Time for Salisbury to take back control?

TAKE back control. That was the catchphrase that did the trick for Boris.

I wonder whether it would work the same magic for Salisbury?

Because what we don’t have here is control. Not a shred of it, or not when it matters.

The destiny of our city is almost  totally in the hands of Wiltshire Council up at Trowbridge.

Schemes for ‘improvements’ are dreamed up at County Hall, or in cahoots with the business-led Swindon & Wiltshire Local Enterprise Partnership.

Any government dosh that comes our way tends to be doled out on preordained projects through these channels.

‘Consultations’ garner a pathetic number of responses. Many people aren’t even aware of them. If they don’t read the local paper, and aren’t among the handful of ‘usual suspects’ who sit through area board meetings, they are highly unlikely to scroll through Wiltshire Council’s notoriously impenetrable website on the off-chance that they might find something interesting there.

And then we’re lambasted as ‘ungrateful’ when we finally put our collective foot down, and everyone warns us that we won’t get offered any more sweeties if we don’t say thank you nicely.

Take the People Friendly Streets fiasco, for example. It needn’t have gone so wrong, if only anyone had taken the time to ask local people to help draw up a scheme in the first place.

Our parish council, grandiosely housed in the Guildhall, resplendent on ceremonial occasions in its red robes and civic regalia – a sad reminder of the glory days when the city managed its own business - gets what it’s given and seems unable to wean itself off its addiction to party politics.

Several of its members are ‘dual hatted’, i.e. they are Wiltshire councillors, too. How can that be right? There must inevitably be conflicts of interest. 

It’s time all this nonsense came to an end.

It’s more than time that Salisbury regained some of its former powers as the heart of south Wiltshire.

But since we’re smugly assured by those who benefit from the present system that it won’t happen, what would be the next best thing, do you think?

An independent city council? Made up of members chosen for their ability, not their party allegiance? Free to think as they will, but united by an undertaking to work collaboratively on key issues to get the best possible deal for Salisbury from the unitary authority, regularly consulting residents and businesses and reflecting their opinions?

Pie in the sky? It doesn’t have to be. 

Surely there must be a few public-spirited,  free-thinking individuals out there who will  stand for election in May and undertake to pool their talents for the greater good?

And a few voters willing to set aside their usual a) party loyalty or b) apathy to get them into office?

 

No-one bothered to tell city council the money for People Friendly Streets was gone

 NOW it appears that the city council had no chance of getting Salisbury’s People Friendly Streets experiment reinstated.

Even if they’d all voted for it on Monday, it wouldn’t have happened.

Because Wiltshire Council had already announced the indefinite suspension of the People Friendly Streets package to ‘green up’ Salisbury, and the SWLEP, the fund-awarding body, had consequently taken its money elsewhere. After all, if it couldn’t be spent in Salisbury by March, there were bound to be others with ‘oven ready’ deals on offer. Deadlines work against genuine democratic decision-making? Sorry, them’s the rules!

If only someone had thought to tell the Guildhall Gang. I wonder why they didn’t and I do wish Wiltshire Council would be a bit more forthcoming with its version of events.

Given the number of city councillors who double up as members of Wiltshire, it’s surprising no-one appears to have known that they were wasting their time, along with blood, sweat and tears of all those members of the public who sent in letters and the 10 of us who laboriously and nervously prepared statements to read out to the assembled online throng.

Is it any wonder that the voting public becomes more disenchanted with the political class by the day?

Who do they think they are? An extraordinary city council meeting over the ban on through traffic

GETTING more personally involved in a local controversy, rather than standing above it and pontificating as an independent journalist, has been an educational, wholly preoccupying and draining experience.

While social media can reach and inform sections of the British public that our normal democratic processes can’t, and it’s a great thing that they can do this, I hadn’t realised quite how much hard work is involved in policing a Facebook page.

