Agenda and draft minutes

To receive nominations for Chairman for the municipal year 2018/19.

The Meeting was opened and Nominations for Chairman for 2018/19 were sought.

Decision

That Cllr Britton be elected as Chairman of the Southern Wiltshire Area Board for 2018/19.

Cllr Britton was then in the Chair

To receive nominations for a Vice-Chairman for the municipal year 2018/19.

The Chairman, Cllr Richard Britton, then called for nominations for Vice-Chairman for 2018/19.

Decision

That Cllr Richard Clewer was elected as Vice-Chairman for 2018/19.

To consider the nominations of Area Board representatives to Outside Bodies and Memberships of Working Groups as detailed in the attached report.

The Board considered the Outside Bodies report attached to the agenda.

Decision

The Southern Wiltshire Area Board agreed to:

a.           Appoint Councillor representatives to Outside Bodies as set out at Appendix A;

b.          Reconstitute and appoint to the Working Group(s) as set out in Appendix B; and

c.           Note the Terms of Reference for the Working Group(s), as set out in Appendix C.

Apologies for absence were received from:

·       Cllr Chris Devine

To approve and sign as a correct record the minutes of the previous meeting held on Thursday 3^rd May 2018.

Decision

The minutes of the previous meeting held on Thursday 3 May 2018, 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 including:

·       Salisbury Recovery Update

·       Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG)

·       Parish Slot

·       Community Area Transport Group (CATG)

The Chairman made the following announcements:

Salisbury Recovery Update

Inspector Sparrow was in attendance and would provide a detailed update later on the agenda. There was now a Wiltshire Council facebook page concerning the business recovery.

Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG)

The board had been trying for the last two meetings to get a speaker to attend, but they had again declined. This was disappointing, but the Board would continue to try.

Parish Council Slot

Item 12 on the agenda had been introduced as a regular feature for Parish Councils to come and present information items of interest to the Community.

Anyone with an idea for a future presentation should contact Tom Bray. It was hoped that a programme of these could be built up for the future.

Community Area Transport Group (CATG)

The Board had received notification about the substantive projects bids process. This process was set out in a document which Tom would circulate a link to tomorrow.

Youth Leader

Whiteparish had been advertising for some time for a Youth Leader and had failed to attract any interest. The Chairman asked whether those present felt that the Board should explore the idea of sharing a Youth Leader between several parishes. 

Feedback indicated that some Parishes would welcome the idea. There was a general consensus that it would be worth exploring some sort of collaborative effort.

Chinese Lanterns and helium balloons

At Full Council earlier in the week, Council adopted a policy to ban the release of any helium balloons or Chinese fire lanterns from any council owned land. The Chairman wondered if PCs might like to consider following this lead by also banning on their land. He suggested they take this suggestion back for discussion at their next parish meeting.

·       Fire & Rescue Service

·       Healthwatch Wiltshire

·       CCG

·       Wiltshire Council Information Items – Fostering & Youth Parliament

·       Current consultations

http://www.wiltshire.gov.uk/council/consultations.htm

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

The following verbal updates were also received:

Fire & Rescue – Jason Moncrieff

There has been an ongoing fire on Salisbury plain, which flagged up how problematic the long dry spell had been. In particular the Chinese lanterns can cause problems when they come down in areas of dry grass or in barns etc. The number one cause of fire in Dorset and Wiltshire was unattended cooking.

There had been an increase in the numbers of incidents over the last 3 months, some were related to the initial Novichoc incident but also over May and June there has been a steady increase. Although we are providing ongoing support to the incidents, there is still the usual fire cover from our stations.

Question: Brian Edgeley from Firsdown PC – There had been an incident in Firsdown recently on the A30, the PC were uncertain of the nature of the incident and had wanted to ask some questions but not sure how they could find out about the incident. Was there a way to get better communication from the fire service on local incidents?

Answer: I can give out some information but there was a level of data protection which could prevent us from sharing some aspects of information. My contact details are available and I will be happy to share where I can.

Chairman – Maybe the Fire service could consider joining the local community messaging service used by the Police, to share information where possible?

Fostering

A DVD on Fostering was shown. Tom would include the link to further information in the parish send out.

·       Community Policing – local issues and priorities

·       Your ideas – support and funding for community projects

We hope that representatives from Wiltshire Police will be available from 6.30pm

Community Policing – Inspector Pete Sparrow

A second major incident had occurred concerning Novichoc. The general feeling was that this was somehow connected to the first major incident. It was thought that a container had been picked up by the couple and has had major consequences for them. Salisbury was still a safe place; the risk was still low. Pete noted that there was a lot of information being circulated by various sources, and not all of it was correct.

