Agenda and minutes

The Chairman, Councillor Derek Brown welcomed everyone to the meeting of the Salisbury Area Board and invited the members of the Board to introduce themselves.

Apologies for absence had been received from:

• Cllr Sven Hocking
• Cllr Ricky Rogers

To confirm the minutes of the meeting held on Thursday 5^th July 2018.

Decision

The minutes of the meeting held on Thursday 5 July 2018 were agreed as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.

The Chairman will give an update on any outcomes and actions arising from previous meetings of the Area Board.

The Chairman had no announcements, however he accepted a letter from Mr Colin Duller, which related to a Council Housing Tenants matter. The Chairman agreed to give the matter consideration out of the meeting and feedback a response in due course.

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

The following declaration was declared:

·       Cllr Mary Douglas noted for openess that in relation to item 11 – Youth Funding, she knew some of the people involved with the Bridge project, however would not benefit personally or financially from the project. Cllr Douglas took part in the debate and voted on this application.

To note the following written Information Papers:

1.    Clinical Commissioning Group

2.    Healthwatch Wiltshire

3.    Wiltshire Council

a)    Animal Licensing

b)    Electoral Canvass

c)    Electoral Review

d)    Local Labour Market

The Board noted the following written Information Papers:

1. Clinical Commissioning Group

2. Healthwatch Wiltshire

3. Wiltshire Council:

·         Animal Licensing

·         Electoral Canvass

·         Electoral Review

·         Local Labour Market

An update on the Salisbury Recovery following the major incidents.

In Attendance:

Alistair Cunningham - Corporate Director, & Cllr Pauline Church – Cabinet Member for Salisbury Recovery

Councillor Pauline Church - Cabinet member for Economy and South Wiltshire Recovery and Alistair Cunningham - Chair of the South Wiltshire Recovery Coordinating Group gave an update on the Salisbury Recovery, some of the points covered were:

Salisbury - The good news is all City centre sites had now been handed back clean and were getting back to normal.

Amesbury - Amesbury Baptist Church had been returned to its owners. The clean-up was underway at Boots pharmacy in Stonehenge Walk and at Charlie Rowley’s home in Muggleton Road.

The barricades along the river would come down on Sunday and those at Zizi in a few weeks.

There had been some reports of dead ducks, these ducks were taken away for analysis and all cleared as the cause identified as a bacterial problem.

Impact on Footfall:

•      Before the second major incident, footfall in Salisbury had
recovered to 4.2% below the 2017 figure

•      Footfall in Salisbury is 13.7% down compared to 2017 figure

•      Nationally – town centre footfall is steady at 0.1% below                                         the 2017 figure

•      Recent retail survey identifies 17 retail units available - vacancy rate of 7.4%, national average is 11.1% (from BID)

Support to boost the economy:

•      Our focus is on supporting businesses and boosting tourism and visitor numbers

•      From next Monday - October 1 – parking in council run city centre car parks will be free after 3pm until Christmas Eve

•      Five park and ride sites will be free Monday – Saturday

•      Around £3.6m has been provided to support the economy by the government, LEP and Wiltshire Council in financial support

Long term support boost to the economy:

•      High Street

           Reposition the local economy to be more resilient and sustainable by          revitalising and modernising the high street.  

•      Culture

           Expand and diversify the market base, in particular the visitor market.

•      Perception

           Transform global perception of the city and replace associations of nerve   agent with Salisbury’s culture, heritage and retail offer as the       quintessential           medieval city.

•      Growth

           Set the recovery in the context of the wider development of the         Salisbury/A303 Growth Zone (Boscombe and Boeing, Porton Science Park, A303, A36, Army rebasing) 

Short term support to boost the economy:

•      Cllr Pauline Church publishes a weekly blog

•      Hosting and promoting range of events in 2018 and 2019

•      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

•      National Armed Forces Day - 28-30 June

The following comments and questions were received:

·         Recovery and your plans going forward are all about taking Salisbury back to a medieval city, but what are your plans to incorporate a low carbon future? Answer: We are working very closely with LEP, a low carbon future will be a  ...  view the full minutes text for item 26.

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

g)    Air Quality Group

Note: Speakers are reminded that they each have a 3 minutes slot, unless they have previously discussed alternative arrangements with the Chairman.

The Board noted the written updates attached to the agenda and circulated at the meeting.

The following verbal updates were received:

a) Salisbury City Council (SCC) - Cllr Matthew Dean updated on the following:

·       A Food and Drink Festival to support the local traders would be held this weekend – with some amazing celebrity chefs in attendance.

·       Some successful community days had been held in the Friary, Harnham and Bemerton Heath, with over 1000 people in attendance.

·       The inaugural City Council car show was held in market square. Over 10,000 people attended this, and only cost a little over £1k to put on due to the level of commercial support.

·       Commencement of fixed penalty notices for litter enforcement had begun.

·       Freedom of the City had been awarded to the Royal Military Police

·       A new water fountain was due to be installed in the market square – This had come from customer and residents demand to reduce the amount of plastic we dispose of.

·       The Salisbury War Memorial would be cleaned.

·       The clean-up was complete in Queen Elizabeth gardens now and it had re-opened. Thanks to the parks teams who worked hard to aid this work.

·       A Business Support event was planned - Salisbury charter markets had had a rough time, both with the weather in March and then the poisoning.

·       The Armed Forces event would be one of the biggest in the calendar.

c) Police – Sergeant John Hutchings & Jerry Herbert Deputy PCC

In addition to the written report in the pack, some positive news, the Special constabulary are our voluntary Officers, over the last three months they have provided the county of over 3000 hours of voluntary service, this equates to £28,000.

Visibility and engagement are key focuses for us. We will try to send someone to represent the Police at events, where possible.

