Police & Crime Commissioners

In 27 days time, elections will be held across England and Wales to appoint the 41 new Police & Crime Commissioners whose job it will be to ensure an efficient and effective police service within their area, and to hold the Chief Constable to account. They will also have responsibility for setting the budget for the local police service for the year.

The period of time for candidates to be nominated for this role expired today, and in Warwickshire three candidates have put themselves forward:

• Ron Ball (Independent)
• Fraser Pithie (Conservative)
• James Plaskitt (Labour)

Ron Ball, Fraser Pithie, James Plaskitt

Right from the very start I have been strongly in favour of the creation of these new Police & Crime Commissioner positions, to replace the almost invisible police authorities. I shall blog more in the lead up to the elections as to why I think they're a good thing. For the moment, I'll just make two comments:

In response to suggestions that policing shouldn't be made political, I'd like to know why not? If housing, social services, leisure, highways, food safety, planning and education can be oversee by democratically elected bodies, why should policing be treated differently when it impacts so much on everyone's lives. And the election of Police & Crime Commissioners will actually help Chief Constables be less political, not more, as the most senior uniformed officer rightly becomes focused on being accountable for operational delivery matters and less on getting involved in debates on matters of public policy.

But most of all, Warwickshire's new Police & Crime Commissioner will be publicly accountable for policing matters far more so than Phil Robson ever was (he's the current chair of Warwickshire Police Authority for the 99.99% of the population who've never heard of him). I guarentee the public profile and awareness of either Ron Ball, Fraser Pithie or James Plaskitt in the first three months of their four year term of office will exceed anything that Phil Robson could ever dream of.

In addition to the three candidates websites, there's also a dedicated website for the Warwickshire elections here, which has more information.

Superfast Broadband Project Update - October Newsletter

The latest newsletter from the Coventry, Solihull & Warwickshire Broadband Project Team has just been released. The focus this month is the procurement stage, where the team will be starting discussions with potential suppliers to better understand the infrastructure currently in place and where suppliers are intending in make investment themselves during the next three years.

The latest timetable for the project is also interesting. The next key date for me is between November - December this year when there will be a public consultation on the so-called 'intervention areas' (ie. those areas of the region that will require public subsidy to achieve superfast broadband because the commercial market itself does not consider it cost effective to make investments there).

This is the latest newsletter in full:

A reminder of what we are trying to achieve
The Coventry Solihull Warwickshire (CSW) Superfast Broadband Project aims to deliver the Government’s 2015 targets, as set out in the December 2010 strategy document 'Britain’s Superfast Broadband Future' that every premise should be able to access broadband at speeds of at least 2Mbps, and that superfast broadband (defined as providing more than 24Mbps) should be available to 90% of premises in each local authority area. The intention is to procure open access wholesale network services that:

• any internet service provider can use to deliver retail superfast broadband services to residential and business customers;
• can assist businesses by helping to connect premises and mobile workers to the services they require;
• can assist any public sector organisation in building Public Services Network (PSN) compliant infrastructure;
• any community network can use for backhaul.

Our aspirations beyond 2015 are in keeping with the European Commission’s 2020 targets that fast broadband coverage at 30Mbps should be available to all EU citizens, with at least half European households subscribing to broadband access at 100Mbps. The project will endeavour to deliver infrastructure and services that can scale appropriately to keep pace with the increasing bandwidth demands of new applications and services.

Pre-procurement phase has started
The project has now passed the B-zero gateway which was a significant achievement and reflects the amount of hard work that we (and our Community Champions) have been doing over the past few months to really understand the true state of broadband in our area. We now have the go-ahead from BDUK to enter the pre-procurement phase of our project and can start to engage with suppliers in readiness for a full procurement exercise (see timetable below). This is great news and means that we now enter an exciting time as the project starts to become very real.

However there is still the issue of State Aid to be dealt with. We are informed by BDUK that the EU should be giving its approval for the UK to set up a National Competency Centre “imminently”. This means that rather than the EU dealing with approval requests from all of the UK projects individually, they will be dealt with at a UK level, which should speed up that part of the process.

