We had meetings on Tuesday and Thursday nights last week (5th and 7th February 2008)
On Tuesday the Festivals working party got together with Johnathan Loader, President of the Chamber of Commerce. The Council has already concluded that the August High Street Festival is not working well enough to justify the cost. At this meeting there were some good ideas to promote alternate events. It was felt that for 2009 we should try to support a program of events organised by voluntary organisations and businesses in Carnival week. I suggested seeing if any music groups from the Comp would be interested, and to approach staff clubs from the bigger firms like Dolby. For this Christmas we will meet again to think of different entertainments. If anybody has ideas for either of these events please contact me or the Town Council office.
Thursday’s meetings started with planning. There were four house extensions, and an application from Wiltshire County Council to site a road salt store at the back of the District Council depot. This is part of the plan to close the Highways Depot.
At the full Council meeting several members of the public spoke in the open session. There were residents of the High Street and Beaman’s Lane complaining about the District Council’s consultation about High Street parking, and parents commenting on the consultation about merging County Infants and Noremarsh School sites.
Council had a long discussion about the District Council’s process to bring in time limited parking in the High Street. The consultation seems to be just going through the motions and has not explained what’s happening to residents. It’s really just to get the process through as quickly as possible.
Regarding the school merger the Council resolved to write to all parties about the lack of information available during the consultation.
The cheerful item at the meeting was to agree to support the Town Crier, Owen Collier’s proposal to host the Ancient and Honourable Guild of Town Criers Championship on 13th June 2009.

Town Council Planning Committee on Thursday 24^th January was considering its comments to the District Council about plans to move the Town’s outdoor sports facilities.The meeting was held in the middle hall and it was full of people wanting to give their views and hear the discussion.In public question time there were 8 people who lived close to the proposed housing development on the Gerard Buxton Ground who gave their objection, and one who would be affected by the club extension at Ballards Ash. Several representatives of the Sports Association spoke in support. Many objectors accepted the inevitability of the housing development but thought it too dense and worried about the increase in traffic in Longleaze.In the Committee discussion points were made accepting the developments but wanting changes. My comment was that the housing development was too dense and in particular did not have enough green space to make up for the loss of the green environment there at present. One of the objectors had mentioned bats that roost in the trees. The end of the consultation period for this application is 14/02/2008.

At the Revenue and Resources meeting which followed the Committee agreed to replace the 9 year old computer system in the Council office, and to invite two of the consultants, who have tendered for carrying out a service review, to present their proposals in person to the Members.

I was not able to attend the meetings on January 10^th as I was away.

At the December Council meeting the Committee was not happy about an area of the New Road Play Area needing to be fenced off around access to an underground storage tank. A representative of Wessex Water brought changed proposals to this meeting which meant that only a small area of the play area would be used and maintenance would be done in future from the highway. I think that means the area would not need to be fenced off once construction was complete.

The working party reviewing the festivals concluded that the Christmas Lights evening was successful, but that the August Festival might be better replaced by other types of events. Another meeting of the working party will be arranged where representatives of the Wootton Bassett Chamber of Commerce could be present.

The Council meeting on December 6^th confirmed the budget as discussed at the

Revenue & Resources meeting.

The meeting resolved not to delay the actual setting of the precept to take account of the work of the Festivals Working Party, but to include the budget figures for the Festivals and ask the Working Party to continue their work bringing recommendations back for consideration in the New Year.

The meeting had a presentation by a representative of Atkins about a proposal by Wessex Water to build a flood alleviation scheme on the New Road play area. We were concerned that when the scheme was completed, they were proposing that the access would have to be fenced off permanently to make maintenance work safe. We could forsee the inevitability of balls going into the area and children being forced to trespass to retrieve them. We were not convinced that Wessex Water had considered alternatives to this site and decided to ask a representative of Wessex Water to come to talk to us.

Thursday’s meeting was the Revenue & Resources Committee. I’m not a member of this Committee so I can talk but not vote.

After the Amenities Committee two weeks ago, Revenue and Resources now adds the rest of the budget to go to full Council on Dec 6^th. The budget proposed by the officers would lead to about a 5% increase on this year’s precept of £791,980. Conservative Councillors went through paring £500 off here and there, £1000 off grants, £5000 off provision for Station House. There was a proposal to cut in half the “climate change” budget item which is to implement energy saving and other measures. Last May the Conservatives election leaflet said “Conservative Town Councillors recognize that the town needs to take a lead in Green issues and have set a budget for this”. Despite this the proposed cut went to a vote with 4 votes for the cut and 4 against it. I didn’t have a vote but added my view that the Town Council should indeed take a lead. The Chair of the Committee, Cllr Peter Roberts, had to use his casting vote to keep his Committee to their commitment! 

