THE buzz phrase among those who worry about how our city can finance its services without bankrupting its council tax payers is ‘boundary review’.
It’s not fair, people say, that the residents of Laverstock & Ford, or Netherhampton, or basically anywhere within ten miles of the Guildhall, should continue to enjoy the central and essential facilities funded by the city council without contributing to their cost.
So they want to seek Wiltshire’s permission to expand Salisbury’s parish boundaries to take over these potentially lucrative neighbours and make them chip in.
I know, I know, this is a battle that’s been fought and lost before. I remember reporting on an acrimonious meeting in 2017 where one speaker conjured up a vision of a tin-helmeted Mayor leading an invasion force of Panzer tanks along Pearce Way. Hilarious.
There was a lot of bad feeling back then about the city council’s failure to support Ford residents who were opposing a huge housing development on Old Sarum airfield.
What’s that you say? A huge housing development is being proposed right now on that same historic airfield? Well, fancy that! Nothing much changes, does it?
The city did change its mind about the airfield. But too late. Relations were damaged.
And there was more. Laverstockers didn’t want to be subjected to the party political argy-bargy that is a distressingly regular feature of city council life. They didn’t believe it was necessary. (I don’t blame them. That’s why I stood as an Independent.)
They didn’t want to be minnows in a bigger pool. When you look at what life under Wiltshire Council has achieved for Salisbury, I don’t blame them for that, either.
On Monday, at our annual parish meeting, the boundary issue raised its head again.
My response was to ask why on earth Wiltshire Council would wish to approve anything that looked even remotely like a potential challenger authority emerging in the south, covering much of the old district council area. I may be wrong. I sometimes am.
Anyway, I hope that the handful of members of the public at Monday’s meeting left with a greater understanding of what the city council does, why it costs what it does, and how hard it is to decide what to cut.
Just some things to think about when and if you cast your vote at the parish poll today. There is no easy answer.
(This article appeared in the Salisbury Journal on April 20, the day of the parish poll on future council tax rises)
