Parish Newsletter March 2011

Transcription

1 Parish Newsletter March 2011 Welcome to the March Parish Newsletter. This month, amongst other things, we will be giving you information on the Wiltshire insulation scheme, how to hold street parties for the Royal wedding and the latest training courses available. COUNTY NEWS Health and Wellbeing Partnership Awards Nominations are open for Wiltshire s third annual Health and Wellbeing Partnership awards. The awards celebrate the individuals, groups, organizations and businesses, which are involved in improving local health and wellbeing. In 2010 there were 200 nominations from walking schemes and healthy eating workshops, to drop in centres and sports clubs. There is a huge range of health and wellbeing activity in Wiltshire. Tell us about your local projects so that their achievements can be recognized. Visit Good News Wiltshire Home Insulation Scheme The Warmer Wiltshire scheme has now been running for 12 months and has resulted in over 2,200 private sector properties (owner occupied and tenanted) having loft and/or cavity wall insulation installed. The Warmer Wiltshire Scheme is a partnership between Wiltshire Council and the Mark Group insulation installers. At no cost to the council, this scheme has levered into the county almost 900,000 in Carbon Emissions Reduction Target (CERT) funding from the utility companies. Wiltshire Council and Mark Group mailed homes in Wiltshire (around 200,000) early last year (the mailing funded by Mark), inviting the occupiers to contact the company for a free insulation survey and information on grants and discount schemes.

2 Rural housing needs surveys Are you interested in knowing more about housing needs in your parish? If so we may be able to help. The housing team are planning to carry out a rolling programme of rural housing needs surveys across Wiltshire. The programme starts in April 2011 and there are already a number of parishes that have expressed interest in taking part in the survey. The results of the survey will provide valuable information on housing need in your parish. This could also be used to inform your parish plan and to help you to plan to maintain the sustainability of your local community. If you would like to know more about the surveys or are interested in arranging for a survey to be carried out in your parish please contact Claire Pullan in the Housing Strategy Team, tel: History Centre on tour Staff at the Wiltshire & Swindon History Centre like to take their skills and knowledge into the community areas, as not everyone can visit the History Centre in Chippenham. Several staff give day time and evening lectures to groups around the county and public lectures and courses are occasionally staged in libraries. One course, Family History Beyond the Internet, held at Pewsey Library on 9 March, demonstrates the very wide range of archival and other source material available to family historians, who may only have done on line research. Pewsey family historians will hear Principal Archivist, Claire Skinner and County Local Studies Librarian, Mike Marshman impart their skills and knowledge on this subject. If your parish or community area is interested in hosting a talk or course contact Mike Marshman on or mike.marshman@wiltshire.gov.uk The Rural Forum - meetings cancelled In the February edition of the Parish Newsletter dates for four Rural Forums were announced. The purpose of the meetings was to help develop planning policies for the rural areas of Wiltshire. These discussions were to be held at Salisbury City Hall (8 March), County Hall Trowbridge (10 March); Browfort, Devizes (15 March) and Monkton Park Chippenham (17 March). Please note that these discussions have been cancelled. Wiltshire Council will be revisiting rural policy development early in the summer. Localism - area meetings In early spring, council officers will be attending meetings hosted by the area boards to give an update on key proposals within the Localism Bill. The purpose of the meetings is to explain the current proposals in the Bill and what Big Society and Localism means for local communities, including proposed changes to the planning system, such as neighbourhood plans. Dates for these meetings will be published in due course and parish councils notified of meeting dates.

3 Royal wedding street parties Local communities wishing to hold street parties for the royal wedding are being encouraged by Wiltshire Council to apply as soon as possible. The council has set up a new user-friendly flow chart on their website to help people arrange and conduct small, private events such as street parties and fetes. For any events being held between 29 April and 2 May 2011, to celebrate the royal wedding, temporary event notices must be submitted to the council and police by April 12. Jane Scott, leader of Wiltshire Council, said: We will not be charging for communities to hold local parties in their street to celebrate events such as the royal wedding, Olympics and Golden Jubilee, and we aim to help as much as possible to enable these to happen. These are a traditional part of community life and are a great way for us to get to know our neighbours. For more information on holding an event on a public highway visit Hard copies of the flow chart and application forms are available from customer care on The Royal Wedding- send good wishes HM Lord-Lieutenant for Wiltshire, Mr. John Bush; the Leader of Wiltshire Council, Jane Scott and the Dean of Salisbury, The Very Reverend June Osborne, are inviting Wiltshire residents to have the opportunity to send good wishes to His Royal Highness Prince William of Wales, KG and Miss Catherine Middleton for their marriage on Friday, 29 April. Sheets, which will be collected together in a book, will be available for Wiltshire residents to sign in all Libraries across the whole county, as well as in the main council offices in Swindon, Devizes, Chippenham, Salisbury and Trowbridge and the Registration Offices in Trowbridge, Chippenham, Devizes and Salisbury. Sheets will also be placed in Salisbury Cathedral. The Lord Lieutenant said, It is clear that the whole country is delighted about the forthcoming marriage of His Royal Highness Prince William and Miss Catherine Middleton. I believe many Wiltshire residents would like to wish them well for the future and this will provide the perfect opportunity for a collective message to be sent to them both. The sheets will be available for signature until Friday, 8 April

