PRESENT: Chair Karen Leakey, Vice-Chair Pam Freegard, Secretary and Archivist Kevin Leakey, Muhammad Chaudhry, John and Vi Clark, John Freegard, Paul Izquierdo, Kate Johnson, Alan Jones, Cluniford Mason, Rebecca McIntosh, William Murray, Val Purvis, Ros Timlin
ALSO PRESENT: Councillor Derique Montaut, NPT Sergeant Reed, PC Diffin, Bob Sanders and Mohammad Shafie – SBC, Tim French and 5 residents from Marsh Farm Lane.
APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE: Treasurer John Phillips, Susan Kane, Kay Malko, Evelyn Mason, Beryl Phillips, Madge Sutton, Mark Walker SBC
CONFIRMATION OF THE MINUTES: 04 January 2012 meeting. These Minutes were confirmed and signed a true record. Proposed by Pam Freegard and seconded by John Clark
MATTERS ARISING FROM THE JANUARY 2012 MINUTES: None
GUEST SPEAKER: Bob Sanders and Mohammad Shafie – SBC. Update on 20mph and any other issues.
Mohammad introduced himself as a traffic manager at SBC, a job that also dealt with road safety. He wanted to learn about what the community wanted and what issues residents had, and then to take them away and look to see what 106 monies might be available to sort some of those identified problems out.
The roads, paths and signal junctions were SBC’s biggest asset and needed the biggest budget to maintain, but any project that needed doing had to be balanced against the budget, meaning that accident black spots often took priority.
Questions asked
Why was much of the highways budget spent on car parks?
Parking services were a non – profit making department and most of the income from car parks went on employing the parking wardens.
Repaired potholes soon returned, how often did that have to happen before a road was properly resurfaced; a number of the southern end of streets had had a new surface, including Ponting Street which had been resurfaced twice within a year, why had none of the north ends of the streets been resurfaced?
Some streets had been given a new micro-asphalt surface, when roads were inspected holes were patched but it came down to finance. The problem was, in Broadgreen it could be difficult to close roads, and many of the roads only had a very thin black top making it a major and expensive job to completely resurface.
Following a long debate between Councillor Montaut and 6 residents of Marsh Farm Lane, who had been directed to attend the meeting by PCSO Bird, because they had had no joy trying to work with SBC, Central Councillors and STFC concerning football match parking issues in Marsh Farm Lane and problems with parents of St. Joseph’s School students using Shrivenham Road to drop their children off for school causing major congestion, the Chair sought and got assurances that a meeting between the residents, Councillor Montaut and SBC Officers would be held to further discuss these problems.
Unfortunately, due to meeting time constraints, there was no time for an update or discussion on the 20mph progress by Bob Sanders.
WARD COUNCILLORS REPORT: Next month would be the last meeting Councillor Montaut would be able to attend.
Congratulations were given to PC Diffin on his recent ‘Dan Cooper Award’
Councillor Montaut said there had been an NPT meeting to see how relationships with the community and the youth service could be developed with the Constabulary. The Community Council had been very active in the past dealing with a wide range of issues, probably way above their remit, but we dealt with those issues. What we were looking for was some kind of relationship where the BSACC would be more involved, rather than the new NPT meetings, which covered the whole of the Central Sector and only included SBC councillors.
The Chair said the original tasking meetings were just about Broadgreen, but it was now town centre wide. Previously it was about working closely with partner agencies like the youth team and Fire Service and not just the Police, and the new group Derique had been talking about was the Broadgreen Community Partnership Group.
PC Diffin said that the new Police tasking group had recently been introduced and covered 4 policing areas, if there was a problem the person/s who could sort it out would be invited along to the meeting to discuss it, whilst the new partnership group meeting had to be community led and would move back to be cover low level and local problems in Broadgreen.
The new school was an ongoing debate with 3 areas identified – Euclid Street, Broadgreen and the County Ground. Euclid Street had been ruled out but there had been discussions between Councillors and SBC Officers on how to determine the best site for children and people in the area. What was coming up was a concern that the County Ground site, at the rear of the cricket club, was more dangerous than Broadgreen although safe routes could be developed, but they were waiting for a report from the traffic department. There would be talks about the best site, firstly with prospective parents and then residents. It could be a faith school connected with St. Joseph’s. There had been discussions that there was no need for a public meeting to look at the new school, but Derique had argued that there was a need and it would probably take place in mid March
8.35 pm: Councillor Montaut left the meeting
NEIGHBOURHOOD POLICE TEAM REPORT: PC Diffin reported on some of the crime statistics for the area, which were very low. Although there had been an increase in vehicle thefts recently, following an arrest those numbers had now dropped.
