Parish Council Meeting - 2 March

On Tuesday night I attended the monthly parish council meeting in Shilton. This meeting was particularly interesting to me because of two issues that I've taken an interest in.

First up, the council received a presentation from Paul Collett, the Community Safety Project Officer for Warwickshire County Council who spoke about the Rugby Rural CCTV Network project. I first mentioned this project following a meeting I attended in December last year. Essentially, the scheme provides for up to eight secure CCTV cameras in each rural parish, that sends images via the internet back to a central police control centre, to be retrieved at a later date by the police if there is suspicion that criminal activity had been captured by a camera.

Parish councils that wish to apply to join the network would only need to fund the cost of the cameras themselves and the internet connection to send the images back to the control centre, which means that the total amount needed to be spent is within most parish councils' means.

The scheme is initially being launched in Wolston, and then rolled out to applicant parishes who wish to sign up to the CCTV network. Parish councils are being invited to see the system in Wolston once it is in operation to gauge the suitability of it for their own areas.

Shilton parish councillors were impressed by the capabilities of the CCTV cameras, and it's something that we will be following up on once the Wolston trial is up and running.

Those of you who read my last post with have gathered that the problem of litter and waste has become something that I want to try and do something about. Therefore, I proposed at Tuesday's meeting that as a start, the parish council could agree to fund the hire of two large skips (one for each village) to be sited in a central location on a given Saturday to enable local people to safely, easily and cleanly dispose of any bulky refuse that they have been holding on to.

The two nearest Household Waste Recycling Centres (that's what you and I would call the council tip!) involve a round trip of over 16 miles (to Tuttle Hill, Nuneaton) and 26 miles (to Hunters Lane, Rugby). Perhaps unsurprisingly, people therefore accumulate junk that they need to throw out, but just never get round to doing so. And whilst I'm sure no resident of Shilton or Barnacle would ever choose to fly-tip this rubbish, I do think that the parish council can give people a helping hand by providing a skip to encourage a spring clean and general tidy up.

The parish council unanimously backed this idea, and if it proves to be successful and popular, would be keen to make it a regular event.

None of the detail of what day the event will be held on, or where the skips will be located has yet been worked out, so keep an eye out in the next edition of BASIS for this information (and keep reading my blog because I'll have the news here first!). But with a bit of community support, and no-one taking too much of an advantage of the situation, this should result in a worthwhile event being put on by parish council to help make Shilton and Barnacle a cleaner, and nicer, place to live.

Keep checking back for the latest news regarding the CCTV initiative and future litter clearing projects, and leave a comment below if you have any views on either of these subjects yourself.

WALC Rugby Branch Meeting - 25 February

On Thursday night, I attended the Rugby branch meeting of the Warwickshire and West Midlands Association of Local Councils (WALC) in Ryton-on-Dunsmore.

The main item of interest was a presentation by Myles Thornton from the Warwickshire branch of the Campaign to Protect Rural England on the problem of litter, and their 'Stop the Drop' initiative to target this.

Some of the facts presented at the meeting highlighted just what a blight litter was and how much of a problem it had become:

• it costs local authorities more than £500 million a year to clear up litter;
• there has been a five-fold increase in the amount of litter dropped in the UK since the 1960s;
• an estimated 25 million tonnes of litter is dropped in public places every year (equivalent to the weight of 62,500 jumbo jets);
• in 2007, an estimated 69,000 animals were killed or injured by litter dropped in Britain;
• every weekend, 1.3 million pieces of rubbish are dropped on motorways and major truck roads across England - totalling 67.6 million items of litter ever year.
• fly-tipping cost councils across the country a further £74 million to clear up the 2.6 million instances where it occurred during 2007, yet there were only 1,800 successful prosecutions against the people doing the fly-tipping.

Frankly, I was staggered by these statistics, but we see the evidence for ourselves every day right on our doorsteps in Shilton and Barnacle.

In response to this national blight, the CPRE have launched their 'Stop the Drop' campaign which encourages local residents, supported by their parish council, to clear up their local neighbourhood on a regular basis.