Our timetable for the project
The following indicative timescales are determined by BDUK with the stages following a prescribed process, subject to the State Aid issue being resolved:

October – November 2012: Open Market Review
Includes 4 weeks to engage with all suppliers and learn their future roll-out plans, and 2 weeks to update our coverage maps

November – December 2012: Public Consultation
Publish maps of our intervention areas and invite comment

December 2012 – January 2013: Initial State Aid Application
Results from the Open Market Review and Public Consultation used to refine our intervention area

January 2013: Issue final Invitation to Tender
This will go out to the two approved contractors on the BDUK framework – namely BT and Fujitsu

April 2013: Preferred bidder choice signed off by Warwickshire County Council Cabinet
A required formal process

May 2013: Contract awarded
We will work with the successful bidder will start designing our network.

October 2013:Stage sign-off

November 2013: Commence Phase One roll-out
We will be actively testing the solutions throughout this phase.

February 2014: Commence full roll-out

March 2015: Full roll-out phase sign off

As stated above – these are indicative timescales only. Full updates will be given as the project progresses

Open Market Review (OMR)
The OMR is intended as a precursor to a formal public consultation document. The OMR, in contrast to the public consultation document, is not a specific requirement under the European Commission’s Broadband Guidelines. However, we consider that early market engagement at this stage is an essential and extremely important part of our early market research. The results of the OMR will assist us with understanding the broadband infrastructure (basic broadband and Next Generation Access (NGA)) already in place and where there are definite plans for investment in such infrastructure in the coming three years and is a significant step in the design of our intervention area.

We are sending the OMR to all known broadband infrastructure and internet providers in our area. It can also be downloaded here.

We invite responses from any broadband infrastructure and internet providers in our area. All responses (as detailed in the OMR document) should be received by Friday 26th October 2012.

We have also provided coverage maps and a list of postcodes for the sub-region which you can access here:

http://www.cswbroadband.org.uk/suppliers/procurement/omr-state-aid-sfb-map/

http://www.cswbroadband.org.uk/suppliers/procurement/omr-state-aid-usc-map/

http://www.cswbroadband.org.uk/documents/OMR%20Postcode%20Lists%202012-10-01.pdf

http://www.cswbroadband.org.uk/documents/OMR%20Postcode%20Lists%202012-10-01.xlsx

The maps, which are fully zoomable, illustrate our current assessment of the State Aid status (white, grey, black) for each postcode area in the region – pink has been chosen to represent the “white” areas. The boundary of the region is shown by a thick red line and the area outside the boundary is the buffer area required by State Aid where communities either side of the boundary may benefit from upgrading the infrastructure. The coloured dots on the map represent both business and residential premises, with the different colours highlighting our current estimate of the distance of the premise from existing infrastructure (green is near, hence good, red is far away, hence bad).

You will see this evolve as we gather more information from people filling in surveys and crowdsourcing the existing infrastructure.

The postcode list covers all postcodes in the mapped area. The data is derived from the OS AddressBase Plus dataset released in August 2012.

Surveys and data collection
The survey responses that we have collected so far will provide crucial data to assist in our supplier engagement. We are all aware that Internet Service Providers will advertise and sell a service on an "up to" speed basis - in other words you are unlikely to achieve the headline speeds that are advertised. The survey responses that we have received have enabled us to build a partial picture of what the actual speeds are in many places in Coventry, Solihull and Warwickshire.)

However, we do have some significant gaps in our data and we do need to develop a much fuller picture. So, we would ask all of our Champions and individuals to redouble your efforts to ensure that we get 100% coverage of our survey data so that when we enter into negotiations with suppliers we will be smart clients and can show the picture as it really is rather than as we may be told it is.

Top questions this month:

Q1. When will you know what speeds I will get?

There are so many variables - right down to the wiring in your home or office - that until the roll-out is complete it will be impossible to say exactly what speed any particular property will achieve. However we will be working with our chosen supplier to design a network that will address the issues that we have discovered during our many months of public consultation and data gathering. When we do go out to tender we be using a performance-based specification rather than requiring particular technologies, so it will be up to the bidders to use their expertise to achieve our targets of 100% coverage at a minimum of 2Mbps and 90% at 24Mbps or above.

Q2. Does this mean we don’t need to do the surveys any more?

It is now more vital than ever that we get full coverage with our surveys. Throughout our tendering and design phase we will be looking to achieve best coverage for every area, and we cannot do that unless we know what speeds are actually achieved in each area and what the possible future demand for faster broadband might be.

Q3. I am a community broadband provider – what does this mean for me?

