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New ideas please

AS the climate change protests ramp up it seems central government and the individual are being targeted to do more, but local government could do so much too. I am sure our elected and parish councillors have the will and passion to consider the following suggestions

1) The obsession with tidy countryside - stop spending our money on contractors scalping the hedges and verges - just do the visibility splays for safety. Excessive mowing not only removes the flowers, fruit and seed but changes the pH of the soil for our wild plants. It wastes and burns fossil fuel and we will pay for it in more ways than one. The natural world is not tidy.

2) All planning applications for new build and more to include a requirement for solar panels and a set quota of trees per building. Say 10 per building? Let’s give the planners power to see this included in the site planning. See the newish gap road between Hilperton and Trowbridge town for some wide verges that are crying out for trees to be added to the pathetic few that are there now. Our need for housing also needs green ‘ lungs ‘ to help our towns breathe - and ourselves.

3) Give some projects and power to the kids and willing volunteers to monitor these, generate more ideas and ‘own’ initiatives with local government.

4) A real review and investment in transport options to cut-down on vehicle reliance, particularly railways - more small halts reinstated like Box and Corsham?

I believe there is a real will and we can all make a difference, for example who’d have though we would have recycled so much 15 years ago? Maybe young people who plant trees or dig a pond are less likely to vandalise them - or offer ideas and effort from offenders on community service?

These are a few ideas and I’m sure there’s plenty more, how about using the Wiltshire Times to get them out there?

I am saddened to say there are at least 15 kinds of bird missing now where I have lived for thirty years. The verges are no longer bright with flowers, berries or seedheads. The contractors mow the wild asparagus and bluebells when they aren’t on their phones with their tractors idling, and I’m paying for it and so are you.

There are very few small mammals left, this is witnessed by roadkill alone. When do you see a hedgehog roadkill now, or have to scrape the bugs from your windscreen?

Come on you councillors and people of Wiltshire - let’s see what we can do to help our corner of Planet Earth last longer because extinction IS happening right outside your front door. We don’t have to wait for David Attenborough to come knocking.

Jacqui Prior, Address supplied

This is a bad plan

LAST week’s edition had an extensive article regarding the proposed Community Radio Station for Bradford on Avon. In the article, Cllr Simon McNeill Ritchie states: “ I think there was some misunderstanding. We are a not for profit social enterprise...”.

There is no misunderstanding. The proposal is for a broadcast station to be run by a private Company, Limited by Guarantee, with three directors, two of whom are (Ideal Bradford) Town Councillors. I think this is entirely wrong. It is indeed normal, as Simon says, for the Town Council to help Community Groups and projects get started.

It is far from normal for such a group to be run privately and controlled by Town Councillors. This is especially relevant when the project involves community radio broadcasts, working with young people, and sited on Town Council run premises.

I brought this issue to Full Council. My objections were defeated by a casting vote by our Chair and Mayor, Cllr Alex Kay (Ideal Bradford). Alex chided us for spending so much time on “trivial issues”. This is not a trivial issue. It poses a serious reputational risk to our Town Council.

I am totally in favour of a Community Radio Station, provided its governance is democratic, inclusive and transparent. The current proposal provides none of the above. I will continue to make my case and urge others to do likewise.

Jim Lynch, Town Councillor, Wiltshire Councillor, Bradford on Avon (North)

Democracy fear

SO two town councillors are to be given free use of the youth and community centre (Wiltshire Times). Yet three weeks ago that same council said they would be charging for the toddlers playing in the park.

I agree with Councillor Laurie Brown there is a concern for democracy.

Margaret Shipley, Bradford on Avon

Thanks, shoppers

I WOULD like to thank the people of Bradford on Avon for raising £115.30 during my street collection on Saturday 20 April in aid of Brooke (Action for Working Horses and Donkeys), a charity helping to raise the quality of life of working animals in some of the world’s poorest communities.

Roger Challoner Green, Church Lane, Wingfield

Plea for wildlife

I HAVE written to Warminster Town Council with regard to the boats in Warminster Park, the operation of which are not compatible with nesting and resident wildlife on the lake.