During the last few weeks Officers had huge commitments to deal with. Working long hours, and supported on mutual aid from officers who had come from other forces to help us in Salisbury and Amesbury. 

Questions included:

·       Had there been any increase in knowledge from interview with the person who is now conscious? Answer: I cannot share that information. The substance is a colourless, odourless liquid, so it was likely that he would know that he and his partner had been contaminated.

·       The first incident was said to be connected to Russia, now this second incident has occurred to a seemingly unconnected couple who live in Amesbury, are the two incidents connected? Answer: Novichoc has not been deployed since the 1950s, the likelihood that there would be 2 incidents not connected is very low. How this has happened, the only hypothesis is that the original substance must have been discarded in a container and picked up.

·       Jane Tier – attended a WC talk, they said there were going to be some information detailing the sites to be re-opened. Answer: The cleaning is ongoing. The forensic recovery process now needs to be carried out at these new sites. The Officers that carry this task out have to undergo highly precautionary procedures. We can only base the search on timeline of where these two people have been prior to their condition becoming evident.

The bus has been checked and it has been found not to be contaminated, so there really are a lot of unknowns here. It could be that they picked up an unopened container and then did not open it until later when at home. Or it could be that the picked something up after they got out of Salisbury.

The message is, if you see a container that you feel is suspicious, the tell the police and we will come and collect it and test it. We are doing a lot of work with schools to spread safety messages.

The Chairman asked whether there were any questions on more routine community policing matters?

·       Elaine Hartford Alderbury PC - with regards to Community Speedwatch (CSW), I always notify the police when we are carrying out checks. Only once have we had a visit whilst we are actively in session. It would be nice if once in a while a Police vehicle would drive by and give us a friendly wave to acknowledge our work.

Also, the previous PCSO Tina transferred to another area. I have never met  ...  view the full minutes text for item 10.

Details of the changes to this service.

Vicki Harris Principal Waste Services Officer, gave a presentation on the upcoming changes to recycling for Wiltshire. Some of the points covered included:

•        From 30 July you would be able to recycle your plastic pots, tubs and trays, and drink and food cartons in your blue lidded bins in addition to the usual plastic bottles and cardboard.

•        This would include yoghurt pots, meat trays, margarine tubs, ice cream tubs and juice, milk and soup cartons. Please rinse and squash your recycling where possible.

•        Films and black plastic could not be recycled.

•        Black boxes would continue to be used for glass, paper, cans and textiles.

Why are we making changes?

•        Recycling saves energy, costs less and frees up space in your household waste bin.

•        These changes will help us to meet our recycling target of 50% by 2020.  Last year Wiltshire residents recycled 45% of their waste, an increase on previous years.

•        Recycling more reduces the waste which is sent to landfill and energy from waste plants.

•        Last year we sent just 20% of waste to landfill, compared to over 60% in 2007.

Future Changes

•        Collection dates for recycling, garden and non-recyclable waste would not change when the new services are introduced on 30 July.

•        All collections would remain fortnightly.

•        We will continue to work with our provider, Hills Waste Solutions, to improve recycling services and make it even easier for you to recycle at home.

•        You can keep updated on these changes and any future changes by signing up for email alerts by visiting the waste pages on council’s website. 

You can help

Town and parish councils and community groups have a key place within communities and we want to work with you to let people know about the changes. All help would be great!

–       You can put an article in your town or parish magazine and community newsletters .

–       You can put information on your town or village website or community facebook site.

–       You can put up posters within your area.

–       A waste officer could come along to your parish council meetings or other events to talk to your community about the changes – get in touch.

Don’t forget

Plastic bottles, cardboard, yoghurt pots, meat trays, margarine tubs, ice cream tubs and juice, milk and soup cartons can all go in your blue lidded bin from 30^th July. Please rinse and squash your recycling where possible.

Questions and Comments included:

·       Chair – do you know what landfill costs us? Answer: We pay a tax of £80 a Ton for landfill. Last year we spent over £3milion just in landfill tax. The environmental cost of that is huge. Our Waste Management budget for the year is £35 million.

• Do you recycle books? Answer: This is slightly tricky for us, the best way is through the household recycling centres (HRC). If you want to do it at home you have to take  ...  view the full minutes text for item 11.

This time: "Farming and Community Well-being"

“Nowadays farming can be a lonely and pressured business. There is a high suicide rate amongst farmers and great difficulty in attracting young people into the industry.

Our village communities can play a part in restoring farming to the sociable, community activity it once was.”

David Burton, Chairman, Laverstock & Ford Parish Council

The Chairman explained that this item had been created to allow Parish Councils the opportunity to present information to the community. This time the Board heard from Laverstock and Ford Parish Councillor David Burton on  "Farming and Community Well-being"

Nowadays farming can be a lonely and pressured business. There is a high suicide rate amongst farmers and great difficulty in attracting young people into the industry.

