Agenda item

To receive the following announcements through the Chairman:

·       Wiltshire Family and Community Learning

Wiltshire Family and Community Learning includes a range of community-based and outreach learning opportunities. Courses are funded by the Education and Skills Funding Agency. Learners must be 19+, have been resident in UK/EU for three or more years, have less than five GCSEs grades A-C and/or be a service family and/or in receipt of benefits.

Call on 01225 770478 to find out more about the service. Or email: familyandcommunitylearning@wiltshire.gov.uk.

·       Flood Resilience in Your Local Area

Communities may be interested in holding a workshop to enable any towns and parishes within your area the opportunity to sit down and work through drafting up a flood plan for their community along with a colleague from the Environment Agency.

Communities can find out if they are at risk of flooding here: https://www.gov.uk/check-flood-risk.

For more information please contact Renate Malton, Flood Resilience Officer on renate.malton@wiltshire.gov.uk.

·       CATG and Air Quality & Transport Strategy

There are no updates from CATG and the Air Quality and Transport Strategy group as there has not been a meeting since the last Area Board.

·       Wiltshire Council – Focus on the Future

Wiltshire Council are holding a series of Focus on the Future meetings, where local residents can join the council’s senior leaders to discuss the services that the council provides and its plans for future years. The Devizes event will take place on Thursday 16 January 2020, 5.30pm at the Devizes Hub and Library. All are welcome to attend.

·       Devizes Eisteddfod

Devizes Eisteddfod is a five-day competitive festival of music, drama, speech, dance, writing, art and photography for people of all ages, who may enter individually or through a school or group. In November a number of very successful events were held around Devizes, with over 1000 children taking part.

The Chairman made the following announcements:

·       Wiltshire Family and Community Learning

Wiltshire Family and Community Learning included a range of community-based and outreach learning opportunities. Courses were funded by the Education and Skills Funding Agency.

Learners must be 19+, have been resident in UK/EU for three or more years, have less than five GCSEs grades A-C and/or be a service family and/or in receipt of benefits.

Call on 01225 770478 to find out more about the service. Or email: familyandcommunitylearning@wiltshire.gov.uk.

·       Flood Resilience in Your Local Area

Communities might be interested in holding a workshop to enable any towns and parishes within the area the opportunity to sit down and work through drafting up a flood plan for their community along with a colleague from the Environment Agency.

Communities could find out if they were at risk of flooding here: https://www.gov.uk/check-flood-risk.

For more information please contact Renate Malton, Flood Resilience Officer on renate.malton@wiltshire.gov.uk.

·       CATG and Air Quality & Transport Strategy

There were no updates from CATG and the Air Quality and Transport Strategy group as there had not been any meetings since the last Area Board.

A member of the audience commented that the Air Quality and Transport Strategy (AQTS) group, which was set up in 2012, had not made much progress, particularly on public transport. They requested much more commitment on this and wanted the group and Wiltshire Council to focus their minds due to the climate emergency. The comment received a round of applause from the audience. 

Another member of the audience commented that they were pleased with the extension of the tow path. However, it ended at Windsor Drive, so did not really go anywhere and was therefore pointless. It was suggested that the towpath should be extended under the bridge and then on into the local estate.

Cllr Richard Gamble, as Chairman of CATG and AQTS, thanked the audience members for their thoughts and stated that he wholeheartedly agreed. Cllr Gamble also mentioned the Devizes Parkway Station project, a long-term project to bring back a railway station to Devizes, which was being worked on and would progress public transport.

An audience member stated that this was good, however decisions made around public transport needed to be evidence based. Investing in buses may be more useful as some studies showed that for every 1 train user there were 7 bus users.

·       Wiltshire Council – Focus on the Future

Wiltshire Council were holding a series of Focus on the Future meetings, where local residents could join the council’s senior leaders to discuss the services that the council provides and its plans for future years. The Devizes event was to take place on Thursday 16 January 2020, 5.30pm at the Devizes Hub and Library. All were welcome to attend.

·       Devizes Eisteddfod

Cllr Richard Gamble made this announcement as the Chairman was also Chairman of Devizes Eisteddfod. This was an annual five-day competitive festival of music, drama, speech, dance, writing, art and photography for people of all ages, who may enter individually or through a school or group. In November a number of very successful events were held around Devizes, with over 1000 children taking part. Cllr Gamble congratulated all participants and particularly Eliza Munday for winning 2019 Young Musician of the Year with her beautiful performance of The Lark Ascending.

·       Parish Name Change Proposal

An additional announcement not included in the agenda was that the parish of Cheverell Parva has requested to change its name to Little Cheverell. A survey was available on the community governance review page of the website: http://www.wiltshire.gov.uk/council-democracy-cgr if anyone wanted to comment on the proposal.