PRESENT: Chair person Karen Leakey, Secretary, Kevin Leakey.
ALSO PRESENT:- 12 residents, Holly Huber SBC Community Planner, PCSO’s Stuart Bird and Rees Turner, John Taylor, Councillor’s Derique Montaut and Junab Ali.
APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE:- John Phillips minute secretary and 7 residents.
MATTERS ARISING: - None.
COMMUNITY POLICE REPORT:- The local priorities for the Broadgreen Area are still prostitution, drugs and litter. The Police are continuing to regularly patrol the area for prostitutes and kerb crawlers and this will be an ongoing priority. A prostitute was recently caught with a ‘client’ at the ISIS industrial estate.
Gerry Law from SBC’s Crime and Disorder Team has now completed the quality of life impact statements’ concerning prostitution and it is now hoped that they will be used to obtain Civil Injunctions against known prostitutes.
Problems at 113 Broad Street have now been dealt with and only 2 people should be living there, if more people seem to be living there, please let the Police know. 2 other properties are also being monitored in respect of drugs.
Litter, the Police are awaiting a clean up day.
A number of concerns were brought to the attention of the Police:
Children playing on the road in Broad Street, whenever the Police see this happening they make them go to the green to play.
Regular instances of people urinating in the back alleyways, during the day are being reported. If police see this happening they can issue fixed penalty tickets, not for urinating in a public place, but for depositing illegal litter, which is visible from the liquid!!!!One of the new streetlights in the S4L area of Salisbury Street has been broken in half by youths swinging on it. When it is replaced, could it be moved away from the large planter that was being used to climb onto the lamppost from?
GUEST SPEAKER: Holly Huber.
Holly updated the meeting on the progress of the Community Plan. The Terms Of Reference for the steering group has now been agreed and was unanimously endorsed by the meeting. A vision for the plan needs to be decided, i.e. what do people like or dislike about the area, what can be improved, protected etc, so the different elements of the plan can be formed. Everyone was asked to come up with words that described the area, what is good, what spoils it and what could be improved.
The words included: More activities, clean, more open space, seeing the Community work together, neighbourliness, a new state of the art community centre, crime free, Council to do their job and clean up the area, safe, feel a valued member of the community, no obstructions of the roads, paths and alleyways, better street lighting, lights in the alleyways, more trees, greenery and flowers, pride in the area, vibrant and fun, always busy and happy. Street scene spoiled by wheelie bins and recycle boxes in front gardens.
There were lots of overlaps with the words from the meeting and those given by the steering group and also from the July 2006 community engagement meeting, it is how lots of residents feel about the Broadgreen Area and from this a vision for the future can be put together. It was agreed that the terms of reference corresponded with what people wanted to see happening.An invitation was put out for all to come along to the monthly Saturday morning meetings, held on the last Saturday of the month.
CORRESPONDENCE:- Hatts coaches picking up people from County Road. They did not realise this has been happening and will make sure that in the future drivers pick up passengers from the County Ground car park. A Manager offered to come to Community Council meeting to apologise to residents for the inconvenience.
Rat baiting. SBC will not entertain waving the charges for rat baiting because it will open the floodgates for everybody with a problem, wanting a free service.
Parking in Manchester Rd. The Parking Attendants allow 5 minutes for cars waiting and 20 minutes for lorries to unload.
PLANNING APPLICATIONS:-
S/08/1258 - 128 County Road - Erection of external fire escape stairs - Application Pending Consideration
S/LDE/08/0939 - 64 Manchester Road - Certificate of Lawfulness for the existing use as to 2 no. flats.- Application Granted33 Rosebery St. The garage of this property is being converted into living accommodation. No planning permission has been applied for – Enforcement to investigate.
TREASURERS REPORT: The treasurer was not present and had not provided an up to date report.
GUEST SPEAKER:- John Taylor. Re Broadgreen History Project.
John and Kevin Leakey have been working on this project and have already engaged with Swindon Reference Library and the Chippenham based Swindon and Wiltshire History Centre and they are both more than willing to help at no cost.
It was unanimously agreed that the history group was a good idea and John and Kevin should pursue a lottery bid, for what will be at least a 3-year project that will hopefully develop and publicise the Broadgreen Area in a positive light. The history group will be a sub-committee of the BSACC.
Initially it was thought the area covered would be Corporation Street to County Road, but it was decided to extend the area to include the Queenstown Area, the County Ground and Shrivenham Road.
John has spoken to the Head Teacher at Drove School to see if pupils would like to be involved in some way, and In September years 5 or 6 will undertake a project on the history of the street names in the Broadgreen area.
The more people that become involved and make a contribution, the bigger the picture of Broadgreen will become. It is likely that in September a then and now photo exhibition will be put on to launch the project.
YOUTH REPORT:The youth workers from Skeetz Youth Club will be undertaking outreach work in the area over the next 6 weeks. The Community Council offered up some time at 6pm this evening for young people to bring their problems to the Community Council. Although nobody turned up, the offer is there for the youth to have a voice.
CHAIR REPORT:- Karen and Doug Imrie the Community Sports Coach are putting together a Broadgreen advice leaflet for residents, it will include information about being a good neighbour, useful phone numbers and do’s and don’ts, i.e. don’t play football on the streets etc.
New Council document that will affect communities ‘Connecting People Connecting Places’ is of some concern, as it seems to be very open to any interpretation that an individual wants it to mean. The town will be split into 6 clusters that will look at specific needs of an area and try to tailor the actions to suite, each cluster will likely be decided by secondary school catchment areas and chaired by the headmaster of the school, which for example would mean Broadgreen coming under the Churchfields area.
