On 12th October 2021 Liberal Democrats for Electoral Reform held a panel event about why equal votes and diversity go hand-in-hand. The online event featured Cllr Hina Bokhari AM and Lord Paul Tyler (bios below). It included a discussion on key questions like "will equal votes be likely to improve the diversity of representation in Parliament?", "what can we do as equal votes campaigners to reach out to new, diverse communities?" and "where next for the campaign?".
Conservative Party Chairman Oliver Dowden has admitted only 20 fuel tanker drivers from overseas were now working on UK roads with the government having recently U-turned on issuing 5000 short-term visas to foreign drivers to help get us through a risk of missed deliveries leading up to Christmas.
BOTH Westbury and Frome could benefit from a new eco-friendlier bus service thanks to a proposal discussed by the Vision for Westbury (VFW) committee late last month.
The new Mellor Orion E-Bus would run on electricity and is the first of its kind to be specifically designed for the kinds of roads found on routes in Westbury and rural inter-urban routes such as Westbury-Frome.
Here's an example of how central government micro-manages local councils. To get money to fix traffic lights WC has to compete with other councils and draw up a bid and submit it to the government under a special time-limited traffic-light-fixing funding scheme. Read the WC announcement:
Wiltshire Tories want you to know that if your town has a population of over 10,000, then they will put at least one electric vehicle charging point in your car-park.
We don't want to be churlish, but the council really needs to:
Increase the number of charge points to something more realistic, one or two charge points for a town of 10,000 people really isn't enough!
The Federal Conference Committee recently met to discuss the Conference format for 2022.
We considered a number of options for next year's conferences and took the difficult decision to hold Spring Conference as an online conference and only returning to an in-person event for Autumn Conference. The dates of Spring Conference will be 11-13 March 2022 and we will announce the dates and venue for Autumn Conference in due course.
Back in days of yore when Theresa May was Prime Minister and the Tory Party was squabbling about what sort of Brexit they wanted the issue of any agreement with the EU ensuring it protected the Good Friday agreement which had brought peace to Northern Ireland was front and centre of the issues being confronted
The government-backed Help to Grow Management course is opening the door to growth for Wiltshire business leaders.
Wiltshire Council have partnered with the University of the West of England (UWE Bristol) to deliver this programme locally, which includes 50 hours of in-depth training, one-to-one business mentoring and the opportunity for business leaders to grow their business, fast.
Westbury: A planning appeal over a Wiltshire Council decision to block plans for nearly 70 houses is due to begin this month. The developer, Gleeson Strategic Land, put in the appeal after its plans to build 67 homes on land south of Sandhole Lane in Westbury was knocked back.
The appeal is due to begin on October 26 at 10am at The Laverton, Bratton Road, Westbury. There is also the option to tune in to the appeal virtually. The council rejected the plans for a number of reasons including the development being labelled as unsustainable, its location in open countryside and lack of infrastructure.
