Creeping suburbanisation of Salisbury's parks

I USED to walk the dog in Queen Elizabeth Gardens maybe once a fortnight. He loves to jump into the river at the little beach area and fetch a stick, and passers-by are always amused by his headlong enthusiasm.

Having given up on the habit while the noisy and messy refurbishment work was going on, for some reason I hadn’t strolled across Town Path from Harnham for months.

So on Sunday when I finally got round to it, what I found came as quite a surprise.

I know the old planting needed replacing, and that new planting schemes take a while to mature, and that’s fine. We’ll just have to be patient. It’s a work in progress.

But in the meantime the hard landscaping is just that – hard on the eye.

In a less-than-mellow shade of yellow, it looks as if someone has simply upended a few dozen packets of Rice Krispies on the pathways. This gritty stuff is being trodden all over the place, filling the gaps between the boards on the bridges, and spilling over onto the grass, and whatever lies underneath it is already starting to show through.

I remember when the parks department wanted to build a diagonal path across Harnham recreation ground. That was going to be golden breakfast cereal, too. Residents protested that it would stand out like an airport runway, and the project was shelved, thank goodness.

In my view both these much-loved parks should be treated, as far as possible, as visual extensions of the water meadows, since they lie at either end of them. That means green, leafy and natural.

The city council’s wildflower planting in the Harnham field was a welcome and appropriate addition.  But the Environment Agency’s flood defence scheme with its pumping station control kiosk has already spoiled the view towards the picturesque Old Mill. And now a bright red charity clothing bank is sprouting an unsightly crop of carrier bags at the entrance from Netherhampton Road.

It may be for a good cause, but haven’t we got enough recycling facilities at charity shops in town, at Churchfields, and at skips in our supermarket car parks?

Part of Salisbury’s charm lies in the way these two parks have remained semi-rural oases, linked by the Town Path, within the heart of a built-up area. They are places where we could almost imagine ourselves to be in the countryside. I’d be sorry to lose that.

Council's parking income falls after it raises charges

I NEVER for one second believed that squeezing motorists till the pips squeaked would work the required wonders for Wiltshire Council’s bank balance.

And hey ho, what do you know? I was right.

Quite by coincidence, in the week that city councillor Mark Timbrell called for Wiltshire to bring forward a review of our parking charges because of the hardship they are causing, I received a reply to a Freedom of Information request I submitted a little while ago.

I asked Wiltshire how much money it had taken from parking in Salisbury, both on and off street, in the most recent financial year, 2012-13. The answer was £2,991,894.

How much did it take in the financial year 2010-11, before its Conservative leadership imposed massive price rises? £3,171,553.

So one might argue that the policy that sent trade plummeting and led thousands of readers to join the Journal’s Show Some Sense campaign also resulted in a drop of £179,659 in annual car park income.

At the Maltings, takings were down £69,777 compared with two years earlier. At Culver Street, they slumped by £53,383.

Not exactly a howling financial success.

I asked for further figures, to work out how people’s behaviour has changed since the increase in charges.

Overall, they showed big falls in the numbers of vehicles using the council-owned car parks in the city.

And I’m sure the local ‘pop in’ shoppers didn’t all ‘pop out’ to the park and ride sites instead. Like me, they probably looked for a cheaper space on a meter, did what they had to do, and didn’t hang around browsing or making impulse buys.

I’ve saved a fortune, which is probably not what our traders want to hear, although it makes my husband happy!

Anyway, I decided to compare how many drivers parked in the Maltings in March 2011 and in March this year, the most recent month for which figures were available.

The total for just that one month was down more than 10 per cent, from 38,312 to 34,242.

One-hour stays were down from 19,048 to 15,094, so it wasn’t just a question of commuters moving out.  Two-hour stays were up by 4,529, though, so maybe people came in less frequently and stayed longer. But then again, three-hour stays were well down.

Sorry to bore you with statistics, but we need to know what’s going on.

At Culver Street, the number of users was down by well over 40 per cent. At that rate I expect Wiltshire will soon argue that the site is redundant and flog it off for some lucrative development. Which will be fine till all the new housing estates are built and the thousands of new residents want to do some shopping.

In Brown Street, user numbers were down by 1,512. Hoteliers have complained that the imposition of a three-hour limit there has damaged their conference trade.

It’s true that usage of Salt Lane, where a three-hour limit was also introduced, rose marginally. But its takings were more than £10,000 down. I can’t make head or tail of it … though I do know that some council staff used to be given free parking there at one time.

No questions about Southampton Road car park, though. It’s what the Sex Pistols might have called ‘pretty vacant’. Too expensive now for most students, it was used by just 258 vehicles in the whole of March.

All in all, there were 11,339 fewer vehicles using council car parks in Salisbury this March than there were two years previously.

Some all-day parkers have undoubtedly been forced out to the park and ride network, and they will account for some of its improved performance. Its income (not profit, I hasten to add) rose over the two-year period from £569,191 to £755,361.

And Wiltshire may be encouraged to see that the number of people opting to pay for two hours has risen in most car parks since one hour became relatively expensive. Perhaps it feels like better value?

