Agenda item

To receive updates from the Town and Parish Council Representatives, and from other partner organisations.

·         Police

o   Wiltshire Police

o   Military Defence Police

·         Fire and Rescue Service

·         Town and Parish Councils

·         Lovells – SFA and Army Rebasing

·         MOD

·         NHS Wiltshire CCG

·         HealthWatch Wiltshire

The Chairman referred to the updates set out in the agenda and invited further updates from Town/Parish Councils and other Partners.

·         Wiltshire Police

Inspector Peter Sparrow gave an update to the meeting. One year ago Inspector Sparrow had been announcing his arrival to the meeting. Now, due to boundary changes the police were having, he was announcing his departure. The Salisbury and Amesbury area as a policing hub was valid. However, due to all the Salisbury Recovery work it was felt that Amesbury would benefit from its own inspector. So an Amesbury Inspector was to be appointed. The Amesbury Community Policing Team would work out of Amesbury but cover the surrounding areas as well such as Ludgershall and Bulford etcetera. Police and PCSO numbers were due to increase in May.

The Inspector had been to a conference on County Lines. County Lines involved drug dealers coming into the area and using local young or vulnerable people to do the drug running. They take on a lot of the risk but can also make a lot of money. Eventually they may think to set up their own line which could cause conflict and violence. The Inspector encouraged parents to ask intrusive questions of their children if they noticed that they suddenly had a lot of unexplained wealth.

A member of the audience asked a question regarding whether sniffer dogs had gone into local schools to detect drugs as this had happened in other areas and been on the news recently. The inspector did not know if this had happened locally but would try to find out and would also promote the idea. He thought it would be interesting to see if local schools perceived an issue. The schools had good engagement with PCSO’s and they could feedback if there were issues perceived.

Nationally there had been a massive increase in knife crime, however it had gone down in Wiltshire by 18%.

There were 40 Specials (volunteer police officers) who had contributed over 1,800 hours to Wiltshire Police last year.

Wiltshire Police were undertaking rural crime intelligence sharing with Dorset and Hampshire to try to reduce crimes like shed burglaries or theft of tools. It was recommended that people mark items distinctively as this made them less attractive to thieves. 

The MOD police were now back policing the plain.

Cllr Robert Yuill stated that the increased resources were good news. He asked if the police station would stay at Amesbury or if a new one would be built. The Inspector stated that the building was not fit for purpose and the estate strategy developed by the OPCC stated that the station would close.

Cllr John Smale stated that he had been to a Neighbourhood Tasking meeting at the police station the evening before. This had been a very good meeting where lots of information on police work was received and the community had the opportunity to tell the police of any issues.

·         Town and Parish Councils

Bulford Parish Council reported that a defibrillator they had funded was being installed the next week.

The Chairman invited Parishes to let us know what was going on in their area and what they would like to see on the agenda. The CEM stated that it would be good if we could include a slide at each area board regarding good things in the parishes, particularly the parish which was hosting the Area Board meeting.

·         Lovells – SFA and Army Rebasing

The Lovells representative reported that the Bulford site was progressing very well, with all superstructures completed and the site due to be finished in the summer. Nearly 100 homes would be handed over to DIO by end of month. They were expecting the first occupations in the next few weeks with large numbers of arrivals in the summer.

At the Larkhill site, 200 timber frames would be up by the end of the month and 40 houses had received their first fix. The first completions would be in the summer, hopefully in June and they were aiming to hand over 10-15 houses per week in summer.

At Ludgershall, 70 houses would be handed over by end of week, and there would be 242 in total, which were due to be completed by mid-summer.

Lovells were working to secure dates for the Area Board to visit the sites and would contact the CEM with dates.

·         MOD

Lt Col Nick Turner, Garrison Engagement Officer gave an update to the meeting. Regarding Army Basing, the placement boards had met and army families should know by the end of March where they would be based. So at that time they would start applying for school places, doctors and dentists. The main movement of families should occur in July and August. Over 1,200 skilled workers had been working on the housing developments, providing employment in the area.

The Royal Artillery Band had played at Tidworth in February, raising £320 for Army Charities.

2019 marked the 100^th Anniversary of the Bulford Kiwi (which had been cut into the chalk). They were looking to put a sign at the bottom of the hill and the High Commission were looking at getting brown signs put in place directing people to the Kiwi.

Lt Col Jamie Balls holds a meeting on the last Monday of every month where he answers questions from attendees. The meeting is held either at Tidworth Leisure Centre or Tidworth Garrison Theatre and is from 10.00am to 11.00am.

In response to Cllr Graham Wright asking what the relationship between Tidworth and Larkhill Garrisons was, it was explained that Tidworth is the Wiltshire Taskforce Commander, except for Warminster and Larkhill. Larkhill was a training establishment so was run separately. If there were issues concerning Larkhill, either contact the Larkhill Garrison directly or contact Nick himself:

Lt Col Nick Turner TD, Garrison Engagement Officer, telephone: 01980 650610, mobile: 07415 600688, email: Nicholas.Turner@mod.gov.uk.

Cllr Wright also had concerns regarding the content of agenda supplement 2, the army basing update from Neill Page, Army Basing Programme Delivery Lead . Cllr Wright was concerned that there things contained in the update that were not happening and things that were happening that were not in the update. Cllr Wright was advised to contact Neill Page directly regarding this.