South West Wiltshire Liberal Democrats

The plan by Wiltshire's Conservative administration to close Larkrise School in Trowbridge and St Nicholas School in Chippenham goes to the WC 'cabinet' next Tuesday (27th). The schools will be replaced by a new super-school for special needs children at Rowde.

The cabinet report repeatedly states that the council sees the new school as a 'Centre of Excellence' which will attract the admiration of the world. It dismisses concerns about pupils having to travel far from their homes by saying the roads to Rowde are not congested and the council will save money. Extra costs to parents are of course not taken into consideration.

The WC 'cabinet' is set to approve the sale of the St Stephen's Place MSCP to the owner of Castle Place Shopping Centre.

The car park is currently free, so the council will look to get a claw-back on any future charges imposed by the new owner.

In planning terms, The Trowbridge Masterplan identifies Castle Place and the MSCP as an opportunity site for redevelopment, suggesting that Castle Place and the Car Park should be considered together to ensure a complementary, well connected development.

Your WC has announced that from 01 January 2019, not all older person's bus passes will be renewed automatically. There are approximately 20,000 passes in circulation that have not been scanned on a bus, indicating that the pass has not been used. In these cases, the passes will not be automatically renewed.

On the day after they were originally due to begin, WC has announced that Sunday car parking charges will not be introduced. This follows a campaign by Wiltshire Lib Dems against the charges.

This represents more than a U-turn for the administration, as the new fees had been previously unanimously agreed by leader Jane Scott and her cabinet

Statement on Visit to the United Kingdom, by Professor Philip Alston, United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights.

Tthe Department for Transport (DfT) are proposing changes to the Community Transport (CT) Permit system. This affects CT providers that undertake paid services, even if they are small scale and linked to the local community.

If the plan goes ahead CT providers will need an Operators' licence and their drivers will have to obtain Passenger Carrying Vehicles (PCV) licences. This will significantly increase costs. The new regulations will probably also reduce the number of volunteers willing to drive minibuses.

Wiltshire Council has published its annual review of the Highways Service. (In Environment Committee agenda item 6). The good news is that road casualties decreased in 2017/18 financial year. The other good news is that although the number of potholes shot up, this was of course caused by an increase in the amount of weather, and not by WC neglect.

The government's drive for more fracking and their determination to over-ride any local opposition has hit the headlines recently. A few years ago licenses were issued for exploration in Wiltshire. Nothing happened at the time, but will the threat return? Here's a message from Friends of the Earth:

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Your WC claims its winter maintenance team is more prepared than in previous years to keep traffic running smoothly over the cold period.

13,000 tonnes of salt is in stock in six storage sites. Weather stations in key areas provide real time information and assist in producing accurate forecasts to ensure the gritters are sent out at the right time.

Highways England (HE) have submitted an application for development consent for their Stonehenge road scheme to the Planning Inspectorate. The application will appear on the Planning Inspectorate's website.

Non-statutory consultation on the scheme took place between 12 January and 5 March 2017, followed by statutory consultation between 8 February and 23 April 2018, and supplementary consultation between 17 July and 14 August 2018.