A river park could be just what Salisbury needs

EXPERIENCE has taught us to beware of Wiltshire Council bearing gifts.

But I hope that simple prejudice on the part of a jaundiced public doesn’t scupper their plan for a river park running from the Fisherton Recreation Ground to the city centre.

I believe the Environment Agency experts who say it would help protect us from flooding.

I believe that the improvements to the river channel would make it navigable for the fishy population, while the ‘mini floodplain’ extending some 20 metres to either side would give us a lovely wildlife-friendly ‘green lung’ and recreational space in the city centre and ensure that any future Maltings redevelopment isn’t just a concrete desert.

I believe that rewilding the area of Fisherton Rec nearest the river would encourage biodiversity.

I believe that a refurbed coach park with better facilities would give tourists a decent welcome at long last.

I believe, personally, that the permanent loss of 154 long-stay parking spaces on that miserable Godforsaken central car park is an acceptable price to pay to pretty up this crucial entrance to our city.

BUT: 

I can’t see how we can do this as well as losing Salt Lane and Brown Street car parks to redevelopment, which is what the council’s suggesting elsewhere. 

Or without replacing those spaces with a multi-storey on part of the Maltings/central car park site which must still manage to respect the 40ft rule. And that can’t be guaranteed at the moment.

Or without understanding what exactly Network Rail is going to do to provide more long-stay parking at the station.

One glaring omission in last night’s otherwise very worthwhile online presentation about the river park project was any plan for replacement parking. And I suppose that’s the trouble with tackling such a major redevelopment project in phases, which is all the authorities can afford.

Plus, of course, they’d be chuffed if more motorists diverted to the underused park and ride sites.

So this is where Wiltshire Council could well suffer from the mistrust it has engendered in the population of Salisbury with its previous high-handedness.

I don’t have space to go into much more detail here. But I would encourage everyone to investigate this project for themselves, and weigh up the pros and cons, bearing in mind that there is currently no alternative scheme on offer.

There is another free presentation coming up on December 15 at 2pm, which you can book into via the Eventbrite website with this link: www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/wiltshire-council-and-the-environment-agency-31617204961

And there’s masses of very useful info and illustrations here, including how to take part in the public consultation: www.wiltshire.gov.uk/salisbury-future.

City's traffic troubles set people at odds when we should be working together

NOW that there’s been a resolution (of sorts) to the People Friendly Streets debacle, and we’ve all had a few days to calm down, I’d like to clarify my own particular role in this campaign.

Firstly, I am not opposed to reducing pollution in our city centre, and making it safer and healthier for pedestrians and cyclists. I have a few ideas about how to begin that process, but they are only my ideas, and they aren’t what I want to talk about here.

What I do want to talk about are flawed schemes imposed upon us from Trowbridge in obedience to a government panicking about being seen to do something ‘green’ in a crisis when it’s never shown much interest before.

That’s why I joined the SOS Save Our Salisbury campaign as an admin. Because it is OUR Salisbury and local people need to be properly consulted, however long it takes, about what happens here. We are the ones who know what makes the place tick, and it needs to work for us.

There seems to be plenty of money sloshing about for environmentally friendly schemes. Which is great. 

But if we’re not careful, the pressure to spend it quickly on projects that haven’t been subject to detailed consultation extending beyond the ‘usual suspects’, and that lack widespread public support, will end in it being wasted.

There are no quick-fix solutions when you’re making fundamental changes to the way a city operates. You have to carry the community with you. 

Our traffic and transport system is complicated. Tweak it in one place and it has knock-on effects you might never have even been aware of unless you talk to people on the ground.

If you fail to do that, you risk provoking bad feeling among groups – cyclists, motorists, pedestrians, traders – who should be co-operating on what works best for everyone locally, but who instead feel forced into a destructive rivalry.

Our system has become profoundly anti-democratic and that’s the root of the problem. A vote every few years for Party A or Party B doesn’t offer an effective solution to the multitude of issues modern society faces.

We need to reinvent local democracy and it needs to work not from the top down, but from the bottom up.

The human face of our city's People Friendly fiasco

A MUM from Amesbury has written to tell me how Salisbury’s new traffic arrangements are messing up her life.

She drives twice a day to the city on a school run. Her child has what she calls a ‘hidden’ disability among other health problems that rule out bus travel.

(And anyway, her nearest park and ride is currently a Covid testing centre.)

She is not eligible for a permit because her child’s disability allowance “does not have a motability component to it”.

Since the ETRO was introduced, she says, it has on a few occasions taken her over 90 minutes to drive to Salisbury and back because of the traffic on the ring road.

“It’s costing a fortune in fuel and I am already on a very tight budget.”

One day recently she was heading out of town past Bishop Wordsworth’s School as an ambulance was coming in.

“The cars had to mount the pavement so he could get through because the metal bollards didn’t allow enough of a space on my side of the road. At the time, the pavement was packed with school children.”