At the moment, all crime scenes reported over the phone would have a visit from both the investigation and the forensic teams.
There were new guidelines concerning the prostitution problems, as the Police were there to enforce the law rather than to help get prostitutes off of drugs etc. They would be putting pressure on other agencies to help the prostitutes as victims, but if the offers of help were not taken up, the prostitutes would have made their own choice and would therefore no longer be viewed as victims.
Sergeant Read introduced himself to the meeting and talked about the prostitution problems and the hopes that through arresting prostitutes and kerb crawlers and holding other agencies to do their jobs in helping prostitutes out of their circumstances, it was felt that the culture of 35 years could be broken. Although there were around 25 known prostitutes that worked in the area, only 6 were regularly working.
It was asked why convicted kerb crawlers were no longer named in the Adver; Sergeant Read said that there had been issues with their human rights and how naming them might have destroyed their family life.
9.10 pm: Sergeant Read and PC Diffin left the meeting
CORRESPONDENCE:
Sent – Invite to Gwillam Lloyd to attend February meeting re 20mph
Received – Invitation to attend ‘Planning Swindon Together’ event – 02 Feb 2012
PLANNING –
S/TC/12/0026 - Shrivenham Road, STFC, Telecommunication Mast - Prior Approval Application for the installation of 12 no. antennae on the existing floodlight column, the erection of an equipment cabinet and ancillary development - Application pending consideration - Case Officer – Miss Rachael Adams
S/RES/12/0044 - Former G W R Sports Ground And Allotments
Shrivenham Road SN1 2NT - Erection of 226no. dwellings, including public open space and associated works (Reserved Matters from permission S/TIME/10/0412) - Application pending consideration - Case Officer – Miss Rachael Adams
S/11/1610 - 66 Manchester Road SN1 2AQ - Change of use from retail (ClassA1) to social club (Sui Generis) - Application pending consideration - Mr Rob O’Carroll (Goan Bites)
S/11/1632 - 23 Manchester Road SN1 2AB - Change of use of part ground floor to class A2 – turn into a unit for cash conversion and changing money for the increasing level of nationalities living in and around this area - Application Refused - Case Officer – Mr Rob O’Carroll
Question asked at the January meeting about what planning permission there was for 86 Manchester Rd now a tattooists – permission was granted in 2010 for Conversion of first floor from offices to 1 no. flat and change of use of ground floor from Class B1 to Class A2 (Financial and Professional Offices) and erection of single storey rear/side extension.
TREASURERS REPORT - to 31 January 2011: John Phillips
Proposed by John Freegard and Seconded by Muhammad Chaudhry
CHAIR REPORT: Karen Leakey
It was agreed that the BSACC AGM would take place before the May 2012 meeting.
The Chair and Secretary both gave verbal notice that they would be stepping down from their Community Council roles at the AGM.
HISTORY REPORT: Kevin Leakey
N o information about the Mayor having 2 lamps and the Borough crest attached to their home when in office could be found, but it wasn’t something that happened now.
Along with the Chair, we attended the Swindon and District History Network meeting at the Library and the following information came from it -
6 fascinating historical facts about Swindon would be put on buses in the coming months. This was down to Cilla Slipper who suggested the idea to Thamesdown Transport manager – Paul Jenkins.
Now that the Adver had cut right back on its local history columns, Mark Sutton and Frances Bevan were seriously looking into producing a self funding Swindon History magazine.
One Saturday in October, the Library would be putting on another historical event, this time it would be called ‘Made in Swindon’ based around the history of Swindon businesses.
Couldn’t attend to the Heritage Forum meeting on the17th January, but it would seem the SBC Heritage Strategy is progressing.
SHRIVENHAM ROAD REPORT: the overgrown brambles at the back of Stratton Bank had still not been cleared and there had been no contact about it from Mark Isaac – STFC
NEIGHBOURHOOD/STREET WATCH REPORT: Nothing to report.
ANY OTHER BUSINESS:
Mr Murray wanted to publicly thank the Fire Service for the home visit they made, concerning fire safety in the home.
It was reported that a house in Rosebery Street had multiple families living in it, the bin was always overflowing and other rubbish was piled up in the front garden, this often spread onto the path and was blown or kicked along the road.
The concern around overcrowding in lots of houses in Broadgreen was also discussed. People couldn’t understand why it was allowed to continue but it was felt that Swindon Borough Council took no action as it was regarded as a short-term issue, rather than a permanent problem.
Have the CCTV cameras caught anyone fly tipping? The Chair said that as far as she knew, they still had to take the hard drives out of the cameras at the cost of £250 a time, and had not heard of anyone being caught yet.
Meeting closed at 9.25pm.
