Agenda and minutes

Chairman’s Announcements to include:

·         Feedback from the Leisure Facility Review

·         Feedback from the Car Parking Strategy Review

·         Local Flood Protection – Supply of Gel Sacs

·         Results of the Waste Services Consultation (colour copies of the attached report will be available to view at the meeting)

The Chairman, Councillor Chris Williams welcomed everyone to the meeting of the Tidworth Area Board and informed them that it was a sad occasion as Val Powley, the Community Area Manager was due to retire later that week, which meant that it would be her last meeting with the Board. The Chairman presented Val with a bouquet of flowers and thanked her for all of her hard work.

Ken Beard of Ludgershall Parish Council also expressed his thanks to Val for the work she had carried out whilst under Kennet District Council, and that he thought she had been a great asset to the community.

Val thanked everyone for their kind words and introduced Mary Cullen who would be taking on the role of Community Area Manager from the end of the week.

The Chairman then invited everyone in the room to introduce themselves before making the following announcements:

Leisure Facility Review – A handout had been circulated with an update specific to the Tidworth Community Area, detailing that Tidworth Leisure Centre was safe.

Car Parking Strategy –  Car Parks in Tidworth Community Area were free, but the cost to park in other areas such as Salisbury was due to rise.

Local Flood Protection - Gel Sacs – A Gel Sac was on display and Parish Councils were invited to purchase Gel Sacs by completing the form attached to the agenda.

Waste Services Consultation – Cllr Toby Sturgis, Cabinet Representative informed the Board that the Council had received a lot of responses, more than any other consultation so far. The Tidworth area would see the introduction of a plastic and cardboard kerbside collection and a free garden waste collection later in the year.

The Chairman added that the implementation of these services was raised by the Tidworth Board members at the first Full Council meeting in 2009, so it would be good to see the implementation come to fruition later in the year. 

Budget Consultation – A meeting had been scheduled for to discuss Wiltshire Council’s budgets for 2011-12. Anyone wishing to take part should attend the meeting on Tuesday 18^th January at City Hall, Salisbury starting at 6.00pm.

To note the attached information on the following consultations:

·         Consultation on the Harmonisation of Dog Control Orders

·         Consultation on the Public Protection Enforcement Policy

·         Consultation on the Harmonisation of Street Orders (a paper on Street Orders will be available at the meeting)

For further information on all current consultations and to take part in the consultations above visit: http://consult.wiltshire.gov.uk/portal

The Chairman brought people’s attention to the papers attached to the agenda detailing current consultations and urged anyone who was interested to go online to take part in them.

http://consult.wiltshire.gov.uk/portal

Consultations could also be viewed online at local libraries or for more information or a hard copy contact Lisa Moore, Democratic Services Officer.

Apologies for absence were received from:

Jo Howes – NHS Wiltshire

Mike Holt – Chairman of Collingbourne Kingston Parish Council

Alistair Cunningham, Service Director for Economy and Enterprise

Alan Butterworth – Tidcombe and Fosbury Parish Council

Pat Caddick – Chute Parish Council

Betty Dobson – Rural Needs Initiative

To approve and sign as a correct record the minutes of the previous meeting held on Monday 15 November 2010.

Decision

The minutes of the previous meeting held on Monday 15 November 2010, were agreed as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.

The following matters arising were noted:

Fire Cadets – Due to a delay with the administration of the insurance, the Fire Cadets had not yet started to operate. Once this was resolved it was expected that the Fire Cadets would soon be up and running.

Grit Bins – It was noted that in some areas there had been a delay in grit bins being refilled. The Chairman thanked Graeme Hay for the delivery of the new grit bins recently allocated to the community area and invited him to update the Board on the situation for refilling the bins.

Graeme Hay informed the Board that with 1,550 grit bins to refill across the county, the Council were looking at putting staff on to Saturday shifts to get the work done more quickly. A two man crew could currently fill approximately 15 bins in a day. It was thought that if four crews were to work on Saturdays for four consecutive weeks, the job could be completed.

North East Quadrant Development – The site meeting which had been awaited by Tidworth Town Council to discuss alternative options, had not taken place. The Town Council was still waiting for a meeting to be scheduled.

There were not declarations of interest from the Board members.

To receive information and to view a short DVD on the scheme.