There's a lot more detail to the scheme, and it's something I'd like the Shilton parish councillors to discuss to see what we can do to play our part. The next meeting of the parish council is next week (Tuesday 2 March), and I shall report back on those discussions in a future blog.

I know local people who already do take it upon themselves to pick up litter, and there are the annual village litter picks that get people involved too (Barnacle's is Saturday 28 March - put it in your diary!) If there can be a consistent, co-ordinated and long-term approach to keeping our own local streets and green areas clear of rubbish, then it'll be something we should take pride in, and hopefully motivate all of us to do our bit!

Watch this space for further news.

Fosse Community Forum - Venue Update

Back in December, I mentioned that Warwickshire Police's Safer Neighbourhood Team were to look into reported instances of drug misuse taking place in the car park at Shilton Village Hall. This had been raised at the most recent Fosse Community Forum, and the Police agreed to target the car park during the next three months to try to address these concerns.

The next meeting of the Fosse Community Forum is being held on Tuesday 23 March, starting at 7.30pm. This was to have been held at the Village Hall in Shilton, giving residents a good opportunity to come along and hear what had been done.

Unfortunately, due to the unavailability of the room, the meeting will now be held at the Village Hall, Brockhurst Lane, Monks Kirby. I shall be at the meeting, and will report back on what the Police had to say for those of you who are unable to get to Monks Kirby.

A poster advertising this meeting can be viewed here.

Site Updates and How to Post Your Comments

Hopefully you'll have noticed a gradual improvement in the appearance and content of this blog.

Those of you who were with me from the start may well remember the bland 'all white' look of the site. Things have moved on a bit from those minimalist beginnings, and I'm beginning to feel more happy about the way the blog's looking. I know that it still doesn't have enough video, audio or pictures, but I'm always on the lookout for how it can be improved so that it is a more attractive site to visit.

There are two new improvements to the site I wanted to tell you about. After each post, you'll now see a 'Reactions' tool. This allows you, by clicking in the box next to the description that best fits your reaction to the story, to give instant feedback on what you thought about what you've just read. It's helpful to me to see what people are interested in and what they're not. And it'll be interesting for other people viewing the site to see which stories have generated the most interest. So the next time you read something you like, or don't like, let everyone else know by registering your reaction!

If you've wished that there was some way to be automatically notified of when this blog gets updated (and you're not technically minded enough to subscribe to my RSS feed), then you'll be pleased to know that there now is. Email me (dan essex@sky.com - but without the space between my first and surname) and you will be automatically notified by this blog every time I post a new story, saving yourself time logging on to the site only to find the same story still at the top of the page, and getting to read the new stories as soon as I post them.

I have one further request to make regarding people adding 'Comments' on to the stories that I post. It's not a new feature on the blog, but it is one that's woefully underused. I guess you come to this site because you're interested in what I've written. I am equally interested in what you think. So if you've always wanted to post a comment, but don't know how to, here's the straightforward guide:

• The last ten stories that I've posted always appear on the homepage of the blog. The title of each of those stories is actually a clickable link (eg. the title of the story immediately below this one is "What the Parish Council Will Cost You"). If you've read a story that you want to comment on, click on the title of that story.
• This will take you to a new page containing just that one story that you clicked on (the rest of the blog page will look exactly the same). Scroll to the bottom of the story and you'll see a heading "Post a Comment" followed by an empty box.
• Type whatever comment you wish to make (good or bad!) in that empty box.
• Underneath the box, you'll see another heading "Comment as:" with a down-pointing arrow next to it. Click on the down arrow.
• You'll be presented with a list of up to eight options, but you only really need to concern yourself with the bottom two. If you want to add your name to the comment you made, select the second from bottom "Name/URL" and then type your name in the box that pops up (and then click "Continue"); or select "Anonymous" and your comments will be posted without you having to say who you are.
• Finally, click on "Post Comment" and that's all there is to it.