We are running a knife amnesty at the moment, and have had 60 knives brought in to the 5 Rivers office.

Questions:

·       Will we ever see a holding unit for prisoners in the city? Answer: Our transgression to the community holding facility in Melksham has been quite successful.

Cllr Dean added that he had met with senior officers and it was clear that the policing model had changed and fewer people were held in custody than had previously been the case. The cost of a full time Custody Sergeant and a Welfare Officer would need to be taken from the budget for Community Policing, and this would see a reduction in the front line to look after the back office.

·       Cllr Hoque – please to hear about the visibility aspect is this sustainable? Answer: That would depend on funding moving forward. At the moment it is something that we can sustain.

The Chairman asked that Thanks were passed on to the Community Officers.

Jerry Herbert – Deputy Police and Crime Commissioner. Started in roll on 1^st August, to assist the PCC Angus Macpherson.

70% of his time was spent on community engagement,  ...  view the full minutes text for item 27.

To note the minutes of the last meeting, held on 17^th September, and consider any recommendations for funding as detailed in the report.

·       Info on the Silver Sunday event programme

Funding Bids for consideration:

Cllr Walsh introduced Irene Kohler, the Older Persons Campion for the Area Board, who provided information on the Silver Sunday event.

The Board had supported the idea to hold an event to run alongside the Older Persons week.  We came up with a fortnight of events for older people. Leaflets on the Silver Sunday event programme were circulated at the meeting.

Irene gave thanks to Cllr Walsh, Jeremy Nettle, her son and Anne Trivett in helping with the development of the leaflets to promote the events. It had been realised that older people need hard copy leaflets. She also thanked  Karen Linaker for her input and the local organisations such as Alzheimer’s support and Age UK.

The concept of a celebration by older people has been well received and we hope it will happen again.

Cllr Douglas praised Irene, adding that getting older was something that happened to us all. This was a beautiful leaflet and the variety of the activities and the variety of the groups that you targeted was very well done.

Cllr Walsh added that Irene did a commendable job as the Older Persons Champion.

The Board noted the minutes of the last meeting, held on 17th September,

and considered the recommendations for funding as detailed in the

report.

Decision

The Secret Garden was awarded £500 for an exhibition at the Library to raise awareness of the project.

Decision

Safer Salisbury Group was awarded £400 for an Autism themed event in 2019.

The application from Alabare had been withdrawn.

Cllr Hoque noted that the plan to make Salisbury a dementia friendly city, was progressing, with all businesses becoming dementia friendly.

To consider applications for funding from the Community Area Grants Scheme, as detailed in the attached report.

The Board considered one application for funding from the Community Area Grants Scheme, as detailed in the pack.

Decision

Junior Parkrun was awarded £3,000 (£2,780 youth funding and £220 from Capital) towards the setup of a new Junior Parkrun.

Reason – The application met the Community Area Grants Criteria 2018/19

The grant would fund the £3,000 registration fee (£500 of which was coming from the city council) and £500 for equipment.

To note the report and consider the recommendations for funding as detailed in the attached papers:

Karen explained that Wiltshire college had hosted the youth meeting this time, with 12 young people in attendance to discuss the funding bids. A total of 67 young people had commented over the last year and it felt that they were more confident and vocal because we go to their schools and colleges. Their teachers were also involved, whilst there were some upsides, the only down side was that I no longer have a core of young people to call upon for youth events.

The Board had approximately £8,000 left in the youth budget for 2018/19.

The Board considered the funding requests to the Youth Budget, as detailed in the attached report.

Decision

Phoenix Stars Cheerleaders was awarded £2,500 towards the 2020 Florida Fund.

Decision

The Pounds Arts Trust Ltd was awarded £2830.60 towards the Wiltshire Voices Salisbury Project.

Decision

The Bridge Youth Project was awarded £1,400, towards the Mentoring Scheme.

The Chairman gave thanks to Karen for the work she did with the young people in the new format of engagement, adding that he felt it was far more valued.

To consider the Councillor Led initiative to allocate £10,000 of funding to a Street Sign programme, put forward by Cllr Sven Hocking, as detailed in the attached report.

The Board considered the Councillor Initiative put forward by Cllr Sven Hocking. In his absence, Cllr Dean spoke on the application.

The Board had agreed that it was important to make sure the City was as accessible as possible, and having street name plates was a part of that.

Cllr Hocking has used CATG funding to employ someone to repaint some signs, under phase one of the project. He was now at the next phase where Highways would need to be used to carry out replacement and repairs.  This work was no longer part of the responsibility of Highways, and so the Board would need to allocate funds to carry it out.

Cllr Dalton queried an old Victorian law, which stated that this type of repair and maintenance was is in their statutory duty to maintain street names. He felt that WC should be made to fund this instead of the Area Board.

Cllr Walsh added that Highways only had so much money, so other things were prioritised.

Cllr Hoque asked whether the proposed list of works could be re-visited, as he felt it was not proportionate for the areas, and it should be divided among all the wards.

Cllr Dean explained that the list comprised of the current ones reported on the app, and those that were previously put forward by Board Members when invited to do so last year.  

Cllr Douglas noted that she and the city councillors drove around their patch, to identify signs that needed replacing, and that she had more than 6 so hoped next time the rest would also be done.

Decision:

The Area Board approved the allocation of £10,000 to the Street Sign Councillor Initiative. To fund repair/replacement work to street nameplates in the following Salisbury Community Area divisions:

-          Bemerton Heath

-          St Francis & Stratford and

-          St Martin’s & Cathedral divisions

The date of the next meeting is Thursday 8^th November, 7pm at City Hall, Salisbury.

The Chairman thanked everyone for attending and noted that the next meeting of the Salisbury Area Board would be held on Thursday 8^th November 2018.