Our project aim is to provide a wholesale broadband network. That means that any ISP can provide services over the network. We have also stated our intention to get fibre as close to every community as possible because that is the best way to provide future resilience. Therefore the final network should provide affordable backhaul for community broadband providers.

CSW Broadband now on social media – come and join the conversation
We are now on the major social media channels and are already creating a buzz. Join in for up-to-date information and an opportunity to influence how the project develops:

Facebook
Twitter
Linkedin

Playing Fields Fencing Completed

If you've been into the playing fields in Wood Lane at all this week, you'll have seen that the new fencing is now complete. I blogged about the work in progress last week.

I'm really pleased with the finished job, particularly in respect of the extent to which it blends in with the natural screening behind it. There was a danger that it could've looked imposing, but I'd go so far now as to say that you could almost drive past it without realising that it was there.

TB Sports Fencing have done a great job installing it, particularly in respect of the lack of damage they've caused to the football pitches from the machinery that was required to install the posts and fix the netting. Two football matches were played last weekend before the works had been finished without any problems at all.

Particular thanks also needs to go to Ron Lissaman and Mike Randall. Both of them retired from the parish council in May, but have continued to project manage the scheme to ensure that the village gets the best job possible. Mike secured the 70% grant funding from the Football Foundation, and Ron has liaised with the contractor throughout, overseeing the installation works. The end result is a great credit to them both.

The more observant of you might also notice that the bench that was located along the eastern boundary has had to be moved to make way for the fencing, but is now relocated to a nice spot backing on to Wood Lane itself.

The Casual Vacancy - Fact or Fiction?

Anyone who's heard anything of JK Rowling in the last few months will probably know that the plot of her latest novel, 'The Casual Vacancy', is set during middle of a by-election for the fictional Pagford Parish Council.

A by-election on a parish council? I'm not sure her fans will be able to swallow such a preposterous scenario!

That notwithstanding, it has been quite good fun to see parish councils having their moment in the media spotlight as a result of the publicity surrounding the novel. Most of this has been - unsurprisingly - negative, critical or dismissive. But, as the saying goes, all publicity is good publicity, right?

At the end of last month, Charles Moore in the Daily Telegraph was not much taken with Rowlings' depiction of middle-class snobbery. And he suggests that she also misses the mark in her understanding of parish councils themselves:

For JK Rowling, on the other hand, Pagford is a vehicle, not properly imagined. It is southern, provincial, class-bound and “therefore” contemptible. As a result, the book is negligent about reality. The mainspring of the plot of The Casual Vacancy is, as the book’s title suggests, the space created on the parish council by Barry Fairbrother’s death. It is important for nasty Howard Mollison and his gang that they get the right person (Howard’s son Miles) in to replace Barry on the council so that they can sever the Fields from Pagford and terminate the lease of the Bellchapel Addiction clinic, which helps the druggies.

This is implausible, because the powers of parish councils are far slighter than Miss Rowling portrays. It is unlikely, for example, that the parish council would own the addiction centre building in the first place (the centre is a former church: I wonder if the author is muddling up parish councils with parochial church councils).

People seriously determined to do down the interests of the Fields would be much better off on the district council. And anyone who has had any association with a parish council will know that there is never hot competition to sit on it. Local politics can certainly be petty, but her notion that office-holding on the parish council can become almost literally a matter of life and death is preposterous. In Pagford, the chairman of the parish council wears a chain of office at meetings. I have never heard of any parish council with such delusions of grandeur.

His article has prompted a letter in today's paper:

SIR - Charles Moore is right that JK Rowling has overestimated the powers of parish councils in her new novel.

From four years' experience as a parish councillor, I have come to the conclusion that they are a sop to local feeling. In their present form, they are a waste of money.

Chairmen can be pompous, but the parish councillor's lot is a thankless one. Either more powers should be wrestled from county councils, or parishes would be better served by voluntary residents' associations.

Tim Coles
Carlton, Bedfordshire

A waste of money? Thankless? Pompous? Mr Coles' Carlton & Chellington Parish Council probably aren't best pleased with that description. It's a tough job, but someone has to do it!

More New Fencing in Shilton Playing Fields

Following on from last month's post regarding a section of new fencing that had been installed by the parish council in Shilton playing fields, if you're passing the playing fields this week, you'll no doubt now see workmen and machinery along its eastern boundary, running alongside Bulkington Road.

