Agenda and minutes

The Chairman; Councillor Richard Britton welcomed everyone to the meeting of the Southern Wiltshire Area Board, and invited those sitting on the top table to introduce themselves.

A special welcome was given to Councillor John Thomson, Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Highways, Streetscene and Broadband.

There were none.

To approve and sign as a correct record the minutes of the previous meeting held on Thursday 6 June 2013.

The minutes of the previous meeting held on Thursday 6 June 2013, 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 any Announcements from the Chairman.

Area Board Satisfaction Survey

Each year Wiltshire council runs a survey of Area Board performance, this year the Southern Wiltshire Area Board came second out of 18 Boards. The winners were Tidworth which has a very active Community Area Partnership involving the Army.

Councillor Britton announced that he was proud to be Chairman of such a well performing Area Board; he gave thanks to Tom Bray the Community Area Manager for his important contribution to the success of the Board.

Wiltshire Council Corporate Awards

The Southern Wiltshire Area Board received a Corporate Award in the Integrated Partnership Working Category for its work on the Footpath Project. Councillor Randall and Tom Bray were at the ceremony to receive the award on behalf of the Area Board.

Community Safety Lead Members

Some time ago the Area Board had requested that each Parish Council nominated a lead councillor to act as a point of contact on Community Safety issues.

Whilst some Parishes had done this, there were others who had not yet responded to the Board. The Chairman urged any parish which had not already responded to contact Tom with the details of the nominated person.

To note the attached information on the following current consultations:

Consultation web link: http://www.wiltshire.gov.uk/council/consultations.htm

The Board noted the details of current consultations detailed in the agenda. In addition to this, the Chairman noted that there was also a 20mph Speed Limit Review in process, to take part in this follow the link:

http://cms.wiltshire.gov.uk/ieDecisionDetails.aspx?ID=847

All other current consultation can be viewed online at:

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

Reports and updates of interest across the Area; statements and questions on any topic relevant to the area as a whole.

Written updates attached are:

·       Police – Neighbourhood Police Team

·       Fire & Rescue Service

·       Good Neighbour Scheme

·       Southern Wiltshire Issues System

The Chairman opened this item by explaining that this part of the agenda was an opportunity for people to make comments or provide information which may be of interest to the community as a whole.

Police – Inspector Andy Noble

In addition to the written update attached to the agenda, Inspector Noble explained that the main focus at present was to target three men suspected of burglaries which had occurred in Winterslow and Alderbury recently. Further updates on this would be brought to the next meeting.

Fire & Rescue

A written update was attached to the agenda.

Good Neighbour Scheme

A written update was attached to the agenda.

Southern Wiltshire Issues System

In addition to the information attached to the agenda, Tom Bray noted that an Issue which had been logged on the Monday had then been taken to the CATG meeting for discussion on the Tuesday and was resolved in one week.

To note the update and consider any recommendations for funding from the Community Area Transport Group budget for 2013/14.

Note: The CATG meeting is scheduled for 30^th July. As this date is after the agenda publication, any recommendations for funding will be circulated at the meeting along with an update.

The CATG had held their meeting earlier in the week on Tuesday 30 July, where they debated and agreed to put forward 5 schemes for funding as set out in the paper circulated at the meeting (also attached to these minutes).

Decision

The Southern Wiltshire Area Board agreed to fund the schemes as set out below:

The Chairman announced that the Area Board had received an additional £9,000 from a central pot of funding which had been set aside for speed reviews. It would now be the Area Boards decision as to how that money was used, whether or not to commission the speed review surveys or to allocate it to other CATG projects.

To receive presentations from the Highways Department and the Local Highways and Streetscene Team regarding the new contractual and operational arrangements.

In attendance will be; Councillor John Thomson, Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Highways, Streetscene and Broadband, Parvis Khansari, Service Director for Strategic Services, Highways & Passenger Transport and Tim Woolford, Local Highways and Streetscene Services South.

There will be an opportunity to ask questions to these key people, responsible for the maintenance of highways, green spaces and Streetscene within our community area.

The Chairman welcomed Parvis Khansari, Service Director for Strategic Services, Highways and Transport.

Parvis gave a presentation which included information on Wiltshire’s Highways assets and statistics which showed the condition of A, B and C Roads and distance of roads treated over the last five years, within each community area.

Data on the condition of the road is collected in several ways, these include:

• SCRIM*  -      100% A, B, and some C and UC (Group 1                                              roads that are suitable for survey) approx 1010 kms.

• Scanner -      50% A roads per annum in both directions

                                    100% B roads per annum in one direction

                                    50% C roads per annum in one direction

• CVI** -                        25 % UC roads per annum

• Deflectograph –       approx 20% of A roads per annum in both                                             directions

(*Sideways-force Coefficient Routine Inspection Machine, ** Coarse Visual Inspection)

Much of the maintenance is data driven; Southern Wiltshire’s A roads were rated at a medium level of need of attention. The current road maintenance expenditure for Wiltshire was £14 million. In Southern Wiltshire there are 255kms of roads which equates to 5% of the total network across Wiltshire.

