Paul Darby

Wiltshire Council voted today to formally adopt a new County Flag. The flag was designed by Mike Prior, a Trowbridge man, and shows a Great Bustard in a circle of six stones - which symbolise both the Stone Circles of Stonehenge and Avebury, as well as the six counties neighbouring Wiltshire - on a background of green and white, symbolising the downs and chalk of the Wiltshire landscape. The Great Bustard itself is Britain’s largest flying bird, and was native to Salisbury Plain and other parts of Wiltshire before becoming extinct in the county in the 1830’s. It has recently been reintroduced to the Plain, and is beginning to become established once again.

I think it is a great flag, and hope to see one flying from Chippenham Town Hall in the very near future!

Wiltshire Council today voted to adopt fair trade practices, a prerequisite to achieveing Fair Trade Status for the County. The motion, proposed by Lib Dem Steve Oldrieve and seconded by Tory cabinet member John Noeken, was passed by around 30 votes.

Disappointingly, two Chippenham councillors failed to support the move: Peter Hutton voted against, while Nina Phillips abstained.

The future development of Chippenham - and all of Wiltshire - will be the subject of a public consultation beginning this week and running until the end of December. The scale of the issues to be discussed is tremendous - it is basically looking at the provision of housing, workspaces, road and services up until the mid-2020’s.

It is vitally important, therefore, that everyone that can get involved does so.

The key event in the consultation is a series of public exhibitions. The one in Chippenham is this Friday, 6 November, from 1pm until 7pm. At this meeting, various proposals for the development of the town - including the potential Eastern Bypass from the A350, across the railway and round to the A4 at Pewsham - will be on display, and the public will have the opportunity to comment.

After that evening, people will have to visit the Wiltshire Council website to have a say, or ask for documents at libraries or Council offices. Ongoing exhibitions at sites like the Town Hall might be possible, but have not been confirmed.

I do not think this is adequate.

Two consultations have been done in this style within my Council patch since I became a Councillor. At both, the overwhelming consensus was that they felt like sales pitches. They were designed to sell existing plans to the public, not to ask them what they wanted. People did not feel that they were being listened to; they felt they were being told what to think. When the consultation is done by a private company, this might be to be expected. I do not think that it is what we should expect from our Council of elected representatives.

At the Chippenham Area Board meeting yesterday (Monday 2nd Nov), a member of the public requested that an extraordinary meeting of the Board should be organised for people to have their say. He was told that Friday’s exhibition would provide that opportunity. That means that realistically all the public will get is six hours - on a work day - to watch the sales pitch and write their impressions on a piece of paper.

If you:

• cannot attend the consultation on Friday
• attempt to access the information online and are unable
• attend on Friday but don’t feel that your views have really been heard by a decision-maker

then please let me or one of my Liberal Democrat colleagues know.

Click here to see the Wiltshire Council webpage on the Core Strategy Consultation

Even though the Government is reviewing its targets for housing in Wiltshire, the Wiltshire Council administration is ploughing on with proposals to cover a huge area of green space across the river Avon with housing and roads. The plans include a new Eastern by pass with a link into Monkton Park. On Tuesday the Conservative leadership is likely to rubber stamp the officers’ proposals, which will then go out for a couple of months public consultation. 

The Council’s plans for Chippenham can be found in the draft ‘core strategy’ for Wiltshire, accessible on :

 http://194.72.162.210/documents/dscgi/ds.py/Get/File-23183/Item_No._07_-_Wiltshire_Core_Strategy_-_Public_Consultation_Document_-_Consultation_Document.doc.pdf

The more detailed housing plans are in an annex, also accessible on the web at :

 http://194.72.162.210/documents/dscgi/ds.py/Get/File-23182/Item_No._07_-_Wiltshire_Core_Strategy_-_Public_Consultation_Document_-_Consultation_Document_-_Consultation_Document_-_Annexe_2.doc.pdf

Be careful, these are big documents!

In addition to the hugely important issue of housing and loss of open space, there are many other big issues for Chippenham in the ‘core strategy’ which will shape the town for many years to come.   

We will be doing our best to make sure the consultation is simple and open, and not limited to complicated web sites and meetings behind closed doors. 

Watch this space for more.

Thanks to Chris Caswill for text

Independent Auditors KPMG have identified accounting errors at County Hall on a staggering scale.

The mistakes include the former County Council believing itself to have £15.5 million in the bank, when in fact it was £21.5 million in the red!  Another error - to the value of £42 million - was caused by ‘errors in spreadsheets used to generate the Statement of Account figures.’

The auditors called the draft accounts of the old council ‘poor and incomplete’ and made no fewer than 19 detailed and significant recommendations for urgent improvement to the council’s financial management. Several of those recommendations are still not yet resolved, and the auditors will not be able to approve the accounts within the published deadline.

‘The scale of this defies belief,’ Paul said. ‘I am staggered. The leadership of this council promised us £18 million in savings. How could they work that out, when their understanding of their own bank balance is out by nearly three times that amount?’

Paul’s colleagues have also condemned the mismanagement. Chris Caswill said “This is genuinely shocking. The Conservative leadership of the new council, which is broadly the same as the leadership of the old County Council, has some big questions to answer about how the council and its predecessor got into this mess with taxpayers money.” Malcolm Hewson, councillor for Bradford South, believes the report shows incompetence. “This is appalling! In the dry, measured auditor’s language, KPMG have exposed incompetence at the heart of the Conservative administration of Wiltshire Council. It is hardly surprising that the Tories have just had to admit to a £3.8m projected overspend. How can the people of Wiltshire believe any financial figures they produce? The Conservatives cannot blame this on the government, nor bleat that Wiltshire County Council no longer exists. Wiltshire Council has the same leadership as Wiltshire County Council, the same basic organisation and the same Tories at the very top.”

To see the full Auditors report, click here.

To see Wiltshire Liberal Democrats statement on this issue, click here.

The Court of Appeal has refused to allow Ashtenne and their partners ASDA an appeal to the High Court.

This is the third setback for the partnership, who want to build dense housing and a large supermarket on the former Westinghouse site. The plans were originally turned down by North Wilts District Council, and then again by an Appeals Inspector. The Court of Appeal has now ruled that ‘an appeal would have no reasonable prospect of success’.

‘I am very glad that the court has come to this decision,’ Paul said, ‘not least because a High Court appeal could potentially have cost Wiltshire Council a fortune. It doesn’t mean the story is over though - there is already a second planning application at the Council, and now that this one is out of the way, the Council will start to consider it. So now the whole thing just starts again.’

The new set of plans can be seen by clicking here, or are available to view at the Council offices at Monkton Park, Chippenham. Paul and his Lib Dem colleagues are concerned that they will not be discussed in Chippenham, however.

‘When this new application is considered, it will be by the Strategic Planning committee, who normally meet in Trowbridge, rather than the regular planning committee,’ Paul said. ‘You can be certain that people will want to be at that meeting - people took days off work to attend the last one. We must press hard to make sure the hearing is held in an accessible place.’

If you feel that the meeting should be in Chippenham and not Trowbridge, please email Paul at paul.darby@wiltshire.gov.uk. He will collect your comments and pass them on to the relevant officer.