4 2012 Olympic & Paralympic Games - Inspire Mark Programme For The first time ever, the Olympic committee has allowed the use of an Olympic Games logo to be used by not-for-profit organisations. Groups can get involved in this through the Inspire Mark Programme. The programme is open to projects in sport, culture, education, sustainability, volunteering and business that are inspired by the 2012 games. Locally, the county s celebration of the games is being coordinated by Team Wiltshire. To find out more about the Inspire Mark Programme visit or teamwiltshire Training and development opportunities Town and parish councils are able, for a fee, to attend learning opportunities that Wiltshire Council organises for officers and councillors. The courses that are currently available include: Assertiveness Business and English Effective reading techniques Basic presentation skills Advanced presentation skills Managing difficult people and situations For further details on each of these courses please visit the Wiltshire Council website.

5 See your parish on the map See your parish on the map with An interactive mapping website from Ordnance Survey, providing the most accurate and up-to-date geographic data. Search the map and view the extent of your parish against various scales of background maps. Users can select from a variety of other administrative and electoral boundaries that can be overlaid on the map. You can also print a map or include it on your webpage. Includes useful guide to electoral and administrative geography. (Information on how you are licensed to use these maps is found on the Legal page ). OS OpenData bringing maps to everyone OS OpenData Bringing maps to everyone Last year Ordnance Survey launched OS OpenData, an online portal providing free and unrestricted access to a large range of mapping and geographic information. It allows users access in a number of ways: View maps and boundary information for the whole country at a variety of different scales, ranging from the whole of Great Britain down to street level showing individual buildings. Develop your own interactive web maps with OS OpenSpace API (Application Programming Interface). Download a wide range of mapping and geographic information direct to your computer for use within a geographical information system (GIS). (Information on how you are permitted to use these maps is found on the website FAQ and Licence PDF

6 Coming this April Free Public Sector License for Ordnance Survey Mapping Ordnance Survey maps have always been subject to licensing restrictions, often making it difficult for small administrations such as parishes to use. From 1 April 2011 parish and town councils will be able to obtain a free licence directly from Ordnance Survey called the Public Sector Mapping Agreement (PSMA). It will provide geographic data to all public sector organisations in England and Wales, including access to maps not freely available to the public such as 1:25000 and Mastermap. Rights of way mapping is now online The Wiltshire Council website now has mapping which shows the public rights of way in Wiltshire. This is not the legal record (the Definitive Map) but attempts to give the most accurate depiction possible. Previously all parishes have been given paper maps showing the rights of way and these have been updated when a right of way changed. We will still inform parishes when there have been changes but we will now not send out new paper maps unless parishes ask us to continue to do so. The map can be found at: Paths Improvement Grant Scheme (PIGS) update The PIGS scheme aims to encourage parish and town councils to make innovative improvements to their rights of way for the benefit of the local community. Modest match funding grants are provided to winning bids in an annual competitive bidding process. The 7 schemes that have been offered funding in the 2010 round and look likely to proceed include: 2 schemes involving surface upgrades to make popular routes more useable year round 3 new or improved links which provide alternatives to the adjacent roads, helping to reduce safety concerns of residents when they are accessing local services and the countryside Installation of kissing gates instead of stiles to make it easier for people to walk between two nearby villages Improving access to a canal and a well used picnic spot from a town

7 Share the Care Week March Tell a Friend about the BIG Difference they make to disabled children and the need for more short break carers in Share the Care Week March to encourage people (particularly people with experience in working with disabled people) to find out about the many opportunities to provide short breaks and to think I Could Do That!. For more information please visit: Wiltshire Council s appeal for private fostering week Wiltshire Council is actively involved in the forthcoming Private Fostering Week being run by the British Association for Adoption and Fostering from the 21 March to the 27 March Private fostering is an arrangement when someone, who is not a close relative, cares for another person s child for 28 days or more. Nobody knows exactly how many children are privately fostered, but in 2001 the Department of Health estimated that there could be as many as 10,000 in England and Wales. In the year to March 2010 there were 1,950 notifications of private fostering arrangements in England. However experts believe there could be many more. Wiltshire Council is working hard to raise awareness of parents and carers responsibilities, distributing information leaflets in public places such as shopping centre, libraries, health centres, schools and colleges as well as attending local meetings. Wiltshire Council is asking people to help keep children safe, and help reduce the number of children in unnotified private fostering arrangements by telling it of arrangements where children are cared for by someone who is not a direct relative. For more information on private fostering visit the council s website or Plans to improve recycling in Wiltshire Changes to Wiltshire's waste collection service, which will improve the county's recycling rate and enable the Council to avoid paying increases in Landfill Tax, were given the go-ahead following the approval of the council s budget for For more information please visit the Wiltshire Council website.