The Board then received a presentation from Tim Woolford, Area Manager South for Highways and Streetscene, and Adrian Hampton, Head of Local Highways and Streetscene South, detailing the recent contractual changes from Ringway to Balfour Beatty which were implemented on 1 June 2013.

The new contract had reduced service providers to just one. The new team would continue to provide all of the old services available but would deliver them in a more community focused way.

Each Community Area across Wiltshire has a community team; this consists of one Community Coordinator and an Engineer per two coordinators. In Southern Wiltshire the Coordinator is Bob Crean and the Engineer for Southern Wiltshire and Salisbury is Graham Axtell, both officers are based at the Wilton depot.

Town and parish councils are able to contact their Community Coordinator directly, members of the public can report all services to the Clarence number 0800 23 23 23.

Comments and questions were then taken, these included:

• Who decides on what work will be done? Answer: We work to ensure that the highways are safe and usable. There will be a session of community days across the community area, where we will be coming out to speak with individual parishes to find out what needs to be done, such as grass cutting, potholes and hedge cutting.
• Who was told about the work which took place in Beech Grange, as the parish council did not know? Answer: Our team will be writing to parish councils to ask them when we should come, as our visit may be tied in with an event already scheduled, which may be of benefit to the parish.
• Some time ago there was a demonstration of a piece of kit which spat out hot tarmac to fill holes, is this equipment still in use? Answer: The machine  ...  view the full minutes text for item 9.

To consider the attached report containing the proposals for Area Board themes for 2013/14.

To note the attached update from Tony Nye, Youth Development Coordinator.

At the last meeting of the Area Board a workshop had been held to identify projects that were both important and achievable and which would lead to collaborative solutions across the area. From the 10 potential projects which emerged, people were then able to vote for their top 3.

From the outcome of this, the Area Board proposed to take 2 main projects forward for 2013/14, there would be Footpath links between villages and Youth Activities.

1. Footpath links between villages

Councillor Leo Randall would be leading on this project with the continued help of the volunteer Footpath Group established in 2012/13. Councillor Randall explained that if new links between parishes could be established, the outcome could be very worthwhile.

2. Youth Activities

Due to the spread out nature of the area, the Board felt that an appropriate solution would be to have the community area broken down into clusters of villages. These clusters would not be restricted to political boundaries. The proposed clusters were grouped as follows:

The Board would like to develop a way of working with the young people, through the Youth Development Coordinator Tony Nye, to try and improve leisure and development opportunities available to the young people in the South West Wiltshire community area.

Tony’s role would be to work with appropriate people within each cluster to identify what is already taking place, what resources are in place and what do the young people within the individual clusters wish to add to that. Through the proposed village clusters the aim would be to achieve the following:

1.  Identify and promote existing activities for young people within each cluster.

2.  Where there is no youth club within the cluster, promote the provision of one. (Voluntary-led with support from the youth service.)

3.  Engagement with voluntary sector partners (youth clubs, scouts, sports clubs, parish councils etc) to avoid duplication and maximize the effect of the available resources within each cluster.

4.  Joined up approach to organizing transport within and between clusters.

Comments and questions were then taken, these included:

·         Firsdown PC would welcome being clustered with other parishes as it would bring resources together.

·         West Dean PC – Our young people already have links with Alderbury, we need to consider the geography of the areas when forming clusters as our young people may cycle to Alderbury as the route is flat, but they probably wouldn’t cycle over the hill to Whiteparish.

·         One part of the project could look at transport, if it was established that young people needed transport to get to another area to access the resources, then this could be worked  ...  view the full minutes text for item 10.

The Board will consider applications for funding from the Community Area Grant Scheme.

Officer: Tom Bray, Community Area Manager

The Southern Wiltshire Area Board considered 3 applications for funding from the Community Area Grant Scheme for 2013/14. Applicants present were invited to speak in support of their projects, following discussion the Board members voted on each application in turn.

Decision

Odstock Parish Council was awarded £5,000 towards their project to purchase and install outside play equipment for a children’s play area, with the condition that if other sources of funding were not secured, the award would be withdrawn.

Reason

The application met the Community Area Grant Scheme Criteria for 2013/14.

Decision

Trafalgar School (Downton), was awarded £500 towards its project to purchase boxing equipment for the Trafalgar Boxing Fitness club.

Reason

The application met the Community Area Grant Scheme Criteria for 2013/14.

Decision

Downton Memorial Hall was awarded £1,100 towards a new boiler.

Reason

The application met the Community Area Grant Scheme Criteria for 2013/14.

Richard Parsons of Odstock PC gave thanks to the Area Board for the CAG funding awarded to them the previous year for their Jubilee Gardens project. The work had now been completed in time for their annual raft even held in July, the project had been greatly received throughout the community.

The Chairman thanked everyone for coming and closed the meeting.