Neighbourhood Watch Warning and Police Crime Report - November

Warwickshire Police has issued the following alert for people living in Ansty, Brinklow, Shilton and the surrounding areas, following a number of thefts of car number plates:

We would like to make you all aware of vehicle number plates being stolen in Ansty, Brinklow and Shilton locations. Incidents so far have happened on Main Road, Ansty, Coventry Road, Brinklow and Church Road, Shilton.

The incidents have happened over the last four weeks, mainly during the evenings and into the night. On some occasions the number plates have been left nearby when they have been damaged in the process of removal. We are asking for you to be extra vigilant and to report any suspicious activity.

In addition, Warwickshire Police has released its latest crime report setting out incidents it considers are in the public interest that have occurred within Shilton and Barnacle during the last month. Five incidents have been highlighted:

• Monday 14 November - Theft from a Motor Vehicle - Church Road, Shilton
Report that sometime overnight, unknown person/s had taken both front and rear number plates. No CCTV was available, and the crime happened in the car park so house to house enquiries were not undertaken.

• Wednesday 16 November - Theft of Motor Vehicle - Top Road, Barnacle
Report that somebody had been disturbed trying to steal a teleporter/tractor. Units attended and conducted an area search.

• Thursday 17 November - Theft/Fire/Nuisance - Wood Lane, Shilton
Report that sheds had been set alight and that other sheds had been broken into. Units attended and there was on-going work connected with this with the allotment association. No CCTV was available, nor house to house enquiries undertaken.

• Sunday 20 November - Theft - Wood Lane, Shilton
Report that overnight unknown persons had entered a property and taken garden equipment. CCTV and alarms were sounded. Police units attended. Subsequent raids had been undertaken and items had been found linked to this property.

• Friday 25 November - Theft from Motor Vehicle - Leicester Road, Shilton
Report that during the evening unknowns persons had gained entry into a secure vehicle and taken items. House to house enquiries conducted, but there was no CCTV of the incident.

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

Planning Applications Consultation and Decision

A new planning application has been submitted by:

• 38 Bulkington Road, Shilton - extensions and alterations to dwelling to include alteration to the roof, two storey extension to the rear (to replace existing outbuildings) and elevational alterations.

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 16 December.


View Larger Map

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

• Wolf Systems Ltd, Shilton Industrial Estate, Bulkington Road, Shilton - installation of solar panels on the roof of unit E - approved.

The full decision on this application can be viewed here.

WALC Rugby Branch Meeting - 30 November

Last Tuesday I chaired the Rugby branch meeting of the Warwickshire and West Midlands Association of Local Councils (WALC) in Wolvey. 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 are always invited speakers to give a presentation on a topic of interest to parish councils, and at this meeting the focus was on highways and transportation. Roger Newham from Warwickshire County Council spoke about the range of services that the county's highways and transportation department provided, including highways maintenance, subsidising bus services (especially in the rural area) that would otherwise not be operated because they were not commercially viable, modelling projected traffic flows within the county's towns, encouraging sustainable travel options (eg. cycling and walking) and maintaining the county's network of bridleways and footpaths.

Representatives from parish councils asked a number of questions, particularly concerning the provision of speed cameras in areas where there was considered to be speed-related problems but where no cameras were currently located. Unfortunately, Roger Newham explained that the funding allocated to speed cameras within Warwickshire had reduced in recent years from £1.8m to £250,000 per year, which effectively meant that it was not possible to site cameras in any new locations in the county as the entire budget was used to maintain the existing network of locations.

Harborough Magna Parish Council took the opportunity to raise its concern that Main Street in the village was not gritted, despite it being a twisting road and used for school bus services. Roger Newham agreed to look into this matter to see whether it could be added to the roads in the village that were gritted.

Also in attendance was Tiz Gibson from Balfour Beatty, who had recently signed a five year contract with Warwickshire County Council and Coventry City Council to maintain the highways assets across Coventry and Warwickshire and undertake necessary maintenance. This maintenance work would include responsibility for winter gritting, surface dressing, white line marking, structural works and the filling of pot holes.