Work is being undertaken to install 6 feet high chain link fencing along almost all of this side of the playing fields to address a continued problem of footballs and cricket balls straying onto Bulkington Road and causing a danger to both vehicles and pedestrians. In three sections along this length (behind each goal and adjacent to the cricket square), there will be additional higher netting to catch errant balls.

 

This is a significant project for the parish council, that has been in the planning stage for over a year. Part of the reason for this is that we were lucky enough to secure significant funding from the Football Foundation, who are meeting over 70% of the cost of the fencing/netting by way of a grant of £10,500.

Work is progressing well (despite delays earlier in the week because of the heavy rain) and it should all be completed by Friday, and therefore not impacting on the two football games scheduled to take place on the playing fields over the weekend.

From what I've seen so far, I'm confident that the fencing will do its job well, and without causing any significant visual impact in an otherwise open area of the village.

Free Computers for Community Organisations

At the Fosse Division Community Forum on 13 September, information was circulated regarding recycled computers that Warwickshire County Council was making available for community and voluntary organisations:

Warwickshire County Council is making 125 recycled desktop computers available free of charge to community or voluntary organisations, including town and parish councils, within Warwickshire. Each organisation can apply for up to two machines each, which will consist of a Dell desktop with Windows 7 and a 80Gb hard drive, a monitor, keyboard and mouse, with a number of licence free programmes and a three month warranty. No laptops are available.

Locally based community groups or small-scale groups with little or no IT equipment can apply, but will be asked to demonstrate how it will help their organisation to grow. The PCs have been reformatted by skilled ICT staff so that they are reliable with a good memory.

For an application pack, email Ali Mainey at alisonmainey@warwickshire.gov.uk or call her on (01789) 260134. Applications are invited by 5.00pm on Friday 26 October.

If you know of a local organisation that would benefit from one of these PCs, please get in touch with Alison.

What's in a Name? - Part Two

As I write this, there's 12 days left to vote in this blog's first ever online poll, which is asking whether you support a move to rename Shilton Parish Council to Shilton & Barnacle Parish Council.

The poll was launched at the beginning of July, and the intention is to report the findings to the parish council meeting on 4 September. I shalln't rehearse the arguments all over again; suffice to say that if you haven't voted, and you'd like to, it's best that you read this post first.

The vote is current 10 - 4 in favour of changing the name to Shilton & Barnacle, so there's still everything to play for. And whilst the outcome of this online vote isn't the single determining factor on this issue, it is a useful tool to gauge what people think.

Of the four people voting to say that they didn't want to see the name changed, it was unfortunate that none of them gave a reason why they voted this way (the blog does allows comments, including anonymous ones). It would be helpful for the parish council to know why people didn't want the name changed - whether its a straightforward attraction to the status quo, or some other, more personal, reason. All views are equally valid!

My post on 9 July also contained something of a potted history of the parish council and its name. In response, I received an email from a resident of Shilton who was able to put me right on a few mistaken assumptions that I'd made, as well as adding more flesh to the historical bones of the parish.

I've reproduced the correspondence below for anyone interested:

The reason that the council is called Shilton Parish Council is because it is the council for the Parish of Shilton. The hamlet of Barnacle has been within the parish of Shilton for hundreds of years. When the Act of Parliament was passed in 1894 to form parish councils, Shilton parish decided to have a council and, of course, this included the hamlet of Barnacle, as it was within the Parish of Shilton. As you know, the first meeting of Shilton Parish Council was held in January 1895.

Most of the hamlet of Barnacle has always been within the Parish of Shilton. The part of Barnacle that belonged to the Parish of Bulkington was a small part in the Spring Road area. This was transferred to Shilton Parish in the 1930s.

I think I am correct in saying that it was probably mostly fields that were transferred from Bulkington in 1938. If you look at a map you will see that the there is a narrow strip of land which borders the Coventry Road which is still in Bulkington, the rest of the fields are in Barnacle. There should be something in the minute books about the 1938 transaction. There was a later exchange of land between Ansty and Shilton which I think was about 1980-ish. This should also be in the minute books.

The first meeting of Shilton Parish Council was held on the 2 January 1895 with six councillors under the chairmanship of William Birch of Barnacle Hall. William Birch represented the parish on the district council. His name is on Shilton Parish Council's chairman's chain of office as the first chairman, together with that of Sid Chivers who was chairman at the centenary.