I’d love to know what readers think. But please don’t accuse me of being negative and ‘talking down’ Salisbury.

I’d say I’m simply being realistic, and hoping our elected representatives will deign to reopen the debate about parking sooner rather than later, for their own good as well as ours.

How will the new UTC affect other schools?

I'VE been wondering what the impact of the new University Technical College will be on other schools in the area.
This planned development will have 600 students aged 14-18, specialising in science and engineering.
Our MP says it’s “excellent news for the young people of Salisbury and South Wiltshire”, giving them a “vital new option”. And so it is, even though I don’t agree with closing the police station in a mad rush to accommodate it.
But where will the UTC draw its students from?
I haven’t spoken to local headteachers about it, so I’m only guessing. But isn’t it likely to cream off the most able pupils from our non-selective secondary schools?
And if so, won’t that make it tougher for these schools to attract good teachers and sponsors, and hence disadvantage those pupils who are left behind?
I don’t disapprove of academic selection at all. Neither do I disapprove of selecting pupils for a whole range of other talents, such as sport and music.
But I do firmly believe that all children should be given equal opportunities in terms of funding, facilities and most importantly, quality of teaching, and I would like to hear from the powers-that-be that plans are in place, maybe through incentives to teaching staff, to make sure that no pupil, anywhere, leaves school feeling like an also-ran.

Keep doing new things - a good motto for life

ON Monday evening last week you’d have found me in the small hall at South Wilts School, wandering up and down among a barefoot crowd, clapping and muttering, with a manic grin on my face.

What was I muttering? If you must know, it was that old Right Said Fred hit, I’m Too Sexy For My Shirt. It’s more than a bit sad at my age, isn’t it? Positively tragic.

But why on earth would I do that, I hear you ask?

Because that was the tune that the rhythm I was clapping brought to mind – as did watching the very charming young man running the workshop in which I was participating.

He was Brazilian Pedro Consorte, formerly a cast member of the long-running West End show Stomp, and he’d been roped in by choir leader Fiona Evans to impart a sense of rhythm to the mainly middle-aged members of two of her ensembles, Babes & Ballads and Guys No Dolls.

It was fun, and at times it was unintentionally funny, because it was clear that many of us were outside our normal comfort zone.

Some of the Guys in particular started out with sheepish looks on their faces as they were made to lie on the floor and meditate, yoga-style, visualising the various bits of their bodies, to chill out and get in tune with their inner selves. “I suppose it’s all right for those Latin types,’ I could imagine them thinking to themselves, ‘but it’s not terribly British.’

The Babes, in general, proved more amenable, though one or two looked resigned rather than relaxed.

Still, in the sweltering heat, they could console themselves that at least a nice lie-down was one way of keeping cool.

And when we stood up I think we were all in a different frame of mind, and astonished ourselves with our ability to take part in some amazing free-style harmonic improvisation without any self-consciousness.

We ended up creating the sounds of a tropical rainstorm by clapping and tapping our hands.

When the workshop came to an end everyone had a huge smile on their face. The whole thing was as unexpected as it was refreshing.

By the time you read this I’ll be on my way to Cornwall, where we’ll be singing at the Minack Theatre, St Michael’s Mount and Truro Cathedral, just for fun. And while we’re on tour we’ll be meeting a choir from Falmouth who are putting on a ceilidh for us.

Keep doing new things, that’s a good motto for life, I reckon.

Happy days.

Questions for the Police and Crime Commissioner

I WAS unable to attend last night’s public meeting at the Guildhall about the proposed closure of Salisbury police station because I was on my way back from my son’s graduation.

Dedicated though I am to the fearless pursuit of truth and the public interest (!) the boy’s big day was not to be missed.

But had I been around, these are some of the questions I’d have asked Police and Crime Commissioner Angus Macpherson, or ‘Nine Jobs’ as  he’s been nicknamed by Journal website commentators (surely that should be 999 Jobs?)

Mr Macpherson, I gather you are intending to base emergency response vehicles at the Five Rivers ‘community campus’ once the leisure centre has been extended to accommodate this new role.

I am reliably informed that there can be upwards of a dozen such vehicles parked at the police station at one time.

And then there are the officers’ own cars, needed to get to and from their shifts from all over South Wiltshire. I can’t see officers using the city centre shuttle bus instead.

What I can foresee is a large number of spaces being lost by gym users and swimmers. Unless, of course, you’re going to Tarmac over all the surrounding grassed areas?

Wherever you accommodate them, there’ll be a lot of extra vehicles entering and exiting a family leisure facility where free-range children behave unpredictably (especially, in my experience, after one of those swimming-pool birthday parties when they’re stuffed full of E numbers).

And blimey, what about school sports days on the running track? I’d love to be a fly on the steering wheel when a proud mama in an outsize 4x4, desperately trying to reverse into a parking space so she can watch her little darling win the 100 metres, encounters one of Wiltshire’s finest setting forth, siren blaring, blue lights flashing. It’s a breach of the peace just waiting to happen.

Is it true, by the way, or just a baseless rumour that the Salisbury intelligence unit had thousands of pounds spent on special security doors, only to be moved within months to Melksham?