In an attempt to improve on the service currently being provided, Balfour Beatty was trialling four 'Find & Fix' teams that would carry sufficient equipment in their vans to enable them to repair pot holes immediately upon discovering them. This initiative was one of a number of ideas that were intended to reduce the inconvenience to the public caused by road maintenance problems such as pot holes. If the initiative turns out to be as successful as it sounds that it could be, these improvements in the speeds of repair will be very much welcomed.

Elsewhere on the agenda, we received updates from councillors who represent the branch on outside bodies and groups, including the county-wide committee of WALC and the latest business discussed by the Rugby Local Strategic Partnership.

The next branch meeting is scheduled for the end of February, when it is hoped that an officer from Warwickshire County Council will be in attendance to talk about grant funding opportunities that exist for parish councils (which should be particularly useful considering the pressures that parish councils are currently under to restrict increases in the amount of funding they raise from the Council Tax).

Planning Application Consultation

This week, a planning application has been submitted by:

• Wolf Systems Ltd, Shilton Industrial Estate, Bulkington Road, Shilton - installation of solar panels on the roofs of units A and B.

Full details of the application can be viewed here. All comments on the application must be received by Rugby Borough Council by Tuesday 22 November.


View Larger Map

Police Crime Report - October

Warwickshire Police has released its latest crime report setting out incidents it considers are in the public interest that have occurred within Shilton and Barnacle during the last month. Two incidents have been highlighted:

• Sunday 2 October - Theft - Church Road, Shilton
Overnight, the front and rear numberplates were stolen from a vehicle.

• Thursday 13 October - Theft - Charles Lakin Close, Shilton
Three men disturbed in a garden attempting to steal a bike. One man arrested on the scene.

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

Planning Application Consultation

This week, a planning application has been submitted by:

• Wolf Systems Ltd, Shilton Industrial Estate, Bulkington Road, Shilton - installation of four new windows in an existing warehouse unit.

Full details of the application can be viewed here. All comments on the application must be received by Rugby Borough Council by Friday 4 November.


View Larger Map

Superfast Broadband Update

I'm following with interest the campaign being lead by Warwickshire County Council to bring superfast broadband to those parts of the county that currently struggle with slow download speeds. A regular newsletter is now being published in order that residents can keep up to date with how the project is going, and I have reproduced the first of these newsletters below:

Project Update
Since the announcement that the Government was to make £530m available for the provision of superfast broadband in the rural areas, there have been a succession of follow-up announcements. We are seeking clarification on a number of issues, but this is the position as we currently understand it.

Funding
The Government is making £4.07m available for Coventry, Solihull and Warwickshire. There is a requirement that this amount should be match-funded from local authority capital funds, which is challenging given the current economic climate, although the spend can be spread over a number of years.

Ambition
The Government ambition is to provide a minimum of 2Mbps broadband to all homes, and superfast broadband to 90% of people by 2015. Superfast broadband has been clarified to mean at least 24Mbps. Coming behind this is an EU requirement that by 2020, fast broadband coverage at 30Mbps should be available to all EU citizens, with at least half European households subscribing to broadband access at 100Mbps. Clearly, this is a significant uplift coming just a short time after the UK targets and this will have implications for the Local Broadband Plan.

Progress
We are still actively collecting data (see below) and hope to submit the Local Broadband Plan to Government in April next year. This document should show how we propose to improve broadband speeds across the whole of the sub-region, not just the rural areas, although it is only the rural areas that will receive Government funding.

What can you do to help? How good is your broadband?
A key component of your Local Broadband Plan will be evidence of where specific problems exist across the sub-region. We therefore have to map this information and in order to do that we need your help. If you have not already done so please complete the broadband survey that is located here - there is one survey for domestic use and one for business use, so if you run a business or work from home please do both - and encourage your neighbours to do it as well because the more people that respond from a given area the higher priority it will be.

How close can fibre get to your property?
A (usually) simple way to improve broadband speeds is to put fibre to the BT cabinet. This is a green box by the side of the road which provides telecoms to a village or group of properties. We need to map the exact locations of these boxes so that we can establish what benefits might be gained from this type of upgrade. Please register the location of your BT cabinet and any others you may come across. You can do this here and there is also an App for iPhone or Android so that you can do it whilst you are out and about!

