Rae, Director of Public Health, will present the findings of the Joint Strategic Needs Assessment which details the current health priorities of Chippenham community area residents.  This will be followed by questions from the floor.

Maggie Rae, Director of Public Health and Well-being, gave a brief presentation on the Joint Strategic Needs Assessment for the Chippenham community area.

The local population’s health was considered in terms of longevity, teenage pregnancy, traffic collisions, alcohol-related hospital admissions, childhood obesity, smoking, self-reported health, domestic violence and percentage of those able to remain at home at the end of life.

The community area’s highest rankings included self-report health and its lowest ranking related to road traffic collisions.

A new focus aimed at reducing death from cancer particularly skin cancer.

The Director thanked the Community Safety Partnership for the recent night-time group visit she had made to Chippenham Town Centre and welcomed the opportunity to facilitate a health fair in the area.

The Chairman will lead the discussion to consider the outcomes from recent local consultations.  The meeting will be asked to decide the community area priorities that will inform the Area Board’s work programme for 2010/11.

Following several recent consultations both Wiltshire Council and local organisations, the meeting was asked to agree five priorities for the coming year.  The decisions were as follows:

1.    Skatepark (supported by CAYPIG, Vision Board, community area partnership and the Children’s Parliament).

Decision

Councillor Darby to lead on this priority.

2.    Road Safety in the Community Area (supported by Wiltshire Police, NHS Wiltshire and the Children’s Parliament).  Councillor Douglas updated the meeting with the most recent statistics and offered to share the information with any interested parties.

Decision

Councillor Douglas to lead on this priority.

3.    Night-time Economy (supported by Wiltshire Police and NHS Wiltshire).

Decision

Councillors Caswill and Hutton to lead on this priority.

4.    Childhood Obesity

Decision

A lead councillor to be appointed to this role.

5.    Adult Social Care

Maggie Rae pointed out that an additional £20 million had been added to the budget last year to improve the quality of end-of-life care and catastrophic life events.

Decision

A lead councillor to be appointed to this role.

A question was asked about the publication of comparative data for Primary Care Trusts nation-wide.  While this county’s spend was available on NHS Wiltshire’s web-site, statistics were not held by the Strategic Health Authority; however, the question could be directed to the Department of Health.

The Cabinet Representative will talk about her responsibilities for finance, performance and risk, and respond to any questions.

Cabinet Representative for Finance, Performance and Risk, Councillor Fleur de Rhé-Philipe, outlined her role and made the following points:

·         Wiltshire Council aimed to make 5% savings per year for the next four years

·         The savings promised from becoming a unitary council were well underway

·         Her responsibility for performance meant ensuring that spending achieved its intention both internally and eternally

·         Her responsibility for risk meant knowing where things might go wrong before they do.

The over-arching objective was to achieve value for money, delivering services people want; however, this was an easy aspiration and a new Autumn budget would consider how best to achieve these goals.

Councillor Noblet (Chippenham Town Council) queried why Wiltshire Council had decided that county-wide residents should not have to pay for the West Wilts Show.  The response was that funding should benefit all residents.

Councillor Packard asked how much money was be allocated to road repairs.  The strategy was to resurface the worst roads to prevent recurring pot-holes.

Parvis Khansari, Service Director, will provide an update on issues received and actions taken since the previous Area Board meeting on 1 March 2010.  Councillor Chris Caswill will update the meeting on the Bath Road Car Park community issue.

Parvis Khansari, Service Director, updated the meeting on the current community issues.  There were 23 issues being worked on.  Speeding issues were referred directly to the Camera Safety Unit.

Councillor Caswill updated the meeting on the Bath Road Car Park issue.  In consultation with local residents, a decision was made to await the outcome of the CCTV results before pursuing the issue further.

Action

Information regarding the installation of the CCTV unit in the car park to be forwarded to Councillor Caswill.

The Chairman will invite any remaining questions from the floor.  The meeting is reminded that the arrangements for future meetings are set out in the attached Forward Plan.

The Chairman thanked everyone for attending the meeting.  She announced the dates of the next three area board meetings as follows:

5 July 2010 – Yatton Keynell Village Hall

13 September 2010 – Sheldon School

22 November 2010 – Swindon and Wiltshire Records Office

The next Area Board Co-ordinating meeting was to be held on Thursday 3 June at 10am at the Monkton Park offices.

Decision

Councillors Maurice Dixson (Kington Langley Parish Council) and Alison Butler (Biddestone and Slaughterford Parish Council) agreed to attend the meeting.  All Area Board councillors were invited to attend.