'Make your mind up' time

NOW here's a funny thing.
In Romsey, seven candidates have described themselves as Independents for the town (parish) council elections.
Yet according to the Hampshire Chronicle, they are on the candidate list for the borough elections, which are taking place at the same time, under the Local Conservative label.

https://www.hampshirechronicle.co.uk/news/23452357.romsey-conservatives-criticised-listed-independents/

Boundary debate rears its head again

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)

Why airfield plans matter to the whole of Salisbury

STRICTLY speaking, you could say it’s none of my business as a mere city councillor. Our little airfield is outside the Salisbury parish border.

Yet everything that goes on at Old Sarum impacts city residents. Especially issues around planning.

So what’s bothering me now? Housing development in unsuitable places and unsuitable quantities, you may not be surprised to hear.

The World War One airfield’s owners are undeterred by losing their battle against an inspector’s verdict that plonking 460 homes in this Conservation Area would cause “inordinate” harm to our historic environment.

They’re talking about 320 this time. Still not exactly conservation, in my opinion.

Yesterday people were invited to what their PR team called a ‘public consultation’. Yet there is no concrete (unfortunate choice of word, perhaps!) masterplan to consult on. More of a presentation of possibilities that won’t necessarily be binding on any future builder.

Just consider what the extra traffic from 320 properties will do to the jams and the quality of life for residents on Castle Road. 

Consider the impact on the residents of Ford, officially designated a small village by Wiltshire Council.

Ask yourself what you want to see when you stroll up Castle Hill country park or the Old Sarum monument. How about an airfield-sized green respite amid the ever-expanding vista of new-builds? Even a few light aircraft bringing the place back to life?

For those new to the subject it’s worth explaining that the real villain of the piece is Core Policy 25 of the Wiltshire Core Strategy – a woolly policy in a strategy well overdue for revision.

This allows for an unspecified amount of “sympathetic” new development on the airfield perimeter, as long as it enhances the historic environment and retains and safeguards flying activity whilst limiting aircraft noise.

All that it’s achieved is a lengthy, costly wrangle.

The Grade II* listed Hangar Three has rotted to such an extent that it’s had to be shored up under the guidance of Historic England. Why hasn’t it been made wind and watertight? 

According to a Journal report, it’ll be completely refurbished if the new development plans get the nod. What if they don’t?

The Core Strategy stipulates that the masterplan for the whole airfield that “protects the amenity of existing residents” should be worked up in consultation with the community, planning authority and developer “prior to any application being considered”.

That would be a start.

Panto is a hit, oh yes it is!

THE last time I went to a panto at the Playhouse, Robin Hood - who happened to be lodging with mates of mine - got his nose broken in a fracas after a visit to a local hostelry. Can you guess which one?
Wiltshire Creative refused to confirm or deny it but I know it for a fact.
Both these things, to me, say a lot about Salisbury which we simply shouldn’t gloss over, even though we might wish we could do so.
We’ve waited through some depressing times since then for the return of the Christmas highlight that our theatre always does so well.
And they didn’t disappoint. Cinderella was a triumph of traditional daftness over the grimness of today’s world.

The sense of anticipation in the audience was palpable. They really wanted this wacky alternative reality – which is in fact so much a part of our national identity – to succeed in taking them to a happier place.
I thought the jokes were more adult than previously. Sometimes I found myself looking at children’s faces in the audience to see what they made of references to things they really shouldn’t have known about. I know double-entendres are a staple ingredient of panto, but looking back on the days when my boys were small, I wouldn’t have wanted to field the inevitable questions. 
In fact, the whole setting was more modern, with the Ugly Sisters as social media influencers and Cinders, while still being a put-upon maid of all work, having a sideline as an  inventor of improbable machines just to show a bit of female empowerment.
Having said which, this was a cracking show. The solo singers all had really strong voices, the costumes were as fantasmagorical as a box of Liquorice Allsorts, the hardworking musicians were great, and it would be wrong to pick out any individual members of such a talented ensemble cast.
I hope it’s the commercial success it deserves to be.
What my Ukrainian guests will make of this stylised lunacy I don’t know, but I’m buying them tickets for Christmas. And telling them that this is what they need to see to understand the English, haha!

Pictures by The Other Richard

Good Luck, Playhouse, with this great new comedy

DAFT, hilarious, a terrific cheerer-upper. That’s Good Luck Studio, on at the Playhouse till November 5. And who doesn’t need to lose themselves in laughter right now amid the encircling gloom?

