Mini Round Up - August 2009

Flying into a tree – a fatality!

 

Last year, walking Lucy the black lab down by the riverbank, I watched an adult swan fly into a tree. This year, twelve months on and by the same tree, I noticed three adults and five cygnets. Life had moved on, regeneration had played its part.

 

Much of a Ward Councillor’s work is associated with current or short term issues. Perhaps on occasion, head down, we can and do fly into trees. The role of a District Councillor, however, is strategic, looking forward to avoid trees if we are to preserve, protect and secure both our Ward and District for future generations …… which leads me directly to the present government-lead West Midlands Regional Spatial Strategy (WMRSS).

 

Our local authorities have been under great government pressure to get on with the work of their core strategies and our emerging local offspring, the South Worcestershire Joint Core Strategy (SWJCS), which covers Wychavon, Worcester City and Malvern. Currently members from all these authorities are engaged in a series of workshops with our officers to discuss difficult strategic issues which have to be grappled with before we can agree a submission draft SWJCS this autumn.

 

My concerns on where we are heading on a number of issues lead me to set in place a meeting of all Fladbury Ward Parish Councils with the Head of Planning, Gill Collin, and her colleagues to discuss potential Housing growth beyond the main strategic allocations being defined within the SWJCS.   The feedback from that meeting has been excellent and your local parish councillors are now fully aware of local implications.

 

In terms of limited housing growth in genuine rural areas it is important to meet local needs and, in particular, to provide affordable housing for those who need it. That is not a case of building more houses in total, but targeting dwellings that are built more specifically to meet local need and maintain rural character through small scale developments, not large distorting estates.  Of course events at Westminster and a new government in power will decide the future of the RSS, even perhaps to handing back responsibility to local councils to decide what kind of development should take place in their own areas.

 

Local Issues - Action not Rhetoric

It’s tough out there and people are increasingly looking to their local Council for help, believing that, whilst we cannot reverse the realities of global recession, we are better placed to come up with solutions for what in many cases are local problems.

 

Action - Flood Alleviation Support Grants

Support Grant funding for flood alleviation work in the parishes is now fully committed but not all submissions have been successful. In this ward, however, Cropthorne (£2,500), Charlton (£5,000) and Wick (£4000) have had grant agreement in principal.   My thanks to Steve Jorden, Head of Environmental services, and his team for their continuing work on our behalf.

 

Action - Youth engagement

(Urban and Rural)

The South Worcestershire Community Safety Partnership has announced the launch of a youth zone in Droitwich which is successfully attracting around 60 young people on each of its open nights; this initiative may well have potential in other market towns.  In addition, a Youth Bus is being commissioned to serve the young people in our villages, initially where there are issues of anti-social behaviour. For further information David Hemming, Community Safety Manager, is the person to contact at Wychavon on 01386 565301.

 

Action - £500,000 Boost to the Local Economy

Empty shops in the Market Towns are the last thing we need. Earlier this year our Leader and Managing Director, together with local councillors, visited all our market towns with a representative from Advantage West Midlands (The government’s Economic Regional Development Agency) to consider a tailored package of economic measures to support those worst affected by the recession.  As a direct consequence of that initiative - Droitwich Spa, Evesham, and Pershore will now have well deserved recognition and be able to access a number of distinct aspects of town economies amongst which will be business support and a tourism boost:

 

Support to Employers - several large employers in the private sector will be contacted by AWM and offered a package of business support to help retain jobs during the recession and build future business resilience.

 

Support to Traders - some towns will qualify for a Share of £250,000 of West Midlands taskforce funding, allocated to support shop retailers hit by the downturn in trade on the high street.

 

Local Traders/Local People

The Wychavon business support scheme (£750 grant with free retail advice - overall value £1,100) has been taken up by a number of new retailers and I have been able to provide information to a number of local business people in the Ward. We are seeing some increase in sales and confidence in the high street – Green Shoots perhaps, but it’s too early to decide how deep the roots are.

 

Hindsight tells me that, within Wychavon, our future is with independent local traders, and not necessarily high street chains with their different national agendas.

 

Support to Tourism – an extra £100,000 is to be invested in the promotion and marketing of festivals and events, with the aim of drawing additional trade and visitors to the towns.

 

Events and Local Recreational facilities

Tourism is recognised by the council as a key part of Wychavon’s economy as record numbers of people plan to stay at home – a recession lead ‘Staycation’. In such times local facilities and events become even more important to local people. In terms of local action, the free over 60’s swimming programmes continue to be operational across all our Leisure Centres, the new Evesham Leisure Centre, a landmark building, creating a number of new jobs, is to open later this year and the Droitwich Spa Lido is providing a real family experience and in hot weather it’s well worth ‘splashing out’ on a visit! 

 

Break the rule and look forward to 2028

A political rule of thumb has always been to avoid prophesying beforehand, believing it’s much better policy to prophesy after the event.  I will ignore that rule, however, and pull the curtain back, at least a little.  Wychavon in 2028 could be characterised by the following:

 

A population that’s living longer with the number of over 60s, through demographic change, continuing to increase.  The impact of climate change will be widely accepted with global events such as the rate of ice cap melt being reflected in more extreme weather events becoming the norm.  We will, however, have an ability to respond and recover more readily from such events.

 

I suspect flooding will remain a focus of attention but our improved resilience to this, coupled with better technical solutions will better control it. Forecasting is likely to be much improved so we should get more warning and more time to prepare!

 

We will have learned the need to secure food production and energy supplies against international threat.

 

We will be adept in the ways of conserving water and will be generating more renewable energy, perhaps relying more on micro-generation techniques such as wind turbines, heat pumps and the use of bio fuels.

 

The longer term future for farming should be good provided we can work to maintain the skill base.

 

In economic terms we will see home working as a much more significant sector, reliant on very high speed internet and virtual clusters of technology.

 

The environment of the district will continue to remain a major area of concern with the focus of a more powerful grass roots lobby ensuring that the creep of new development is prevented.  That lobby will not be against change but rather uncontrolled change.

 

We will be achieving far higher levels of recycling per head with almost half the tonnage of waste being produced.

 

Transport for the vulnerable will still be a challenge in rural areas but more innovative solutions to bring services to the people rather than the opposite will be in place.

 

In political terms, locally, I envisage there will be a public services forum commissioning all front line public services across the county under a democratic mandate.

 

What we do today sets the future for our children and grandchildren. I very much welcome your comments and involvement on any issues ....... in order that, together, we can avoid trees!