Incidentally, the very old minute books were unfortunately put on a bonfire by the widow of Norman Ashman. He was Clerk to five parish councils and when he died, as she did not know which belonged to which council, she got rid of the lot. Such a shame because the original minute books would have made interesting reading.

Before Shilton Parish Council was formed, Shilton and Barnacle came under the auspices of the Foleshill Board.

The parish council first met in their new meeting room in 1924 when Josiah Bolton was their chairman.

I have a photocopy from a book about The City of Coventry and Warwickshire which says "....in 1649, too, Barnacle was being assessed for rates with Shilton, not with Bulkington".

Fascinating stuff!! If anyone else can add to the story, please do get in touch.

New Fencing in Shilton Playing Fields

The next time you're in Shilton playing fields, you'll hopefully notice that there is a whole length of new fencing along that part of the field that runs alongside Wood Lane.

The parish council was aware that the existing fencing was looking broken and shabby due to its age, and so sought quotes to replace it. CJL Gates & Engineering from Clifton upon Dunsmore submitted the most competitive quote and were given the contract to supply and fit 60m of round post and half rail fencing. The cost to the parish council was £630.

Parish Council Meeting - 7 August

Last Tuesday night, I chaired the August meeting of the parish council.

The meeting opened with two members of the public wanting to raise the issue of the maintenance of land in Ash Tree Grove that was now under the ownership of the parish council. A number of hedges were becoming overgrown and some of the trees needed pruning. The council undertook to address these concerns, starting with the hedges being cut back in the next couple of weeks. It was good to see members of the public attending the meeting in order to get matters of concern to them resolved.

County councillor Phillip Morris-Jones and borough councillor Chris Pacey-Day then gave updates on local matters of interest. Phillip stressed the financial constraints that were continuing to be experienced by Warwickshire County Council, along with attempts to attract more members of the public to attend meeting of the community forums that met around the county, and the upcoming election on 15 November for the new Warwickshire Police & Crime Commissioner.

Chris reported that he has recently been appointed to sit on Rugby Borough Council’s new Gypsy & Traveller Strategy and Action Planning Group, which he hoped would provide a greater focus to the work being undertaken by the borough council to provide a satisfactory longer term solution to the accommodation needs of gypsies and travellers in the area.

Streetlights have been a subject matter that’s exercised the parish council’s mind over recent months. On Tuesday, councillors received an update on the replacement of the damaged light in Church Road (which should happen in the next few weeks), and agreed to replace a unit in Hallway Drive that was reported to be flickering and buzzing intermittently. Both of the units will be replaced with more energy efficient LED lights, and so will look different to the streetlights that are currently there (this will be most obvious in Hallway Drive). The parish council was mindful of installing lights that had a reduced electricity consumption, and will be interested to hear the views of residents as to the quality and penetration of the light that the new LED bulbs emit.

New signs will also be ordered to designate the reserved parish council/cemetery parking outside the meeting room in Church Road after the existing signage was recently damaged.

The parish council has been formally notified that its clerk, Emma Raymont, will be leaving her post on 31 August, following her recent appointment to a full time job. Despite this being fully expected for some time, it is still disappointing that the parish council will soon no longer have Emma’s enthusiasm and dedication to call upon. In readiness for 31 August, councillors discussed the recruitment of a replacement clerk and what steps it needed to take to ensure that this key position was filled by someone willing and able to bring their own experience and ability to the role.

The remainder of the meeting focused on the regular financial matters, planning application consultations and other matters of correspondence.

The parish council will meet again on Tuesday 4 September at 7.30pm at its parish meeting room in Church Road, Shilton. Members of the public are welcome to attend, especially if they have matters/concerns they wish to draw to councillors’ attention.

Police Crime Report - July

Warwickshire Police has released its latest crime report setting out incidents it wishes to draw to the attention of local residents that have occurred in Shilton and Barnacle during the last month. One incident has been highlighted:

• Sunday 15 July - Vehicle nuisance - Top Road, Barnacle
  Report that an unknown person was blocking the road, and when they were asked to move the vehicle the occupant got abusive. 

Warwickshire Police has asked that anyone with any information about these crimes should call them on (01788) 541111.