South West Wiltshire Liberal Democrats

The combination of a Conservative government and a Conservative administration in County Hall is bad news for Wiltshire taxpayers. Add in the Conservative Police and Crime Commissioner's take and the increase in Council Tax will exceed £100 for some households.

The direct government grant to WC has dwindled to nothing this year.

The review into Wiltshire's political boundaries has moved a step forward and people are being invited to have their say

The Boundary Commission has published its draft recommendation which proposes Wiltshire should continue to have 98 councillors.

The commission has today (5 February) launched a 10-week public consultation on the recommendations that will end on 15 April. The consultation is open to anyone who wants to have their say on the new divisions, boundaries and division names.

The improvement works will start on February 4 to introduce traffic signals at Farmers Roundabout on the A350. The signals have been designed to improve traffic flow and reduce delays. The work should be completed by October.

Wiltshire Council is working closely with its contractor Dyer & Butler to plan the sequence of work to minimise disruption - although there will be delays as traffic management and lane closures will be required. .

The application from Northacre Renewable Energy Ltd for the "Revision of the layout and design of Advanced Thermal Treatment Facility permitted under consent 14/12003/WCM" went to Wiltshire Council's Strategic Planning Committee on January 23rd, and was approved by seven votes to four. This was despite a large turn-out from Westbury residents opposed to the scheme.

Your WC has issued a press release about the proposed replacement library in the city. This is because Cllr Brian Dalton and others have pointed out that the new library is to be much smaller than the existing one. The interesting thing about the press release is how the Tories twist words to give an impression which is very different from reality. For example, "no services will be lost" is correct in the sense that there is and will be a library. We're just not supposed to notice the size difference. The real beauty is "The new library ... is the equivalent size of the existing ground floor library space." At first reading that seems OK. However the existing library is on three floors. The quote from the responsible Tory cabinet member repeats the deceit.

The WC Conservative administration's decision to save money by closing Larkrise and St Nicholas special schools is now out to consultation. Please note that only representations in favour of the project will be taken any notice of. Here's the WC official release. Note that the £20m figure is what would have been spent anyway, less savings, and whilst the new facility is stated to have 'Great' teachers. It's not clear how these will be recruited, or how they differ from current staff.

An application has been approved by Wiltshire Council for the demolition of the disused golf club and driving range buildings at Thoulstone Park, to be followed by construction of self-catering holiday accommodation, with a restaurant, a farm shop, conference space, spa treatment rooms, a leisure pool and a community hall. There would also be staff accommodation, car parking and associated landscaping works.

The government has published a 'resources and waste strategy', which it describes as ambitious. The document is a blueprint not for action, but for consultation. This means there will be plenty of opportunities for the semi-noble aspirations to be watered down. Here's a review of the document, with direct quotes in italics.

When the folk song collector Herbert J H Hunt visited Somerset in 1912 he was struck by the survival of the most extraordinary oral traditions.

"One lady of a good eighty years," he noted, "could recite her own ancestry for some forty generations through the male line. I was particularly excited by the way her stories matched events in the history of our nation. Not just recent events like the French wars, but those occurences deeper in history such as the civil wars, the great plagues, and even the Norman occupation."

The Local Government Association and the BBC report that a High Court judge has overturned Wiltshire Council's ban on motor vehicles using byways around Stonehenge.

The Trail Riders Fellowship had challenged the ban, which the council imposed in June.

Anyone who has ever been involved in a WC 'consultation' will appreciate the irony of the judge's reasoning: Mr Justice Swift found that the council had failed to comply with a legal requirement to consult the Freight Transport Association and the Road Haulage Association, and had failed properly to consult with Wiltshire Police.