Time for a Bulkington Parish Council?

Have you been wondering what Bulkington Parish Council is doing in response to the proposals to close their village library? The answer's easy - it's doing nothing, because there is no such thing as a Bulkington Parish Council.

Despite the village having a distinct boundary and strong civic identity amongst its residents, there has not been a local council of any description around which issues affecting the village can be debated and problems solved since 1932. Just 15-odd miles to the south, the 7,500 people who live in Whitnash have their own town council with a £90,000 budget to look after their interests, whilst the 6,500 people of Bulkington have, well, nothing.

OK, to be fair they do have a county councillor (but who doesn't live there) and two borough councillors. But doesn't Bulkington need and deserve to have access to grassroots representatives who live amongst the people they represent, who hold public meetings locally and are accountable in a sense that someone who lives in Nuneaton and attends meetings in Warwick isn't?

It's not like Warwickshire County Council even holds a distinct Bulkington Community Forum for the people who live in the village, preferring instead to have a 'Whitestone & Bulkington' forum, as if a suburban housing estate in Nuneaton shares any of the issues and problems that a village community does.

Perhaps Bulkington doesn't want it's own council. Perhaps it thinks that the threatened library closure, the solutions to the traffic and parking problems in Chequer Street and Leicester Street, the bus services to Coventry that will be cut, and all the other issues that it will have to face up to in the coming years are best left to bureaucrats in other places, without the direct input and influence of people who have to adapt and live with the consequences of these decisions.

It's been nearly 80 years since the residents of Bulkington were served by their own local council. As the ideals of localism and civic self-responsibility come back into vogue, is it now time to ask again whether those residents can be better served with their own local parish council giving a louder voice to their interests, instead of forever being told by others what's good for them?

Over 200 new parish councils have been established across England in the last ten years, and the National Association of Local Councils' 'Power to the People' toolkit should be the first port of call for anyone who's interested in exploring this issue further.

WALC Annual Seminar - 5 March

Earlier this month I attended the Warwickshire and West Midlands Association of Local Councils (WALC) Annual Seminar in Warwick. It is now the third year that I've attended this one day training event that brings together representatives from many of the town and parish councils in Warwickshire and the West Midlands to listen to speeches, undertake training and share best practice with colleagues.

Once again, there were three main sessions that I attended: James Derounian from the University of Gloucestershire led a very topical discussion on parish councils' role in the Big Society and Localism, Gary Stephens, Planning Policy Team Leader at Warwick District Council talked about the Government's proposed changes to the planning system, and then Nick Booth from Podnosh spoke about the benefits of social media as a means of effective consultation.

All three sessions were really interesting. The Localism debate, and what the Big Society actually means in reality, rages on and it's clear that parish councils have a big part to play in this, as borough and county councils across the country end up cutting services (whether they want to or not).

Given its very broadest definition, I would imagine its hard for anyone to disagree with the philosophy behind the Big Society, and I am a huge supporter of the principles of localism given how chronically over-centralised this country has become over the last generation or so. But (and it's a big but), I'm not sure of the capacity parish councils have at the moment to step in and fill the void left by retreating county/borough councils and other service providers.

Attending conferences such as this one opens your eyes to many of the amazing things that some parish councils do within their community, but the parish council sector as a whole needs to be honest enough to admit that there is a mixed bag out there and many local councils just do not yet have the capacity, skills, knowledge and ability to deliver effective public services to their community. The challenge will be how this can be addressed over the coming years.

'Planning' is always a contentious subject matter for parish councils, where it is almost impossible to please everybody. It was therefore interesting to hear of the Government's new approach to the planning system that is contained within the Localism Bill. Back in May last year, the Government announced that the Localism Bill would, amongst many things:

develop greater powers to councils and neighbourhoods, and give local communities control over housing and planning decisions.

Of particular interest to parish councils within the Localism Bill is the creation of Neighbourhood Plans, which are intended to give a focus to the local planning aspirations and objectives of a parish area and are written by the local community itself. These plans cannot contradict national planning policies or the borough council's Core Strategy, so it might be argued that they serve little purpose - especially as they're projected to cost £17,000+ to produce. If that turns out to be their true cost (which to my mind seems ridiculously high) I can't imagine any Neighbourhood Plans being produced. The value of producing such a plan appears to be where the community wishes to encourage more development than might otherwise be envisaged in the borough's Core Strategy. As Gary Stephens said, the Government see Neighbourhood Plans as "not a means to prevent growth, but to stimulate more". Any takers?