There are all sorts of fallings-out among people who apparently support your cause but then get cross with each other and start trading insults and using language that would earn them a punch on the nose in real life. That Private Eye column taking the mickey out of online commentators on newspaper websites is hilarious but hideously realistic.

There are all sorts of sly tactics, and outright lies, used by your opponents to try to discredit your group and your cause, which I’m not used to. Given that I’m hardly a shy violet, it astonishes me that I’m so astonished by this dishonesty. I’m exhausted by it, frankly, as I write this.

But hey ho, we have to work with the world we find ourselves in, and deprived of the relatively civilised berth of a newspaper column, I’m enjoying where life’s taking me.

In this case to SOS - Save Our Salisbury, a campaign set up by a few bloody-minded individuals in response to the imposition of two initiatives in Salisbury - a Low Traffic Zone which went under the inappropriate title of People Friendly Streets, and a cycle lane, complete with bollards, in one of the most unsuitable parts of our historic road network. 

I truly find it difficult to believe that Wiltshire Council thought they had a mandate for anything other than the broadest principles of any such schemes, but Plonk! There these things suddenly were, and there we were, having to like it or lump it. 

Because politically motivated Funding From On High had suddenly become available (cheers, Boris!) and if they didn’t use it, they might lose it. Couldn’t have that happening, now, could we? It’s a cycle lane. It must be green, mustn’t it? Yes, OK, it’s empty. But green. Definitely green.

Within six weeks SOS had attracted 2,400 members and it’s still growing. Fantastic.

But it appears that this type of expression of public opinion cuts no ice with our ‘democratically elected’ leaders, who are quite happy to carry on as they are, thank you very much, and would much rather not be disturbed or questioned about what they’re doing in our name.

Here’s what happened. 

Under the Low Traffic Zone restrictions, people learned that they’d be fined if they drove through their town centre without a permit which they’d need to apply online for EVERY SINGLE TIME they wanted to go there. No more spur-of-the-moment visits to dear old Mum in her McCarthy & Stone flat, then, without a scenic trip round the ring road jams in order to approach from the officially approved angle.

Signs sprouted all round the ring road warning people to stay on the A36. In which case no visitor to a city that relies on tourism would ever find their way in.

Carers visiting the elderly or disabled had to spend half their time driving the long way round when they could have been tending to their vulnerable clients.

A long-established and highly-regarded furniture store reportedly couldn’t get permits for stock deliveries outside its premises and was having to use a public car park to unload and carry sofas  through the street.

Traders already struggling with the combined effect of the Novichok attack and the pandemic were warning that they might have to close or relocate, while one business publicly declared that they had been deterred from investing.

Grudgingly, Wiltshire Council scrapped  the Low Traffic Zone and took its bus gates away.

So last night Salisbury City (parish) Council, led by a Conservative group who are split down the middle and fresh from a leadership coup, considered the matter. And decided by 12 votes to 10 that they wanted the restrictions reintroduced. 

I understand that those members who are dual-hatted - i.e. who are members of both Salisbury and Wiltshire councils, which shouldn’t be allowed  - received a text message telling them what was expected of them.

Not that city councillors have the power to reintroduce the Low Traffic Zone.  Because no, the unitary authority system has deprived an ancient cathedral city, the commercial centre of the whole of south Wiltshire, of any powers other than those graciously granted by the Remote Controllers in Trowbridge. At one stage we even had to be granted permission to run our own public toilets. Yes, really.

But they can make the gesture, and hope that the Big Boys Up North will come back and play nicely.

Anyone watching the meeting online could have been forgiven when they sat up, goggle-eyed, three and a half hours later, for wondering why they’d bothered.

But they’d have been right to bother. It really was educational.

I wish I could bring you better news.

Sorry for the silence

 Apologies for the recent lack of posts. I’ve been preoccupied and very busy with the SOS Save Our Salisbury campaign on Facebook. There’s an important city council meeting this Monday at which I will be speaking, and I’ll report back after that.

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.