Officer: Graeme Hay, Head of Service – Local Highways and Streetscene (South)

Graeme Hay, Head of Service – Local Highways and Streetscene (south), showed a DVD on the Parish Steward Scheme followed by comments/questions from the floor. Some of these were:

·         Would the Scheme cover unadopted roads and if not, then who would be responsible for them. Answer: Responsibility for maintenance falls on the owner of the road. If a road is unadopted by the Public Highway, then the Council would not maintain it. There were some cases where the road was unadopted, but still owned by the Council, in that instance the Council would maintain it.

·         One Parish thought the Parish Steward Scheme was the ‘best thing since sliced bread’.

·         How long did it take for a job to be completed once reported. Answer: On average, it would take 5.2 days to carry out a non urgent task, but urgent tasks are completed on average within a few hours.

Following recent bad weather, a number of pot holes had started to emerge, which required attention. Graeme urged people to consider the severity of pot holes when reporting them as there had been some instances when pot holes which were shallower than 1cm had been reported.

Pot holes could be reported by calling Clarence on 0800 23 23 23

One Parish Councillor had recently contacted Clarence to report three pot holes, but had experienced difficulty in getting through on two occasions. A customer services operator had taken his details and said that a member of the Clarence team would call him back. He did not receive a call back from Clarence so called again a few days later.

Graeme agreed to look in to this issue.

To receive information and to view a short DVD on the new proposals to provide face to face contact with the public.

Speaker: Cllr Allison Bucknell

Councillor Allison Bucknell showed a short DVD detailing the new proposals to provide face to face contact with the public.

The Council would be redesigning the way in which services were delivered, with high emphasis on meeting the needs of the customer, by looking at ways in which people could get the service delivery they needed.

The DVD could be viewed on YouTube at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pl1aAp6364

Further Enquiries to: John Rogers, Head of Customer Access, Department: Customer Services

Direct Line; 01225 756191

E-mail: john.rogers@wiltshire.gov.uk

To receive a presentation on the proposed development on the North East Quadrant, between the A3026 and the A388.

Speaker: Johnny Kidney, Account Manager - Meeting Place Communications

Ted Webster (Land Manager) and Paul Bedford (Senior Land and Planning Manager) of Persimmon Homes gave an update on the proposed development on the North East Quadrant (NEQ). Some of the points they covered were:

·         Persimmon Homes had recently purchased the site from the MOD.

·         The site was still intended to be used for new housing.

·         Original application for 600 homes would be refined and taken forward for planning permission.

·         Persimmon Homes still intended to deliver the NEQ link road.

·         Part of the development would include Affordable Housing.

·         Wiltshire Council (WC) had agreed to be flexible on the number of Affordable Homes included in the development.

·         The proposals would include a primary school.

·         The required drainage improvements are likely to benefit the existing drainage network.

·         It was hoped that planning permission may be granted by 12 months time, but this was not definite.

·         The brief for transport study was set by WC.

Persimmon Homes hoped to have enough information ready by March to return to the Board meeting on 21^st March to provide more detailed information on delivery times and to show drawings of the first phase of 150 homes for the development.

Persimmon Homes would produce posters and invitations in due course, detailing an exhibition for March, which they hoped would enable local people to feed in their views on the development.

Councillor Mark Connolly informed the Board that the site meeting which had been expected to take place between the Town Council, Local Member and site agents had not gone ahead and informed Ted and Paul that a meeting was still required. Answer: Ted informed the Board that the meeting had been requested by the Defence Estates and that Persimmon Homes had also been un-invited.

The Board will consider the request from TCAP for the second and final tranche of funding from the Area Board for its work in 2010/11.

(papers to follow)

Speaker: Tony Pickenell

The Chairman explained that TCAP had applied for the second tranche of funding for the financial year. The first tranche of funding for £5,000 had previously been awarded; the second tranche of funding was for £5,047, if awarded this would total £10,047 of funding for TCAP for 2010/11. Tony Pickernell TCAP Coordinator, had produced papers which had been circulated at the meeting.

The Board considered the papers and voted on the recommendation of the Community Area Manager to approve funding.

Decision

The Tidworth Area Board agreed to award £5,047 of funding to TCAP for operational costs.

Reason

It was agreed that the work carried out by TCAP to date in 2010/11 had been very satisfactory and that the remainder of the funding for this financial year should be awarded in order to enable them to carry out the remainder of the tasks set for this year.

To receive a verbal update from the Community Area Manager regarding issues raised.

Officer: Val Powley, Community Area Manager.

Val Powley, Community Area Manager gave a verbal update on the status of logged issues on the system and informed the Board that she and Mary Cullen (Val’s replacement as Community Area Manager) had been working together to bring issues up to date.

There had been two successful Community Payback schemes to clear up areas, one in Tidworth on Right of Way No.11, and the other at Fittleton Church.

