Minutes of the Parish Council Meeting on Tuesday, 12th March, 2019 held in Phoenix Hall, Netheravon at 8.00 p.m.

REPORT BY WILTSHIRE COUNCILLOR, IAN BLAIR-PILLING

The biggest item on the Council’s agenda in the past few weeks has been the budget.  We continue to balance the budget and meet the increasing volume of demand and increasing costs of delivery, while entering the first year with our Government grant reduced to zero by efficiency savings of £25M and raising Council tax by 2.99%..   It is notable that the independent scrutiny started earlier and was historically the most open exercise ever. As a result not a single £1 was challenged at Council. As additional good news has also received additional and targeted funding for specific service areas from central government and has put aside its own local funding to invest in these and other critical services.

The Council will be investing £21m in the highways resurfacing programme across the county in 2019/20. In addition, it has the £8m Pothole Fund which is being used to deliver improvements to local highways maintenance, including the repair of potholes, minor patching, white lining, weed removal, sign replacement and numerous other activities to improve the general appearance of our highways and pavements.

It is also investing £12m over the next 2 years to replace the old sodium streetlights with LED lights which will help save over £1m a year in electricity costs and also reduce our CO2 emissions by 1,770 tCO2 p.a. The LED lighting has a dimming capability and lights will be dimmed after 11pm.

We have good news in other service areas.  This is particularly important in children's services.  98% of our children are being allocated a place at their first choice of secondary school.  The Council is also continuing to invest in the health of our children and is one of very few Councils in the Country to provide free swimming for the under 16s during the school holidays.  Not only that but we still have the same number of swimming pools that we had in 2009 (when Wiltshire Council was created) for our residents and our children to swim in.  Add to all of this that several of these swimming pools are newly built or totally refurbished – notably that which was opened recently in Pewsey.

Tidworth Area Rights of Way Improvement Community Project

Introduction.  Following a request from the Clerk of Netheravon and Fittleton Parish Councils, Nick Cowen (Rights of Way Officer for South Wiltshire) gave a briefing at the Nov 18 meeting of the Tidworth Area Board.  In this he outlined the experience of a successful community project in SW Wiltshire and following a brief discussion there was clear enthusiasm for a similar project in the Tidworth Area. Following the meeting the 3 Board Members agreed that Cllr Ian Blair-Pilling would sponsor a Councillor led project within the Tidworth Area, and two further separate meetings have been held with Rights of Way officers and Men’s Shed leaders in which there was clear enthusiasm for the envisaged project.