And if you think that this sounds complicated, try it once and you'll realise just how simple and obvious it actually all is.

Once people start posting comments, these will appear at the bottom of the each post they relate to. Have a look at my 1 February 'Scrutiny Review' story as a good example of this.

Blogs become really interesting when there's a regular exchange of differing views and opinions, so I'm calling on my regular readers to set an example and let's start having a conversation!

What the Parish Council Will Cost You

I told you in December that Shilton Parish Council had set a budget of £15,700 for 2010/11. I'm now able to tell you how this will be reflected on the Council Tax bills that you'll start paying from April.

It is important to remember that this is not the total Council Tax bill that you'll have to pay, but just one element of it (relating to Shilton Parish Council only). The combined costs of Warwickshire County Council, Rugby Borough Council, Warwickshire Police Authority and the parish council make up the overall Council Tax bill that you have to pay.

Each of these other bodies are currently in the process of setting their budgets for the forthcoming year, which will be added together before the bills are sent out to households. For a quick recap on the funding of your local councils and the Council Tax, read here and here.

However, if you'd like to know exactly how much you'll be paying in 2010/11 towards the cost of the parish council, the total annual amount (depending on what band your property comes under) is:

• Band A - £29.07
• Band B - £33.92
• Band C - £38.77
• Band D - £43.61
• Band E - £53.30
• Band F - £63.00
• Band G - £72.69
• Band H - £87.22

In true politician's style, I'll tell you that for a Band D property, this equates to only 84p per week. I'm hoping that you'll now tell me whether we're worth it or not!

Scrutiny Review Proposal for Rugby Borough Council

Each year, Rugby Borough Council carries out a series of scrutiny reviews on topics of local concern. A number of in-depth reviews are undertaken by small cross-party groups of councillors, who will gather evidence in order to make recommendations for change or improvement to the Council's Cabinet.

In order to assist in drawing up its work programme of reviews in 2010/11, Rugby is asking individuals and organisations (including parish councils) to suggest issues of local concern that would benefit from a detailed review by the Borough Council. With this in mind, over the weekend I submitted my suggested scrutiny review for inclusion within their 2010/11 work programme.

My suggestion is a review of the availability of highspeed broadband internet in rural communities within the borough. It can't have escaped anyone's attention in Shilton or Barnacle that the broadband access is slow at best, at times becoming non-existent. Where broadband is available, line speeds are so slow that making use of services like the BBC's iPlayer is impossible.

The problem is due to the distance from properties in the two villages to BT's exchange, which is located at Walsgrave. The further the distance between the house and the exchange, the slower the download speeds will be. I'm told my property is 6.1km away from the exchange, which is right at the limit of being able to access broadband services. And unless BT build an exchange closer to the village, things won't improve.

The Government are recommending that households throughout the country should have access to 2Mbps download speeds by 2012, and have introduced the 50p per month 'broadband tax' on all telephone line rentals to help pay for the infrastructure upgrades that will be required to deliver these improvements. The 2Mbps download speed is considered the minimum required to be able to watch streaming video services like the iPlayer and YouTube. But will these improvements happen before the end of 2012? I very much doubt it.

My scrutiny review would require Rugby Borough Council to establish how many households within the borough are currently unable to access broadband speeds in excess of the Government's recommended 2Mbps. It asks what measures Rugby Borough Council could take to ensure that those households currently without highspeed broadband access were not disadvantaged in accessing public information over the internet. And it challenges the Council to work with technology partners to look at innovative ways to bring highspeed broadband to rural communities within the borough through the use of wireless technologies.

There are many examples across the country where wireless technology has been used to provide the solution to slow broadband speeds. Hopefully, this proposed scrutiny review will help test the extent to which Rugby Borough Council are prepared to work with local communities to overcome pockets of super slow broadband.

Rugby's Overview and Scrutiny Management Board are meeting on 15 March to consider which reviews to take forward into next year's work programme. I shall keep you updated on progress as it develops. Broadband is no doubt a topic I'll return to again at another time!