I just thought I’d like to put a ‘human face’ on the Facebook campaign SOS - Save Our Salisbury  to show how disruptive and potentially dangerous these traffic schemes are.

The fact that our MPJohn Glen has now publicly urged Wiltshire's leaders to think again, at least until after the worst of the pandemic is over, underlines the strength of our case.

Wiltshire's deputy leader, Richard Clewer, who has consistently shown an understanding of city residents' concerns - remember how he acted as mediator in the row over the Market Place refurbishment? - is doing his best to help but he hasn't been able to make much headway with his council colleagues yet. 

In fact, cabinet member for highways Bridget Wayman has taken a decidedly snippy tone in her responses to complaints on Facebook and Twitter.

It's understandable. There's an awful lot of face to be lost in backtracking.

But this is such a sad waste of public money. Our money. At a time when the NHS and its staff could really do with any spare cash the nation's got, just to get through the next few months.

We do need to improve our air quality. We do need to pedestrianise part of the city centre. We do need to make life easier for cyclists.

Just not this way, and not now, when our traders are reeling from the economic impact of the coronavirus crisis.

All it would have taken to avoid this debacle is a bit more time and effort put into a meaningful consultation with the people who live and work here, who know how the city operates. A bit more respect for Joe Public.

People Unfriendly signs to be switched off!

I THINK public pressure is beginning to pay off.

I’ve just spoken to the second-in-command at Wiltshire Council, Richard Clewer, about the People Unfriendly signs on the ring road, which have had the effect of driving shoppers away from Salisbury. I gather this has been greatly to the benefit of Romsey’s traders.

He has told me that the signs are being switched off – this may be happening even before you read this – and that he is “not aware” of any plans to replace them.

It is clear that no-one up at Trowbridge foresaw the increase in traffic jams that would occur on the ring road because of the introduction of the experimental partial ban on traffic in some city centre roads.

What’s more, I understand that it has only reduced traffic in the centre by about half.

I think the message is beginning to sink in that if people in Salisbury had been consulted before the scheme was drawn up – how often have we had cause to say that? - the council could have had a more workable plan and a much greater chance of carrying public opinion along with its well-intentioned attempt to improve our air quality.

Or if the signs had said something like: “Welcome to Salisbury. We’re pedestrian-friendly so please use ring road and not city centre roads to access car parks.” With more signage to said car parks dotted around.

How hard would that have been?

Another trader driven out of Salisbury

I've been chatting to a trader from the antique market in Catherine Street this morning. 

He has given up because of the new traffic rules. He cannot come into Salisbury without a permit and he cannot unload outside his premises. He's been told to use a public car park but that's not ideal when you're lugging large, heavy or delicate stuff about.

He says he will save himself about £100 a month that he would have spent on coffees and other bits and pieces in Salisbury shops whilst bringing in his antiques.

He's selling them elsewhere instead. He says Shaftesbury is much easier. 

Another unintended consequence of an ETRO brought in without proper consultation with people trying to make a living here.

Wiltshire's blast for our broken planning system and developers who take advantage

DELIGHTED to see that Wiltshire Council is taking a robust line with the government in defence of local democracy.

Its response to the Tories’ proposed ‘simplification’ of the planning system is an impressive piece of work and I really can’t find anything to disagree with!

It’s quite lengthy, so here are some of the key points, which were agreed on a grown-up cross-party basis.

They need the ability “to force developers to develop allocated strategic sites within reasonable timescales”. And so say all of us!

They want “a consistent housing target for a specific period of time that is not constantly being updated”. No more moving the goalposts.

In their words: “Please tell us how many houses we need to build and let us get on with ensuring they are delivered. This would enable planners to concentrate on place making rather than numbers.”

Here’s what they say about developers’ shenanigans and how they take advantage of the requirement for the council to have a five-year housing land supply. 

Sometimes the builders are “not keen to develop identified strategic sites in a timely manner, particularly where they are less financially attractive than other green field sites. As a result, by delaying the delivery of those sites they are able to manipulate the five-year land supply and to bring other sites forward.” We all know it, but it’s nice to hear our elected representatives laying it on the line.

“Sites should be built out at a sensible rate after their approval. There is currently no incentive for developers to build out when house prices continue to appreciate and so they can generate greater future returns by sitting on development sites and waiting. 

“There needs to be a system where if development does not occur it is possible for local authorities or government to force it to occur.”

That’s not all, by any means.

They have a real crack at the poor design standards produced by the volume builders -  a topic I’ve touched on recently in this blog.

“There has been too much poor design, particularly when it comes to larger developments in Wiltshire,” they say.

“The current planning system has not made it easy to address this. There have also been too many developments which are poorly designed when it comes to fitting into and relating with existing housing and infrastructure.” 

They’re not just moaning, though. They are offering their own suggestions for how to fix this mess with a better system than that being proposed.

As I say, it’s a lengthy read but it repays the effort and I might quote you some more chunks of it another day. Find it at wiltshire.gov.uk/planning-policy under the Planning for the Future link.