The day finished with Nick Booth from Podnosh demonstrating how social media tools such as Facebook, Twitter and Blogger etc can be used to engage with members of your local community. Clearly, he was preaching to the converted in my case(!), but it was interesting to see the many examples of where the internet is being utilised to spread the word of what parish councils and councillors are getting up to. The flip side of this is that social media is also increasingly being used by local residents to hold public services to account. I talked about this back in 2009, and another more recent example is the whatsinKenilworth.com community website. As the traditional local print media seems to get less and less 'local', many people predict that it'll be sites such as this one where people will look first for their local news. Anyone out there planning a 'whatsinRugby.com' or even a 'whatsinFosse.com' website??

Overall, it was really interesting day with plenty of ideas to mull over in the coming months (and at a very reasonable cost of £15 to the Shilton taxpayer).

Fosse Community Forum - 17 March

Click on the image above if you need to make it larger to read it more easily.

Planning Application Decision

Rugby Borough Council has reached the following decision on a planning application submitted in February:

• 2 Lower Road, Barnacle - extensions and alterations to bungalow to create two storey dwelling and use of roof space - refused.

The full decision on this application can be viewed here.

Parish Council Meeting - 1 March

On Tuesday night I chaired the March meeting of Shilton Parish Council. As usual, the meeting began with updates from County Councillor Phillip Morris-Jones and Borough Councillor Rachel Watts. Both reported that their respective councils had now agreed their budgets for 2011/12, and that this would result in an unchanged level of Council Tax for next year compared to this year. There was a little more detail on the potential job losses that are likely to be required to achieve these stand still budgets - Rugby is expected to make 24 posts redundant, Warwickshire needs to find 1,800 job losses.

Rachel Watts was also able to give an update on progress with the Rugby Rural CCTV Network project that I blogged about following last month's parish council meeting. The trial that is being carried out together with Wolston Parish Council is still on-going. The trial had identified a number of technical problems that needed to be overcome (including poor rural broadband speeds to carry the CCTV images back to the central monitoring control room - a problem that will also impact on the roll-out of any system within Shilton and Barnacle), but these problems have now been overcome and it appears that it's now ready to be demonstrated to other interested parishes. Dunchurch and Ryton-on-Dunsmore parish councils already appear to be next in line, but Shilton parish councillors expressed their wish to see a demonstration of the CCTV system in operation at the earliest opportunity to assess its suitability for adoption in either or both our villages. I shall hopefully have more to report next month.

In other updates on items raised at the last meeting, it was reported that there had thankfully been no further reported incidents of the car park in Church Road, Shilton being used as a discrete location at which to smoke drugs. As ever, local residents provide the eyes and ears that give an early warning of these sorts of incidents and I would urge anyone seeing anything suspicious in the future to report the matter to either the parish council or Warwickshire Police's Safer Neighbourhoods Team.

There had also been reports of litter problems at the rear of the car park, and it was agreed to install a bin to (hopefully) encourage anyone looking to dispose of their litter to do so in more a responsible way.

In other business, the parish council agreed its cemetery fees for 2011/12. Some fees went up and others came down as we tried to bring our fees more in line with those charged by neighbouring councils. Parish councils are give clear guidance from the Government that the cost of providing cemeteries should be met from the burial fees they charged - effectively, the cemetery should be 'self financing'. For smaller parishes like Shilton this poses some difficulties, as it is not easy to accurately predict demand. Clearly, if only one or two people are being buried in any year, the fees received will not cover the cost of that year's cemetery maintenance. But as with most things, you do what you think is best and then manage the situation during the course of the year in response to developments.

The next meeting of Shilton Parish Council will be held on Tuesday 5 April at 7.30pm in the Parish Council Meeting Room, Church Road, Shilton.

WALC Rugby Branch Meeting - 24 February

Last night I chaired the Rugby branch meeting of the Warwickshire and West Midlands Association of Local Councils (WALC) in Easenhall. This is the quarterly meeting of all of the parish councils in the Rugby borough area where we discuss recent developments and shared matters of interest.

There is always an invited speaker who gives a presentation on a topic of interest to parish councils, and last night John Cowley, Play Development Officer from Rugby Borough Council attended to talk about the work of the Rugby Play Partnership over the last few years. The Play Partnership is a forum for local residents (including children) to meet with the borough council and other interested bodies to share ideas and give feedback on play facilities within the borough.

John Cowley spoke at length about the objectives of the borough's Play Strategy and the progress made during the last few years with the delivery of its objectives. It would be fair to say that the focus of the Rugby Play Partnership has been more urban based so far, although it was now intended to expand the work to include more of the rural parts of the borough, something that would be done by working closely with parish councils in mapping the existing play facilities within villages and identifying where there were gaps in provision. As now seems to be the trend though, there were concerns that funding cuts may require the ambitions of the Play Strategy to be scaled back somewhat.

The WALC Rugby branch is fortunate to have Councillor Chris Hartny-Mills from Pailton Parish Council as its representative on the Rugby Play Partnership. Chris is committed to improving the play facilties available for young people in the borough and will lead on the project to identify the facilties that currently exist in the rural area in order that funding can be targeted where it is most needed.