Our village communities can play a part in restoring farming to the sociable, community activity it once was.

David explained his background in farming and nature conservation. He now worked as a supervisor at DEFRA.

David’s presentation detailed information on:

·       The value or otherwise of farming to our well-being

·       Some solutions from Parishes in the South West Wiltshire Area

·       A moment to make a pledge to ourselves.

A lot of the chemicals used in the pesticides for the crops goes into our water supply, causing all sorts of problems.

Why Farming Matters to our wellbeing:

• Nutrition
• Impacts on soil air and water
• Access to natural environment, mental and physical wellbeing.

What next?

·       Facilitate and support healthy, local food

·       Grow community awareness of the need to reform farming systems and the good work being done to address this by local farmers

·       Encourage responsible access to the countryside through accessible green space managed by grazing animals and farming systems

Useful links:

LEAF Education

Community Supported Agriculture

Open Farm Sunday – two farms within the Area Board jurisdiction took part last year.

Salisbury Area Young Farmers Club which is based at River Bourne Community Farm and has membership of Young Farmers including within Southern Area.

Questions:

• Chairman – Educating young people in areas such as this is really fundamental. Are there any projects we could consider locally? Answer: Yes there are good sessions at the community farm. I can provide some links to things in the area.
• Keith Rogers – One of the problems schools have is arranging transport – perhaps we could do something about that? Answer:  Chair – yes we have thought a great deal about that. Parked around the schools during the day, are a range of school minibuses not being used, so far schools have seemed reluctant to contribute to that idea.

David – supermarkets in the past have funded things like that.

·       Comment about farmers being isolated and the suicide rate – farming does not always get good press, is there something we as parishes can do to help? Answer: Just pointing to some of the positive things the farmers are doing, can make a big difference.

Tom – I have passed a few sites where there is a sign in a field that says who they are growing for. I like to see this information.

David – yes there are so many opportunities to make this info more available now with the additional of apps.

The Board will consider applications for funding from the Community Area Grant Scheme and the Youth Funding budget.

Officer: Tom Bray, Community Engagement Manager

Youth:

Community grants:

Youth Funding

The Board considered one application for youth funding as detailed in the agenda.

Questions:

·       You have made reference to bookings of £2000, was that actual bookings? Answer: This was a forecast that we would try to hit of we can bring the costs down.

·       Cllr Randall –  How can we be assured the money is used as intended? Answer: Tom - we will issue the money once we have proof the project is going ahead. We also have feedback after the project.

·       What will happen to the kit? Answer: We have some kit but things like footballs and goals we like to leave in the area, and use when we are here.

Decision

Alderbury Football Juniors was awarded £1157.86 of Youth Funding towards the Football Fun Days project.

Community Area Grant Funding

The Board considered six applications for Community Grant funding, as detailed in the agenda.

Laverstock & Ford Parish Council – Hoggin Path

It was explained that the next grant had gone to Salisbury Area Board (SAB) following a recommendation at the last Southern Wilts AB, as the location of the path was within the Salisbury Community Area, but bordered this area.

SAB had felt that whilst this was a worthwhile project, it was not a matter for Community Grant funding, and decided to award a token amount of £1,000.

Decision

Laverstock and Ford Parish Council was awarded £1,000 toward the resurfacing of a hoggin path to Greentrees Junior School.

Reason

The application met the Community Area Grant Criteria for 2018/19.

Salisbury & South Wilts District Scout Council – Dennis Marsh House Improvements

The Board asked the following questions:

·       How many groups that use this facility are from Southern Wiltshire? Answer: There were 5 groups and 3 explorer scout units from this community area, covered by this district facility.

·       To what extent do they use the centre? Answer: They use it on various activity days and training for the leaders. There were around 6 district events there during the year and training.

·       Have you applied to any other Area Boards? Answer: Yes, we have applied to Salisbury, SWW and SCC.

Decision

The application from Salisbury & South Wilts District Scouts Council for improvements at Dennis Marsh House was refused.

Reason

Despite the obvious merits of the project the Board felt it was difficult to justify awarding a large amount of funds from this community budget to a facility outside the community area.

Studio Theatre – Theatre Extension

The Board asked the following questions:

·       Where would the balance of the costs of the work come from? Answer  It is a 4 phase project, the balance would come from different grants that we are applying for.

·       We have a limited pot and there is a need to support our own community. There may be an option for you to discuss with the recovery group the possibility of funding there.

·       Chair – I have two issues, we have usually resisted applications for small amount of money in  ...  view the full minutes text for item 13.

The Chairman thanked everyone for coming and closed the meeting.