More Suggested Bookmarks

The social networking phenomenon of the last 12 months must surely be Twitter. It's often been hard to avoid references in the media to the microblogging service that lets users post messages containing no more than 140 characters - a sort of text message for the internet, if you like.

It may have started out in 2006 as an innovative way by which to share snippets of information with friends, but these days large organisations increasingly use Twitter to get their messages out to the general public.

The public sector is catching on to this, and two Twitter sites that may be of interest to you belong to Warwickshire County Council and Rugby Borough Council. Both sites contain breaking news stories, with links to where you can read more about the particular topic. These sites are often a good first place to visit on the internet if you want to source the most up to date information from your local councils.

Which begs the question, does Shilton Parish Council need a Twitter page? Leave me a comment below if you have an opinion!

Regional Spatial Strategy Update

The Regional Spatial Strategy continues on its long, slow grind towards completion. If you remember, the RSS is a West Midlands-wide policy document, prepared by the West Midlands Regional Assembly, that sets out the long term objectives for the use of land across the region. Included within this are policies about the scale and distribution of new housing development, where investment in transport infrastructure will take place, and policies for improving the environment.

It's been of particular interest for Shilton Parish Council because the RSS will also specify how many new gypsy and traveller pitches each council in the West Midlands must make provision for during the next 20 years. This is being done by estimating the likely need for new pitches across the region, and then deciding how many of these should be allocated to each council area. Once this figure has been settled on, the local council (eg. Rugby Borough Council) must agree its own planning criteria that, once applied, will result in planning permission being given for the number of pitches that it is required to accommodate.

In other words, the Regional Spatial Strategy tells each council how many gypsy and traveller pitches there must be within their local area, and then the local council has to decide itself where within its boundaries it will give permission for these pitches to be located.

Back in August last year, there was a public consultation on the proposals for how many pitches should be allocated to each council area. The consultation provided three different possible options from which to choose, and which would have resulted in Rugby borough having to accommodate either 66, 61 or 55 additional pitches in the period 2007-17, depending on which criteria was adopted for allocating the 939 total additional pitches that it was considered the West Midlands needed.

Bringing things up to date, the West Midlands Regional Assembly have now published their preferred option, based, in part, on the responses received to the consultation. And they've had a change of heart!

Neither of the three options consulted on has been adopted. Instead, they have come up with a new fourth option, which is to allocate pitches as and where the need arises (and that was the option that would have resulted in 66 new pitches for Rugby borough), but in an attempt to avoid too many pitches ending up in any one council area, each council will have its allocation capped at a maximum of 42. And that is the new total that has been allocated to our borough (the surplus 24 pitches from the original 66 having been reallocated to Coventry[12], North Warwickshire[6], Tamworth[3] and Warwick[3]).

As a county, Warwickshire will have to find a total of 152 extra pitches between now and 2017 to accommodate the expected increase in gypsy and traveller population. This will be divided up as follows:

• North Warwickshire - 16
• Nuneaton & Bedworth - 29
• Rugby - 42
• Stratford-on-Avon - 42
• Warwick - 23

These proposals will now be the subject of a further round of consultation, with a view to a final decision being taken by the West Midlands Regional Assembly at its meeting in March. Things could still change, but I'll let you know what's happened as soon as I hear!

A copy of the full report that contains all of this information can be read here. Pages 8-39 of the report specifically relate to the allocation of pitches issue.

Normal Business Is Resumed

Apologies for the lack of updates and stories for the last month. A technical problem with BT deprived me of broadband access just before Christmas, and it took until just a few days ago before the corroded wire was found, replaced and I was back online.

For everyone who's kept checking back for updates when there's been none - thanks for sticking with me!

Planning Application Consultation

This week, a planning application has been submitted by:

• Weavers Cottage, Lower Road, Barnacle - amendments to the planning permission previously given for the erection of a first floor rear extension.

Full details of the application (including site plans) can be found by clicking here. All comments on the application must be received by Rugby Borough Council.