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Sharing the cost

FOR Band D households the Trowbridge Council Tax Precept is £153.98 and Hilperton Council Tax Precept is only £14.28. Trowbridge residents continue to support the Museum project (£174,592 in 2019/20) – this equates to £14.78 for Band D households. Therefore, Trowbridge residents pay more for just the Museum project than Hilperton does in total Council Tax.

The Museum expansion involves the Town Council borrowing an additional £900,000 over 25 years to spend on the project in developing The Shires leasehold premises. Fundamentally, there is no realisable capital value in this project, we are providing a heritage facility and public attraction.

Our Trowbridge Area Board consists of Trowbridge and the villages of Hilperton, Southwick and North Bradley. Geographically, these Villages are either already joined to Trowbridge or very close and the Museum serves a wider area than just Trowbridge.

Therefore, I believe it would be reasonable if our neighbouring villages contributed to the cost of this project.

I will be requesting that as a Town Council we write to our neighbouring villages asking them for any financial support they feel they can give (yes, I propose we beg).

As mentioned previously, I would really like Trowbridge to be able to retain basic facilities like public toilets and by sharing responsibility for the Museum we could free up existing funding. Parish Council budgets are obviously already set for this financial year, but perhaps they could give this consideration in their next budget.

Edward Kirk, Town & Wiltshire Councillor for Trowbridge Adcroft

Tell two truths

WHEN will Wiltshire Council tell the two truths about plans to close 3 Special Needs Schools in Wiltshire. The lack of proper public consultation over their plan to close 3 Wiltshire Special Needs Schools and build a single “super school” was agreed by the Judge at Cardiff Civil Justice Court as having been inadequate. His agreement to allow parents to proceed with a Judicial Review forced WC to undertake the public consultation again.

They have started 5 weeks of consultation which will end on May 6. The fact that the schools are on holiday for much of that time does not seem to matter. But then, consultation to Wiltshire Council usually means nothing more than giving people an email address to send any comments so that they can be easily ignored. Wiltshire Council still plan to close 3 schools.

First truth: Wiltshire Council is struggling to fill a budget hole left by government halving by 50% the amount of grant they give to councils like Wiltshire. Selling up to 3 SN Schools sites would help WC get in money to fill the hole. Council tax rises to pay for the necessary services will be no doubt blamed on the Council and not the Government. The weird world of Council finances gets worse when we consider that WC intends to borrow over £20 million to build this so called “Super School.”

They believe that future loan repayments will be easier as the Government is gong to be giving them additional grant money because of a projected increase in SN pupil numbers. Why would they think that the government is going to keep to any agreement to give them more money when they have already had their grant money cut in half?

Second truth is about SN children. Life for a child with any of the various conditions that make conventional learning more difficult, is not easy, with life for their parents no better. It is determination built on love that drives these families to keep going day by day. When a parent of an SN child sees them off to school they can’t just forget them. They will worry about how they are coping until they get them safely back home.

The distance that these children have to travel to school is one of the most important factors in their education. The idea that taking children out of their local community does not fit with the excellence that Wiltshire Council say they want. To make it worse, children who are already in the 3 schools have built up relationships and friendships that are an important factor in their lives. The idea that transporting them to a new school that will be one of the largest ever built for SN children shows a callous disregard for reality. It is obvious that children spread over Wiltshire getting to 3 separate Schools has to be easier for them than having to get to one single location.

This is simply about money . These are 3 excellent Schools and closing them is a barbaric act of bureaucracy that would never be forgiven by those whose lives will be blighted by it. It is not too late. Listen to the real experts. The parents know what is needed. Stop any plan to close these schools and spend money improving them. Then you will get and deserve the votes that you always crave so much.

Tony Free, Warminster

Outdated model

WILTSHIRE’S proposal to close three special schools and create an all-in-one school for 350+ pupils with moderate to severe special educational needs in a remote rural location has many of the features of the institutionalised responses to need which those of us in the field of learning disability and mental health thought were gone forever.

Experience shows that even with relatively benign institutional regimes attempting to solve short term needs and cost pressures in this way makes no strategic sense. Although there had been campaigns throughout the second half of the 20th century to draw attention to the poor quality of life and abuses in the large institutions for people with learning disabilities and mental health problems, in the end it was their inflexibility and the long term costs of keeping them open that sounded their death knell.

1) The proposed school will be one of the largest of its type in the UK. Large institutions are inflexible because once a large building has been opened it can take decades to close it when needs change. Almost inevitably numbers needing or willing to go there will fluctuate – especially when it is in a hard to access location involving long and expensive journeys for students and families

2) There is always pressure to keep institutions full because they cost the same to run whether full or not. Thus they suck in and hold people who would be better elsewhere or who would benefit from change or a greater range of choices

3) Institutions isolate people who need special help by keeping them in social groups defined by those needs rather than enabling them to know and be known by the wider community. For disabled children small special schools located near where they live and working with mainstream schools can provide the flexible, outward looking and non-stigmatising education that all children are equally entitled to.