There will be a meeting on the 14th July with Chief Superintendent Paul Howlett, the BG Police team, drug workers, Richard Palusinski of The Crime and Disorder Team and invited residents, concerning the problems of prostitution in the area and to see if a joint effort could sort out the problems.
Three Cabinet members will be visiting the BG area on the 15th July, to have a walk around and chat with some residents about the area.
The drug workers that have been working from Maxwell Street are now also working from St. Luke’s hall. There are increasing problems being reported about their clients, including a fight last week. The problems are also coming from the breakfast and luncheon club clients, including drinking in the park and alleyways, and using the same areas as a public toilet.
Fly tipping is still an ongoing problem.
NEIGHBOURHOOD WATCH REPORT:- St. Luke’s is being used as a drugs point. Taxi drivers from V cars and United Cars are parking in residents parking bays to take their lunch breaks and will not move if asked to do so. Ellison’s Coaches have been picking people up in Broad Street causing problems by parking in residents parking bays.
REPORT ON THE CENTRAL AREA ACTION PLAN (CAAP) ENQUIRY:- Parts relevant to the BG area.
The catchment areas for schools will be changing, but despite 2-300 new homes being proposed for the Central Area, there will be no need for a new Primary School until at least 2015 because not many 3 bedroom family homes will be built and any children that do move in can be accommodated and transported to other schools. It was asked where land for a new school could possibly be found in Central Swindon? Apparently the Council have land but it was not appropriate to confirm where.
Very few family homes are proposed for the Union Square development, the CAAP will try to create a balance between single units and family homes but the workability of this policy was challenged because so many family homes in Broadgreen are already being converted into flats and Houses In Multiple Occupancy (HMO’s) and this will continue at a fast rate.
Manchester Road is a main route in and out of town, and already has problems with unloading/deliveries and illegal parking by customers at the present shops. Although in the CAAP the stretch of road that is currently designated as a Major Local Centre for new shops has been reduced in size, it was questioned why the plan acknowledges that there will be an increase in traffic in the future, but does not take into account the parking problems, the noise and general disruption that will increase in the area, as more homes are converted into shops.
Stock deliveries to the shops that take place in the alleyways are not covered by the plan, but will form a minor part of the Councils Transport Strategy, but this is still in its infancy.
The CAAP is basically a skeleton with little actual detail in it, as it has to be flexible to cope with future changes.
WARD COUNCILLORS REPORT:- COUNCILLOR MONTAUT
Rubbish in Shrivenham Road. The problem has been raised, but it is a question of resources.
There is a wide problem with shopping trolleys in the area. The Council can pick them up and charge the supermarkets for doing so; Councillor Montaut has discussed it with the Director that is responsible for street scene.
Issues with taxis causing difficulties. Details of registration and licence numbers, location and times are needed because both Hackney and Private Hire can have their licences removed by the council.The issue was raised about drugs centres in St. Luke’s hall and Maxwell Street. It has not been resolved in Maxwell Street as they were refused planning permission, so councillors asked them to engage to find alternative premises, they have not done so and continue to operate and have therefore breached the planning regulations. There have been a number of meetings between councillors and residents on this issue and there will be another one on Saturday to try and resolve it.
These premises are not appropriate in residential areas but Cllr. Montaut believes it is a very worthy cause and is highly supportive of their objectives, just not the location. He is prepared to look at all the alternative locations, for example there are lots of empty shops in the town centre away from the residents, but it has to be in the Central Area as that is where all the drug users are. Milton Road is one suggestion but officers should be the ones to come forward with the ideas once members have identified the need for something to happen. Cllr. Wright has some specific properties and areas that he has identified, but hasn’t shared that information With Cllr. Montaut.
It was requested that both Cllrs. Montaut and Ali would support our community in not having a drug point in this area. Cllr. Montaut said that he agreed because as they had supported residents in Maxwell Street they would be morally obligated to help us and could not see that any new case or argument could be put forward for it to be based in the Broadgreen Area.
There has been an issue raised about low cost housing in the area. There is an ongoing political debate about the targets imposed by government but there is a difference in party positions on how best to meet the objectives.
A letter has been sent from the Leader of the Council concerning the Mechanics and it suggests that a consortium needs to be set up to look into alternative uses for the building. Cllr. Montaut has a meeting this week with Mathew Singh, the owner and it is hoped he may be able to say what his intentions are with the building.
It was asked why nothing is ever done about the parking in the alleyways or why the same problems come up time and time again without being sorted out. Cllr. Montaut replied: There is lots of good work going on behind the scenes and despite sometimes moaning about the meetings he goes to, the community plan is about making life better for the future, so it is a great place to live and work in. Yes, you can identify 101 issues concerning the community but as a councillor you cannot resolve them in isolation or with colleagues. If you identify a problem, littering for example, then report it to the council, if you don’t get a satisfactory response then pass the details to your councillors and they will take it on.
He and council officers have spoken to traders in the area concerning the problems that parking on the pavements and wheelie bins cause and believes there has now been some improvement. There have been lots of little actions taking place in lots of different areas and he is excited about a lot of things that are happening in this area. When the issues that he is made aware of come up at relevant meetings he raises them, but as some of the cabinet members are visiting the area this week, tell them about the continual problems then may be you might get something done, a bit more.
The Councillors job is as a facilitator, residents do the work to resolve the problems in their area without the councillors, and then when it breaks down it is the councillor’s job to make things happen. But what you can do about problems is continue what you are doing, having strong Communities and strong Community Leaders.
Councillor Ali declined to give ward report.
STREET WATCH REPORT: No report.
ANY OTHER BUSINESS: None.
Meeting closed at 9.00 pm
Date of next meeting: Wednesday 6 August 2008