Elseware on the agenda, we received updates from other councillors who represent the branch on outside bodies and groups, including the Cement Community Engagement Group (which meets to address environmental concerns arising from the Cemex cement plant in Rugby) and the latest business discussed by the Rugby Local Strategic Partnership.

The next branch meeting is scheduled for the end of April, when it is hoped that an officer from Warwickshire County Council will be in attendance to talk about youth services in the county (and another area that has been hit very hard by recent budget cuts).

Planning Applications Consultation and Decision

This week, a planning application has been submitted by:

• 2 Lower Road, Barnacle - extensions and alterations to bungalow to create two storey dwelling and use of roof space.

Full details of the application (including site plans) can be viewed here. All comments on the application must be received by Rugby Borough Council by Friday 25 February.

Rugby Borough Council has also reached the following decision on a planning application submitted in December:

• Land rear of The Trossachs, Croft Farm, Parrotts Grove, Coventry - creation of a raised hard-standing for car parking and storage - refused.

The full decision on this application can be viewed here.

Parish Council Meeting - 1 February

Last night I attended the February meeting of Shilton Parish Council, our first of 2011.

The meeting began with updates from County Councillor Phillip Morris-Jones and Borough Councillor Tony Gillias. Perhaps unsurprisingly, both of them focused on the potential job losses at Warwickshire County Council, Warwickshire Police and Rugby Borough Council. There were assurances that 'front line services' would not be affected, although I do wonder, even taking service delivery efficiencies into account, if councils really believe that the public will be unaffected by the levels of job cuts that are being suggested.

Amongst the other issues discussed by the parish council during the meeting, there was a report of the public car park in Church Road, Shilton being used late at night as a discrete location to smoke drugs. This has previously been reported as a problem in the Shilton Village Hall car park, and I hope the police action taken then didn't end up just moving it from one location in the village to another. The parish council agreed to raise the issue immediately with the local Safer Neighbourhoods Team, and then again at the Fosse Community Forum meeting in March, where Warwickshire Police will be asked to treat it as a neighbourhood priority for the next three months.

One issue I agreed to follow up on was the matter of the proposed Rugby Rural CCTV Network project. This was a project first highlight in December 2009, and which I blogged about in March last year. Since then, nothing much seems to have been heard regarding progress with the initiative, and so I agreed to look into the matter further and see what progress had been made. I shall report back on here what I'm able to find out.

In other business, a number of bills were paid, including £465 to E.ON for the supply of electricity to the parish's street lights for the last quarter of 2010, and a further £279 to E.ON for street light maintenance works over the same period. There were reports on the latest planning applications submitted to, and determined by, Rugby Borough Council, and a report from Councillor Stephen White on a meeting he attended last week regarding the formulation of planning policies on wind farm development in the borough (something that is currently exercising the residents of Copston Magna and Churchover). Finally, the parish council declined a request received from the Southam Action Area Group to contribute towards its campaign against the route of the proposed High Speed 2 railway line through the town.

The next meeting of Shilton Parish Council will be held on Tuesday 1 March at 7.30pm in the Parish Council Meeting Room, Church Road, Shilton.

Planning Applications Consultation and Decision

This week, a planning application has been submitted by:

• High Tor, Shilton Lane, Shilton - use of land as a private gypsy caravan site, comprising five pitches, hardstanding and amenity block.

Full details of the application (including site plans) can be viewed here. All comments on the application must be received by Rugby Borough Council by Thursday 3 February.

Rugby Borough Council has also reached the following decision on a planning application submitted in April last year:

• Ashurst Farm, Wood Lane, Shilton - waiver of condition of previous planning permission to allow the dwelling house to be occupied by persons not connected to the farrier business - refused.

The full decision on this application can be viewed here.

Happy New Year

Just a quick post to wish everybody who takes time out to come and read my blog a very happy New Year!

I'm continually amazed that people remain interested enough in what I'm writing about to come back month after month. For an ultra-local blog, principally about the goings-on in two small villages, the amount of people who log on to read my posts is always surprising.

The original purpose of the blog was to explain what I am doing as a local parish councillor, what Shilton Parish Council is up to, and to highlight wider political issues that might be of local interest. For the year ahead, I promise to try and get back to my target of at least one post a week (even if it does mean me spreading my choice of topics a little wider than just Shilton and Barnacle) in the continued pursuit of those original aims.

And a final word concerning everyone who's taken time to post a comment on the blog. I wish I had lots more comments from you all so that we could have some really interesting discussions, but special thanks to the handful of people who have taken the time to tell me, and everyone else, what they're thinking. In the spirit of open debate, I'm happy to confirm that every single comment submitted to me has been published unedited, and long will it remain so.

Here's to 2011!