4) Institutions in isolated settings develop inward looking staff cultures and are unattractive from a career perspective. Recruiting can also be difficult because journey times and costs of travel also affect staff members

Wiltshire’s proposals are full of good intentions but, in addition to ignoring the practical issues raised by the families of current students, they also ignore the laws of unintended consequences which experience shows produce large expensive white elephants. Generations of children and their families will be tied to an outdated model simply because it is there and needs filling.

Dr Bob Grove, White Street, Horningsham

Well done Cadets

VERY many congratulations to the Commanding Officer, instructors and cadets of 2196 (Trowbridge) Sqn Air Training Corps on winning The Harry Carter Shield for 2018.

This trophy, given by Mrs Mary Carter in memory of her late husband Harry Carter, Standard Bearer for The Royal British Legion in Trowbridge, is presented annually to the cadet corps that raises the greatest sum of money over Poppy Appeal fortnight; the wonderful cadets of the ATC raised more than £2,500 last November collecting at Tesco Extra each Saturday morning over Poppy Appeal. The photograph shows Mr Rick Owen, Hon Poppy Appeal Organiser, with the cadets of 2196 (Trowbridge) Sqn ATC.

Rick Owen, Hon Poppy Appeal Organiser, The Royal British Legion in Trowbridge

Hunt on for band

THE twinning charter between Trowbridge and Leer was signed 30 years ago this year and I have been asked to research its history. From 1966 the Leer Accordian Band has exchanged visits with the Wiltshire Country Youth Orchestra. Can someone involved with these exchanges advise me of the correct name of this musical group. Any information on these exchanges would be appreciated.

Roger Newman, 36 Blind Lane, Southwick, BA14 9PJ

Vote Brexit call

IF Brexit is to be delivered, it is going to need a sea-change at the helm. The European Parliament election on May 23 is a first and immediate opportunity to show those within the Westminster Parliament that they are mistaken to continue to do everything in their power to thwart us leaving the EU. People need to be put into the parliaments who can be trusted and are competent to deliver on the clear instruction from the electorate in June 2016 for the UK to leave the EU.

No tricks, no delays, no kicking into the long grass and no pretending a capitulation agreement delivers Brexit. End the uncertainty and the whole torturous process.

We have suffered enough national humiliation and shame in the charade of a negotiation with an intransigent and malign EU - no more! Get us out on WTO terms, free to negotiate a trade agreement subsequently with the EU and the rest of the world.

Brexit is not a problem to be managed, but a wonderful opportunity to reset the country, respect its cherished democratic traditions and express its dynamism and spirit in an exciting C21st world.

Vote for Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party on May 23, a party focussed on delivering Brexit and believing in Britain.

Register your support at thebrexitparty.org

Tim Page, Wiltshire County Organiser, The Brexit Party, Lower Dunge Farm, West Ashton

e-mail: timpage57@hotmail.com

Change is needed

WE ARE the 6th wealthiest nation in the world, and we have people both in work and out queuing at food banks. What is the point if citizens can’t afford to eat and meet their other basic survival needs and over 4,000 children living in poverty.

We also have in excess of 11,000 rough sleepers, over 4,000 of whom are veterans. What sort of democratic society have we now got ?

The government shows little care about its voters the public. Our politicians are afraid to explain the benefits of Brexit regardless of their duty of representing their public.

Just recently talking to MP James Gray I asked why he wouldn’t explain the benefits of leaving EU? He said “Why should I”.

Where is the democracy if your MP is not willing to explain or discuss with their public the benefits or problems with Brexit. An MP who is against 16-17-yr-olds getting the vote but who’s future Brexit includes.

Then there is Climate Change and the Environment which other Brexiteers have threatened.

Liam Fox, Trade Sec, stated “We will have to change our working laws and regulations in order to get Trade Deals”; Michael Gove, Environment Sec, stated “Our fisheries policy will have to change to be more open”.

We are now in the middle of the 6th Mass Extinction and yet we continue to meddle instead of supporting our environment. Only by working with others such as the EU can we have any hope of change.

Gordon Sim, Trowbridge

Revoke Article 50

WE elect and pay MPs to make responsible decisions on our behalf. They have the resources to research - and a platform to debate – complex issues. Few members of the public have the facility to do either and will often make decisions based on emotive rather than logical factors, which makes them vulnerable to manipulation, as was the case with the 2016 referendum.

For that reason, although referenda may be of some value in assessing public opinion, it is not a valid or reliable means of deciding policy on complex issues. To enact major constitutional change based solely on the outcome of a referendum is a cowardly abdication of the government’s responsibility.

Whilst their decisions should ideally be representative of the electorate’s wishes, if those wishes conflict with the electorate’s interests the government should have the integrity to opt for the latter.

That is the dilemma now faced by parliament - whether to respond to ‘the will of the people’, or represent their true interests. As the ‘will of the people’ has clearly now changed , and just as clearly leaving the EU is very definitely not in the interests of this country, has this government the courage to revoke Article 50 entirely?.

If not, despite having questioned the validity of referenda, ironically I now feel that there is no other option but to go back to the electorate.

After that, let us hope that there is never a repeat of ‘Cameron’s Folly’.

David Maunder, Church Street, Semington