8 SPORTS AND PHYSICAL ACTIVITY TEAM The Sports and Physical Activity Team have been exceptionally busy over the past few months as the February 2011 Newsletter demonstrates. Only last week, the team organised the inaugural Funding Future Olympians grant award; a truly inspirational evening, which will hopefully spur on 5 of our local talented athletes to fulfil their Olympic dreams. Funding Future Olympians grants Thursday 17 February 2011 saw the presentation of the Funding Future Olympians grants at an event in Devizes. The event was hosted by Wiltshire Council with speakers Councillor Jane Scott, Leader of the Council and Andrew Kerr, Chief Executive and guest speaker Liz Johnson, Gold Medalist at the 2008 Beijing Paralympics and World and British Champion for 100m Breaststroke. Grants of 1,000 were presented to 5 potential Olympians. This funding will be used to help them access training and competitive opportunities, purchase equipment and cover transport costs for attending regional and national events. To read more click on NORTH WILTSHIRE Removal of invasive laurel at Hardenhuish Wood, Chippenham The Countryside Service is working alongside the Community Payback Team at Hardenhuish Wood in Chippenham to remove the invasive laurel. Laurel, like Rhododendron, was originally introduced as an ornamental garden plant which then escaped and thrived outside a garden setting. It out-shades and outcompetes native plants and is causing problems in many important oak and hazel woodlands throughout the UK. In many cases these shrubs were planted as cover for local shoots but as estates were sold off or have become more fragmented we are left with patches of these plants as remnants.

9 WEST WILTSHIRE Parasitic plant to the rescue - meadow restoration at Barton Farm Country Park, Bradford on Avon For the second year running volunteers from Climate Friendly Bradford on Avon and The Bradford on Avon Preservation Trust have teamed up with the Countryside Service in the restoration of North Meadow at Barton Farm Country Park. This meadow, where mainly grass now grows, still shows evidence of its once diverse past and, with the help of these willing volunteers, we hope to improve its biodiversity once again. However, where the use of grazing animals is no longer possible, hard graft is our only option and so our small team has zoned the site and tackles one part each winter. Southwick Country Park needs you! The Friends of Southwick Country Park, The Hope Centre and Wiltshire Council need some help. They are working together to help ensure Southwick Country Park meets the needs of the community and practical work includes keeping paths clear, planting trees and carrying out minor maintenance projects and repairs. They are also planning to develop a wildflower meadow and woodland walk and are always open to new ideas. Would you like to join them? A small and friendly group which meets at 9.30 in the Country Park on the last Tuesday of every month, they work just for the morning. The Friends of Southwick Country Park are also looking into setting up a Saturday morning group if there's the demand. If you can spare four hours a month to help out or if you're interested in becoming a 'Friend', contact Alison Rasey on EAST WILTSHIRE Marlborough Tesco store- traffic works update The new Tesco store at Salisbury Road Business Park (due to open on 21 Feb) included a planning requirement to improve the traffic flow conditions at two mini roundabouts in the town: the double mini roundabout at the junction of London Road, Salisbury Road and George Lane and the mini roundabout at New Road, Barn Street, London Road. The works are to include reshaping of the roundabouts, new approach islands and resurfacing of the roundabout areas. The works were required to have been completed by the time the store opened.

10 Rights of Way Wardens- new location With the closure of the Marlborough Depot, Esther Daly, Senior Rights of Way Warden for the East is now situated at the Melksham Depot and can be contacted on or at QUICK LINKS Area Board information All the latest news releases Recycle for Wiltshire Roadworks What s on at City Hall, Salisbury Björn Again return to City Hall on 17 March, enjoy all of Abba's hits and songs from Mamma Mia. Visit the website to book tickets and find out about other live entertainment at City Hall this March. Why not come along and Visit your local market for a wide range of produce, clothes, antiques and gifts. Please download and print off the markets poster. Previous issues of the parish newsletters are available to view on the Wiltshire Council website This newsletter is produced by the corporate communications team at Wiltshire Council We welcome your comments please contact either Sean Chacksfield- sean.chacksfield@wiltshire.gov.uk or Judi Gardner judi.gardner@wiltshire.gov.uk