The other major controversy was whether to keep the same level of budget next year for the August High Street Festival and the Christmas Lights event. The Committee had already taken a decision to employ a consultant to do a small amount of work on an independent review of services. The first thought on the Festivals was to leave the budget in and have this consultant consider the value of the expenditure. But then it was decided that Councillors could take a decision and if it was to reduce expenditure, it could be included in the budget. So a working party is to meet and make recommendations in time to take to a special Council meeting in January. As the only opposition member I will join 4 other Councillors. My thoughts at the moment are that I would want to keep the festivals but move from employing professional entertainers to encouraging more town organizations to put on demonstrations. And we can see how the Christmas event goes this year with some rearrangement of stalls and the carols back in the High Street by the tree. This year the spend for street entertainment in the summer was about £9000 and for Christmas the budget is £7,750, but this does include stage and sound equipment. What do you think?  

 It’s Council budget time again when we work out what is likely to be spent next year (April 2008 – March 2009). I was at the Amenities Committee on Thursday so we thought about plans for the facilities the Council runs.

 Firstly Bill Roberts had an item on the agenda about chewing gum removal from the High Street pavements. If we borrow the District Council cleaning machine we still have to pay for Sunday working (the only time it’s possible to do it). Members suggested that the District Council had a responsibility to clean this up as litter. I proposed we should put the money in the budget to do the cleanup if NWDC doesn’t and Linda seconded it. So its in the budget. 

 On play areas, we were considering the replacement of the fence at Otters Way. The trouble there is that because the equipment is close to the path, the fence has to go over the path. We realized it was worth the Play Area Working Party having a think whether moving the particular piece of equipment, or even replacing the whole lot might be a good plan. The working party is also looking at installing a multi-user games area (MUGA) at one of the playing fields. To keep these as possibilities the Amenities Committee is proposing that the uncommitted £42,000 in this years budget is kept in reserves and £42,500 more put in next years budget. The Working Party has written to Wootton Bassett schools asking for their views about play area development. What are your views?

 The rest of the Amenities budget is also proposed as a ‘business as usual’. But the Council will be prepared for possible changes:-

• A review of the High Street Festival to decide if the money is spent in the best way
• If the sports clubs’ plans go ahead the Rugby Club will take over the running of Ballards Ash so costs there will be reduced.
• If the Council gets Station House on the St Ivel site costs for Civic Centre will eventually switch to Station House.

 This budget will be put together with that for the Revenue and Resources Committee on 22^nd November and finally decided at Council on 6^th December. And then the amount the Council asks for from Council Tax, the Precept, will be set.   

At Thursday’s Town Council meeting Paul Harrison of the Sports Association and  Paul Burrell of Pegasus Planning Group introduced the plans they are about to submit to NWDC for the Sports Hub Project. I particularly asked about the problems of youngsters getting to an edge of town site and Paul Harrison said they would be running a mini-bus service to pick children up for fixtures. They had already explained that they would be constructing a footpath back from the new entrance to the bus stop, and having a toucan crossing (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toucan_crossing)  The plan for the Sports Hub looks good, but residents near the Rylands Field won’t like the site being redeveloped for housing. They should look at the plans and put their views. The development will be for 164 dwelling units, 30% of which will be affordable housing, bringing some new housing very accessible to the town centre. A green space of .2 hectares next to Rylands Way is proposed.

The main topic at the meeting was time restrictions on High Street parking. NWDC are asking about a questionnaire they intend to send out to businesses and residents. It was the feeling of the meeting that the residents were the main ones who needed to be consulted – Brian Taylor had earlier spoken for the Chamber of Commerce unequivocally calling for 2 free hours limited parking on the High Street. It was felt that the Council should just get on with this, at the same time working out a scheme for residents parking, and the implications for nearby roads. It didn’t seem as though our District Councillors had had any input to the consultation plans.

The meeting had a police report from Sergeant Andy Fortune.  He reported that a number of people had been identified for graffiti painting and prosecutions were pending. When I asked about this he said he hoped word of this would get round and discourage others. He is also working with the school and youth club.  

On Tuesday 2^nd I went to my first Town Council meetings after my election.First was a short Planning meeting, considering a car port in Wood Street, an extension in Vale View, and an extension in Honeyhill. Cllr Gibbs said regarding North Wilts District Council’s decision  to give permission for the development on the Beaufort Arms site that he was disappointed at the lack of support given to the Town Council’s view by the District Council and in particular by Cllr Toby Sturgis who is a County Council member for the area.

 At the Revenue & Resources Meeting grants were approved to the Prospect Hospice for Community Nurses (£500) and to British Legion to fund a band at this year’s Remembrance Parade (£300).We discussed the Council’s web-site. Several of us felt it is rather boring! Staff shortages have kept it from being kept up to date but since I started asking about it updating is getting better. Staff were asked to find out about services that would develop the site and maintain it in return for advertising revenue. My view is that we just need to get the content up to date, readable and interesting – it isn’t that difficult.  After looking at the Annual report on the CCTV system we decided to get some more information about likely technology improvements, and the effect of the change to a Unitary Authority.

Thinking about how the Council’s cash balances are invested it was decided not to change. As part of this item there was some discussion about the forthcoming budget setting process. Peter Doyle asked that staff included proposals for the Town Council Council Tax to stay the same or have a small decrease.