There was a current delay on obtaining metro count readings due to recent illness of key staff.  Mary would be progressing the speeding projects.

The signage project was still on the system as it had not yet come to fruition; however this would be discussed under item 12.

Val urged people to continue logging their issues on the system, or by contacting the Community Area Manager.

The Chairman noted that issues should only be logged on the system once the relevant Council officer and or Local Councillor had been contacted, as the issues system was a way in dealing with issues that could not be resolved by going through the usual channels first.

To receive any verbal updates, in addition the following written updates are attached to the agenda:

·         Police

·         NHS

·         Fire

The Board will also receive an update from the Police Authority on their budget proposals over the next few years.

Speaker: Chris Hoare, Wiltshire Police Authority

Updates were received as follows:

Ludgershall Parish Council thanked the Board for the £500 of funding which had previously been awarded to them.

Tidworth Town Council had begun the year with a good start by making changes to their committee system and had opened their council office to enable people to drop in.

Enford Parish Council - Stan Bagwell, thanked the Board for the funding which had been provided for the footpath project on the A345 through the Local Transport Scheme via the Community Area Transport Group.

Garrison – Colonel Tabor provided the following update:

·       A significant number of soldiers were still deployed in Afghanistan, near on 1,000.

·       Bulford and Tidworth would deploy considerably more of their numbers towards the end of the year.

·       Tedworth House would cease to be used by the MOD by 12^th February and would be transformed into a rrecovery Centre for sick, injured and wounded soldiers.

·       ‘Help the Heroes’ would allocate £17 million of funds towards the Recovery Centre at Tedworth House. The first of the soldiers to make use of the facility would be in there by 11^th June 2011.

·       A new wing would be built at Tedworth House. This had been sympathetically designed to be in keeping with the existing building.

·        Tedworth House would provide a home for soldiers, who were not finding life outside of the Army as easily as they had thought, by providing all sorts of advice and assistance to soldiers who were leaving the Army for a change of direction.

·       Another Garrison clear up was planned for March. The date once confirmed would be circulated in hope that other groups or organisations would join in and help with a cleanup of the area.

·       On the 4^th and 5^th of June there would be a long distance cycle event around Tidworth and Tedworth Park.

·       On the 9^th July there would be a polo event called the Rundle Cup. People could bring their cars into Tedworth Park, it would cost nothing for the people to enter, but there would be a charge for the car entrance.

·       On the 28^th September the Early, Early Christmas Fair  would be held in a marquee at the rear of Tedworth House.

TCAP – Tony Pickernell, Coordinator

·       Out of the 9 thematic groups, 8 were up and running, having been reinvigorated, where necessary.

·       TCAP website was also now up and running, TCAP hoped to have full control over the site soon. The site address is:

 www.tidworthcommunityarea.info/NEW

TCAP would seek the permission of Town and Parish Councils to include links to their sites from the TCAP website. It was also hoped that there would be nine links to the thematic groups which would allow users of the site to view minutes from the individual thematic group meetings.

·       Arranged through TCAP 100 children and staff from Zouch Primary School in Tidworth Visited Tedworth House and St Marys Church, where a talk on the history of both the house and church was  ...  view the full minutes text for item 11.

The Board will consider the attached report on the replacement of signage around the Community Area, and make a decision on whether to allocate funding to this as an Area Board Project.

The Board considered the report attached to the agenda on the improvement to signage around the Community Area and within Tidworth town, and the motion proposed by Councillor Mark Connolly (as below).

1.    That the Area Board funds the £6495.16 outstanding funding required to complete the Tidworth signage scheme from its Community Grant allocation, as an Area Board Project.

2.    That a review of the following are undertaken:

a.    To establish if the 30 mph speed limit in Tidworth on the road to Perham Down can be extended to a safer location.

b.    To see if the existing 40mph speed limit in Perham Down can be extended to the existing 30mph limit in Tidworth; or

c.    Both limits can be extended at an appropriate point between Tidworth and Perham Down.

3.    Whether any changes to the speed limit is/are required a review of gateways and other reminders of the speed limit in Perham Down is undertaken.

4.    A site visit is arranged with the two Wiltshire Councillors for Tidworth and Perham Down and a representative from Tidworth Town Council to assess the speed limits and requirements for gateways and other speed limit reminders.

5.    That a report be brought to the Tidworth Area Board when a scheme has been devised and costed.

Decision

The Board agreed to award £6,495.16 of funds to the Signage Improvement Project as an Area Board Project and that the review concerning Perham Down be conducted as per the remainder of the motion.

