PRESENT: Chair Karen Leakey, Vice-Chair Pam Freegard, Secretary and Archivist Kevin Leakey, Treasurer John Phillips, John and Vi Clark, Paul Izquierdo, Kate Johnson, Kay Malko, Cluniford Mason, Rebecca McIntosh, Beryl Phillips, Madge Sutton, Ros Timlin
ALSO PRESENT: Councillor Derique Montaut, Tim French
APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE: Muhammad Chaudhry, John Freegard, Alan Jones, Evelyn Mason, William Murray, Val Purvis, PC Diffin, Mark Walker SBC
CONFIRMATION OF THE MINUTES: – 07 September 2011 meeting. These Minutes were confirmed and signed a true record. Proposed by Ros Timlin and seconded by Beryl Phillips
MATTERS ARISING FROM THE SEPTEMBER 2011 MINUTES: None
The Chair brought the sad news to the meeting that former member and long time Broadgreen resident Grace Walker had passed away in Spain where she had been living with her Son and Daughter in Law for a couple of years. Grace was 94 years old and had been very active in this community, especially when it came to getting people to know each other.
WARD COUNCILLORS REPORT: The Adver had contacted him with regards to a new school in Central, and he made comment because it had been leaked that 2 sites had been short-listed. There had been a meeting about the possible sites, but the Eastcott councillors were not present, however there were 6 or 7 sites with 2 being highly favourable. When the final site decision had been made, there would be a public consultation meeting, but at the moment nothing would move until the Eastcott councillors had been consulted.
The Secretary asked what residents would actually be consulted on if the decision on the location of the school site had already been decided, and what was the point in Connecting People and Places, One Swindon or the big society, where we had been led to believe things were moving to bottom up decision making, when it was obviously not so in this case? Cllr. Montaut said before putting it to residents, the councillors needed to eliminate a lot of the detailed work, which residents were excluded from, but what they decided didn’t have to be the final decision.
The Union Square developments had slowed up because of the recession and some of the funding for affordable housing had been pulled.
It was announced that the Government had put aside £250m to help councils stay with or return to weekly refuse collections, Cllr. Montaut thought that areas like Broadgreen should have weekly collections. It was asked why recycling couldn’t be collected fortnightly and other waste weekly, but with a smaller bin, as this would still restrict the amount of rubbish going to landfill to the same volume that could be fitted in a big bin that we currently have. The councillor said he had a duty to put this case forward, which he would do.
The meeting was also informed of 2 other problems – a new path in Farnsby St. has had to be re-laid as it was not laid properly the first time, and further information about the council house transfer issue.
Questions and concerns –
A quarter of the County Ground car park had been marked up for STFC use only, why was this and are STFC paying for the privilege? Cllr. Montaut said he knew nothing about it.
Worries about overcrowding were put to the councillor concerning the fact that many of the houses in Broadgreen were 2 bedroomed but a substantial amount had more than one family living in them, and in some cases more than 2 families.
There were still problems with parking on Friday afternoons when people are using the Mosques – Cllr. Montaut said that there had been lots of discussions and various enforcement tactics undertaken. The Chair said that there were also problems with people using the Broadgreen Centre car park on Fridays.
8.25 pm: Councillor Montaut left the meeting
GUEST SPEAKER: There was no guest speaker this month.
CORRESPONDENCE: Questions and answers (from Chris Hitchings) regarding Whalebridge roundabout –
When the Whalebridge work is completed, will the crossing places at Corporation Street (at the end of Medgbury Rd) and Fleming Way (between the old police station and Queenstown car park) be zebra/pelican crossings?
These will be uncontrolled crossing points with a wide pedestrian refuge island, so pedestrians only cross a one-directional flow of traffic. Dropped kerbs and tactile pavers are proposed.
When the Whalebridge work is completed, will the blue light services be able to use the bus turnings/lanes to access Fleming Way, west of Whalebridge and turn right into Corporation Street and if not how will they get along the bottom of town?
Emergency vehicles will be able to use the bus lanes.
The bin reported to be stored in Alfred Street on the pavement at the side of Cash and Carry, was not there when the secretary went to photo and report it in.
Following investigations, the reported new air conditioning units at side of Abbeys in Corporation Street had been there since at least July 2009!
PLANNING –
S/ADV/11/1100 - Texaco Garage, Fleming Way, SN1 2NG - Installation of 2 no. Banner signs - Advertisement Consent - Application Granted. Case Officer - Miss Heather Carlisle
TREASURERS REPORT, to 30 September 2011: John Phillips
Proposed by Pam Freegard and Seconded by Cluniford Mason
NEIGHBOURHOOD POLICE TEAM REPORT: Apologies were received from PC Diffin, who was unable to attend due to a personal issue. Cllr. Montaut passed on a short report on his behalf – 8 prostitutes had been arrested and ASB orders issued. The Chair said the community wanted to see some more positive of this positive action.
CHAIR REPORT: Karen Leakey
Unfortunately the Eastcott Community Council recently folded, despite hard work by the Chair and Secretary, they didn’t have much support and numbers dwindled to the point that it could no longer continue. Another community group called ‘Swindon’s Back Garden’ would be expanding the area they represented to cover the loss of the ECC.
The long-term future of the BSACC was also unclear but was strong at the moment, however the Chair asked the meeting if, with the uncertain future of the Broadgreen Centre, it might be in our interests to look to hold our monthly meetings at St. Luke’s instead? – There was a general feeling that for the time being we should stay at Broadgreen and remain user stakeholders and defer a decision until the future of the centre was a little clearer.
Changing the meeting start time to 7pm – It was agreed to re-visit this idea in January.
The Chair was on the Swindon Strategic Partnership (SSP) - Overview and Monitoring Group, but it seemed to be one direction working without much influence on anything, group members passed information etc onto SBC, but very little was given in return. The Chair asked the meeting if it was acceptable to only attend the meetings when it caused no other inconveniences, the meeting agreed this was acceptable.
HISTORY REPORT: Kevin Leakey
The congregation of St. Luke’s would be celebrating the centenary of the buildings dedication, on the 16th October. The foundation stone was laid on the 24th February 1911 and the dedication took place on the 14th October 1911 – 100 years ago next Friday.
SHRIVENHAM ROAD REPORT: Mark Isaacs from STFC had not contacted residents about the overgrown brambles on Stratton Bank, although a few bushes had been cut back.
NEIGHBOURHOOD/STREET WATCH REPORT: Nothing to report.
ANY OTHER BUSINESS: The possible school at the Broadgreen Centre was discussed. Residents that had lived here when the area had previously been a special needs school reported that there were regular traffic problems and with more cars on the road it would be much worse now. It was also asked, where would the Children’s Social Services Dept. be re-located? What about all the work done through Streets For Living, would that have been a waste of time? Would there be a community centre built into it? And why did we need a new school, when Drove had only just expanded?
The Chair said that Cllr. David Renard (Cabinet Member for Children’s Services) had agreed that SBC Officers would attend next months meeting, but she was very concerned that if the chosen site was Broadgreen, any community facilities included would be nothing like there is now and it would have to be completely separate as people would not be able to enter school grounds when children were on site. It would also be a huge loss to not only this area but also the whole of the borough, as there were many different groups from across Swindon that used the centre.
In a show of hands, all residents at the meeting agreed that they did not want to lose the current community facilities or have a new school on the Broadgreen Centre site.
Meeting closed at 9.15pm.