Further updates will be issued on a monthly basis (which I'll also post here). For further information about the superfast broadband project, please click here.

Police Crime Report - September

Warwickshire Police have released their latest crime report setting out incidents they consider are in the public interest that have occurred within Shilton and Barnacle during the last month. Two incidents have been highlighted:

Monday 26 September - Theft - Wood Lane, Shilton Overnight, entry was gained into a business premises and a quantity of garden equipment was stolen.

Thursday 29 September - Theft  - Church Road, Shilton

Overnight, the rear number plate was stolen from a vehicle.

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

Planning Application Consultation

This week, a planning application has been submitted by:

• Land rear of The Trossachs, Parrotts Grove, Coventry - creation of a raised hard-standing for car parking and storage (retrospective).

Full details of the application can be viewed here. All comments on the application must be received by Rugby Borough Council by Friday 21 October.


View Larger Map

How Eric Pickles Defines 'Localism'

Why does Eric Pickles make life so hard for supporters of localism? The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government has been all over the press in the last few days promising funding totalling £250m to local authorities in England and Wales that re-introduce a weekly bin collection. He was quoted as saying:

"The last Labour Government ruthlessly forced councils into axing bin collections. Their policies of bin taxes, bin fines and bin cuts hammered hard working families and fuelled fly-tipping."

And I have no problem with Eric Pickles telling anyone who'll listen what he thinks about the frequency of bin collections, and subtleties of weekly vs. alternate weekly collections. It's just that, in my mind at least, the frequency that Rugby Borough Council collects my rubbish, how it does it, how much it costs, and the overall quality of the service, is between me and Rugby Borough Council. The government generally, and the Department for Communities and Local Government specifically, must have enough to occupy its time than to start poking its nose into my rubbish (no pun intended).

Eric Pickles was one of the principle cheerleaders for localism following the election of the Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition in May last year. His department very clearly defined localism as:

"......the transfer of power and resources from central government to the local level. It is the idea that decisions should be taken as closely as possible to the people they affect. Localism can also mean allowing local people to set priorities and become involved in decisions about the future of their area."

I am fully supportive of this as a philosophy to guide the delivery of public services. The UK is one of the most over centralised countries in the world as far as who makes the decisions. Local councils are considered an irrelevance by so many of the public because they are so limited in the extent of the local discretion that they have. Local authorities don't, by and large, decide what to do. They simply do what the central government of the day tells them to do.

Is it any surprise therefore that electoral turnout for local elections is so poor compared to national elections? Is it any wonder that anyone with political ambition wants to become an MP (of the governing party, naturally), rather than be a councillor? But give local councils the power and authority to actually make meaningful and real decisions about services, and then leave them to get on with it, and the local authorities up and down the country will start to matter to us all once again.

I began to believe that the Conservatives finally 'got it'. Well, at least they did whilst they were in opposition. But once they got their hands on the levers of power, it became too difficult for people like Eric Pickles to say that bin collections were nothing to do with him, and that if someone had a complaint then they should take it up with the people who make the decisions on these matters ie. local councils. Instead, he launches a campaign to get weekly bin collections reinstated, and offers a £250m incentive for councils to do what he wants them to do.

So despite being told during the last few months that local bus services were being cut because councils don't have enough money, and public libraries were being closed because councils don't have enough money, I'm now told that the government has found £250m to pay for an extra collection of refuse which, as far as I can tell is not particularly wanted, and is certainly not needed. I'd like to suggest that if the government does have £250m it doesn't know what to do with, it might like to use it to reduce its own budget deficit this year. Or at least divide it up proportionately amongst all of the councils in England and Wales and let them decide what to spend the money on.

If I don't like Rugby Borough Council's policy on bin collections, I'll raise the issue with my local councillors. If, come election, I still don't like what I'm getting, I'll vote for the party who promises to do things differently. I'm really not sure why Eric Pickles, and the Department for Communities and Local Government, needs to get involved.

After all, isn't that what localism is all about??