I’ve heard that a gradual exodus north has been under way for a while now. If so, no wonder you say the station is under-occupied.

Other matters are puzzling people who understand more about police procedures than I do, and I quote: Where will the child protection unit and domestic violence units go? Where will officers carry out video interviews of victims of sexual assault? Where will the sex offenders unit and vulnerable adults unit be based? What about CID?
Then there's the million-dollar question (let's hope that's not what it costs) - where will the new custody unit be?
Finally, who first suggested that a city as important as Salisbury, with its vital military connections, doesn't need a proper police station? This plan was kicking around long before your election, Mr Macpherson. So whose bright idea was it really?

A little treasure that's in need of some TLC

WHY can’t you write about the state of the Poultry Cross, I was asked at a recent book club get-together.

I was quite surprised by how strongly the whole group felt. This quaint little survivor from the 15^th century shouldn’t be allowed to deteriorate further, they said.

So, having mugged up on its history – last week’s Journal Scrapbook article by Peter Daniels was most helpful - I went and had a closer look at it, and decided they’d got a point.

At the beginning of the 19^th century – minus its original decorative topping of flying buttresses, which were restored later – the Cross was the focal point of a painting by Turner.

Now it’s the focal point for pedestrians strolling down Butcher Row, enjoying the burgeoning café culture, yet it’s covered in pigeon droppings and some kind of moss.

The stonework looks as if it could do with a clean. In places it appears to be crumbling, and the paving around it, as elsewhere in the city centre, is pock-marked with chewing gum. All in all, it is a bit of a mess.

It needn’t be like this, said my book-clubbers. And how lovely it has been lately, they added, to see the farmers’ market gathered around it on a Wednesday, using it as its creators intended.

The Cross belongs to Wiltshire Council, not to the city. Grade 1 listed monuments can cost a fortune to keep up. There are many competing demands on the public purse in these hard times.

And they say distance lends enchantment, so it probably doesn’t look quite so neglected from 33 miles away in Trowbridge.

I remember a leading light in the old district council telling me with unholy glee four years ago that Wiltshire didn’t know the headaches it was letting itself in for when it appropriated Salisbury’s ancient treasures, such as the Cross or the prison in Fisherton Street. A bottomless money-pit, was his opinion.

Wiltshire’s leaders were itching to get their hands on our assets, he added sourly. We couldn’t stop them, so let them find out the hard way.

Well, the days when the people of Salisbury had the power to run their own affairs are now long gone and we are, as they say, where we are.

However, structures such as the Cross are the priceless relics of days even longer gone, a past which gives our city its unique character and makes it such a tourist attraction. Someone must take care of them.

I can’t imagine that the Market Place refurbishment will be costing Wiltshire quite as much as was originally budgeted, given the way the project’s been scaled down since those first grandiose plans. I seem to remember a figure of £3million being bandied about. Isn’t any of that left in the Vision’s coffers?

Saving Salisbury's wildlife

I TRIED to ignore the pigeon drooping in the baking heat on my neighbour Mike’s patio.

Hunched and pathetic, it sat there for hours on end, barely stirring on the first really hot day of this so-called summer.

We’ve had landscape gardeners in, extending our own patio, and by midway through the  afternoon they, like me, were tiptoeing over to the fence to keep an eye on the poor little thing.

Coincidentally, I’d been watching a pair of pigeons nesting in Mike’s honeysuckle for a few weeks (whilst trying not to appear as if I was training my binoculars through his bedroom windows).

The female had seemed to be sitting on eggs, and my first, mistaken assumption was that this was a youngster that had tumbled out.

We tried tempting it with birdseed and breadcrumbs and it made a half-hearted attempt to peck. We put down a dish of water but it wasn’t drinking.

In the end I could stand it no longer and rang Creatures In Crisis, previously known as Wiltshire Wildlife Rescue.

Would I mind trying to catch the pigeon, asked their full-time volunteer Kevin, while he finished cooking the family dinner. Then he would take care of it.

So there I was, distracting the bird by inching my way across its line of vision while Ian from over the road, a keen angler, crept up behind it with his landing net.

And bingo! We got it first time, popped it in a shoebox, and took it across town to Kevin, who answered the door with a young jackdaw tucked under one arm, its beak wide open as it anticipated its next mouthful of food.

What a wonderful organisation this is, I thought. Thank goodness it’s there when we need it.

I’ve called it a couple of times before – once for an injured bat on my front path (it later died), and once to remove a panic-stricken pied wagtail from the Bishop Wordsworth’s School kitchen, where I was helping to serve refreshments at a parents’ evening.

If only the mums and dads sipping tea and nibbling biscuits as they waited to talk to the teachers had realised what a chase was going on behind the serving hatch!

Sadly the pigeon turned out to have a head injury and it only lived for a couple of days. But I know I left it in the best possible hands.

The team at Creatures in Crisis deserve our admiration and thanks. Their job is sometimes pretty grim. And if anyone feels moved to offer them help, either practical or financial, I know they’d appreciate it. Just email creaturesincrisis@live.com.