The set is a children’s TV programme, featuring a singing dragon, a frog puppet and a princess dressed as a pineapple, plus a Brian Blessed-style over-the-top wicked king bellowing atop a castle turret, and there’s plenty of panto-style slapstick. 

But it’s not for the kiddies. There’s a darker side to this farce, involving a rejected actor with a gun. And a lot of the jokes are definitely for adult ears.

It’s from the team behind those ‘Play That Goes Wrong’ comedies – described in the Telegraph as “the funniest theatre troupe in Britain”.

The opening few minutes were a bit slow with the necessary scene-setting but soon calamity started piling on calamity, and it got so silly that the audience were quite carried away with it, and many were on their feet applauding at the end.

I was surprised to find one of my favourite comedians, Tom Walker – better known by millions for his spoof news reports as ranting political correspondent Jonathan Pie – playing the absolutely horrible director, Andy, to perfection. Having loved a couple of his live solo shows, I’d never have expected to see him in an ensemble like this, but this was a real team effort, and it worked brilliantly.

A special mention also for Greg Tannahill as first aider Kevin, and an inspired scene in which he superglues his trousers. Doesn’t sound much when you put it like that, but you have to have been there.

Picture by Pamela Raith

Another little gem from Salisbury playwright Barney Norris

IT’S hard to categorise The Wellspring, and maybe that’s why there was a disappointingly small audience for the beginning of its brief run at the Playhouse yesterday.

Mass entertainment it most certainly isn’t, but this latest offering from Salisbury playwright Barney Norris – described by him as a ‘memory cycle’ - is moving, entertaining and thought-provoking. 
It’s very brave to reveal the vulnerability that Barney in particular shares as he and his dad, pianist and composer David Owen Norris, in turn look back on events either humorous or traumatic from their early lives, revealing how after a family break-up they have managed to create a bond that works for them, and what brought them individually to where they are now. This particular onlooker was completely drawn in.
As always with Barney, there’s a lot about home, the continuing search for it and what it means. His dad seems altogether more comfortable with where he’s at.
The beautiful piano interludes and haunting folk songs, absorbing in their own right, are finely judged to both underline and lighten the intensity of the spoken words, which is just as well or there are points where you might feel close to tears.
Having said which, there are plenty of the self-deprecating, rueful, smiley moments that Barney does so well, and his dad’s a born raconteur.
Cleverly set against a backdrop of ancient family cine film, this was a little gem.

All we need is a person on the end of a phone - is it too much to ask?

WHEN it comes to public services, it seems to me this Conservative government will do absolutely anything except employ people and reward them properly for their work.
We see it with the refusal to train enough doctors, with the devastating shortages of nurses, midwives, teachers, police, with the current bout of nastiness directed at ‘91,000 unnecessary civil servants’ who can’t answer back …
To which I’d reply: “If you think you can do without 91,000 of your staff, why have you done nothing about it in your last 12 years in power?”
It suggests to me that this is softening up the population for more and more privatisation, enabling ministers to argue that our current systems ‘aren’t working’ and could be ‘more efficiently run by the private sector’ when actually the problems are political incompetence and interference, the creation of unnecessary layers of complex management and regulatory structures, and too little trust in professionals.  
We also see it in the nigh-impossibility of actually speaking to an adviser on any of our so-called ‘help lines’.
I’ve been trying (not for the first time) to get through to the Child Benefit number to inform them that the Ukrainian refugee and her young daughter who lived with us for three months or so have now gone back home. Basically because she could see no prospect of them being able to afford to live here independently.
Our former guest is supposed to let them know about her departure, but her computer’s broken (not easy to sort out in wartime) and she can’t get through to a human being on the phone line for callers from abroad. It’s very expensive to spend hours at a time on her mobile in the vain hope of getting an answer.
All she wants to do is stop them paying her money she’s no longer entitled to. UK taxpayers’ money.
She’s increasingly worried that she will be in trouble for not informing them about her change in circumstances. So she asked me to help.
But I can’t get through on the phone either, and I’m not sure ‘data protection’ will allow them to speak to me even if I eventually succeed.
Wiltshire Council’s refugee advisers tell they can’t do anything and she’ll have to contact Child Benefit herself. 
The website does give a postal address, so I’ve advised her to write a letter and hope that will do the trick. She’s been told it could take at least a fortnight to arrive.
A few words with an actual person might have saved all this. 
‘Just because we can’ isn’t a justification for doing anything and that includes removing the human element from essential public services.