Reason

The Tidworth Area Board felt that it was important that the signage to and within Tidworth was brought up to date and standardised.  They considered that this work should be carried out in one go rather than tackled piecemeal.

To determine an application for funding from the Youth Initiatives Budget (papers attached).

The Board members considered one application for funding from the Youth Initiatives budget, and the report of the Community Area Manager.

Applicant: Tidworth Community Area Awards Committee (CAA) – seeking a grant of £350 to fund the cost of young performers travel/logistic costs for attending one prior rehearsal for the awards and attendance on the night.

Decision

The Tidworth Area Board granted the Tidworth Community Area Awards Committee £350 for travel/logistical costs.

Reason

The application demonstrated a link to the Tidworth Community Plan 2003 – 2013, under the Culture and Leisure and Land based themes, as detailed in the officer report.

The Board will consider submissions for funding from the Performance Reward Grants Scheme.

(Papers to be attached)

The Board considered whether to endorse three applications seeking funding from the Performance Reward Grant Scheme, these were:

1.    Healthy Schools Plus - seeking a grant of £12,000 for a project to set up planned activities and interventions to tackle health issues that are of concern locally at a school level in the Tidworth Community Area and for a chosen vulnerable groups of pupils.

2.    Splitz (Men’s Groups Project) – seeking a grant of £41,696 towards ‘Respect’ accredited work with male perpetrators of domestic abuse.

3.    Wiltshire Volunteers - DEVELOP Enhancing Community Support - seeking a grant of £55,694 (county-wide) to enhance the Volunteer Service set up by GROW and develop an accredited volunteer centre for Wiltshire.

Applicants present were invited to speak on behalf of their applications and to answer any questions, after which the Board members voted on each in turn.

Decision

The Tidworth Area Board supported the bid from Healthy Schools Plus to go forward for consideration by the Performance Reward Grant Panel.

Decision

The Tidworth Area Board supported the bid from Splitz (Men’s Groups Project) to go forward for consideration by the Performance Reward Grant Panel.

Decision

The Tidworth Area Board supported the bid from DEVELOP to go forward for consideration by the Performance Reward Grant Panel.

The Board considered six applications for funding from the Community Area Grants Scheme. Applicants were invited to speak in support of their application. Questions were then taken from the room, before the Board members voted on each application in turn.

Decision

T2A was awarded £772 towards the cost of purchasing Wall Climbing Equipment.

Reason

The application met the Community Area grant Criteria for 2010/11 and the project would improve the facilities for young people in the community.

Decision

Friends of the Ridgway was awarded £5,000 to develop a 17 mile section of The Great Stones Way over Salisbury Plain and through the Tidworth Community Area along the Avon Valley.

Reason

The application met the Community Area grant Criteria for 2010/11 and the project would improve the footpath facilities and bring economic benefits to the community.

Decision

Kennet Young Musicians were awarded £3,000 towards the cost of setting up two woodwind bands involving children across the Tidworth Community Area.

Reason

The application met the Community Area grant Criteria for 2010/11 and the project would improve the facilities for the young people, providing them with an opportunity to learn to play an instrument which they otherwise would not have had.

Decision

Phoenix Hall Management Committee, Netheravon were awarded £3,200 towards the cost of landscaping the area at the rear of the Phoenix Hall to provide a pleasant, safe outdoor area for all parishioners.

Reason

The application met the Community Area grant Criteria for 2010/11 and the project would improve the facilities for users in the community.

Decision

Tidworth Royals Football Club was awarded £2,408 towards the cost of purchasing matching kit for the Tidworth Royal Teams (adults and children), with the possible condition that the kit display the Tidworth Area Board logo in recognition of the award.

Reason

The application met the Community Area grant Criteria for 2010/11 and the project would provide a more united and professional image to a club which had recently achieved FA Community Charter Standard.

Decision

Tidworth Community Area Awards was awarded £860 towards the cost of organising and running the annual community awards ceremony for the area.

Reason

The application met the Community Area grant Criteria for 2010/11 and the funding would help towards an event that was well supported and valued in the community.

The next meeting of the Tidworth Area Board will be on Monday 21 March 2011 at Ludgershall memorial Hall.

The Chairman thanked everyone for coming, and Val Powley for her hard work with the Tidworth Area Board. People then took part in an electronic evaluation of the meeting using hand held voting handsets.

The next meeting of the Tidworth Area Board will be held on Monday 21 March 2011, 7.00pm at Ludgershall Memorial Hall.