It is not ethical, and makes no sense, to provide a wonderful habitat by way of the lake and the island on the one hand and seemingly deliberately threaten said habitat by allowing such boating activities. The council either want income from recreational boating or to provide a beautiful space where wildlife can breed and subsequently thrive. The two things operating side by side just do not work.

In my opinion the protection and wellbeing of our wildlife far outweighs the few quid that can be made by renting out boats to the public.

Last year there was a lone swan on the lake trying to raise her young - this was not possible without the support of her partner and she lost them. This year there is another lone swan, nesting on the island, trying to raise more cygnets which will also probably be a wasted effort. I am sure you will say that it cannot be proved that the male swans were lost through human activity on and around the lake, however, such intervention can only be detrimental to the happiness and survival of these animals who are trying to make a home and procreate.

I would ask that the council reconsider the practice of letting out these boats. I do know that a lot of Warminster residents do not want them there and are very saddened by the whole debacle.

Helen Lamb, Prestbury Drive, Warminster

It’s life or death

AS taxpayers we are not only entitled to know how our money is spent and when it comes to local health spending, it can be literally a matter of life or death.

Increasingly the future of our local health services is decided by the Wiltshire Clinical Commissioning Group or the new combined alliance of the three Clinical Commissioning Groups of Wiltshire, Bath and Swindon. These Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) are run by GPs elected by GP surgeries. These surgeries are private businesses and the public accountability of these CCGs have been seriously questioned.

When Wiltshire CCG decided that the Wiltshire Birthing Units of Trowbridge and Chippenham should be taken over by the RUH and its midwives required to work in Bath, neither the Wiltshire Council Health Scrutiny nor the Wiltshire Health and Wellbeing Committees were informed.

CCGs were set up in 2013 by the Department for Health with minimal specification in their legal framework.

A British Medical Journal investigation in 2018 found only two thirds of the payments accepted by the Clinical Commissioning Groups in 2015-17 from private companies were listed on registers or declared.

Earlier investigations by the BMJ found more than a third of GPs on the boards of CCGs had a conflict of interest from directorships or shares in private companies.

These are the groups which make local healthcare decisions. Guidance by the NHS Clinical Commissioners recommends that lay CCG governors should act like non-executive directors in public companies, holding the board to account, but the response from the majority of WCCG lay governors did not see their role in this light.

Training of lay governors is obviously needed. The voice of Wiltshire communities must be heard by the Wiltshire CCG and listened to in the future.

Sam Selman, Church Avenue, Melksham

Brexit exposed

IT was brilliant of you to publish three letters side by side last week that all deal with aspects of Brexit. Gordon Sim exposes the lack of any coherent arguments in favour of Brexit and David Maunder makes a strong case for Parliament having the courage to revoke Article 50 now that it is so clearly not in the national interest to proceed, and he rather reluctantly endorses a fresh referendum.

Tim Page of the Brexit Party accuses Parliament of doing all they can to thwart Brexit, describes the EU as malign and intransigent, and advocates leaving on WTO terms. With all this anger and distortion of reality he fails to provide one example of something that would better for the country after Brexit, nor any example of harm the EU has actually done to us. During the past two years I have often tried to discuss these very things with supporters of Brexit but none have had anything more to offer than the slogans that Tim Page repeats.

Just a handful of arguments in favour of our membership of the EU are the longest period of peace Europe has ever known, frictionless trade and beneficial trade agreements with non-EU countries, wonderful opportunities for our young people to study and work in other EU countries, for elderly people to retire there, and police forces to cooperate in fighting crime.

And the most important at the moment, rules that protect the natural environment and ensure we enjoy safe food and clean water, that no one country can easily be tempted to break for short-term gain.

If Tim Page were to argue that the EU needs reform he would find himself in good company. Five minutes on google shows different EU leaders arguing for changes in the eurozone, more democratic oversight of EU institutions, stronger and more enforceable rules about minimum wage and workers rights, and much more clarity about immigration and treatment of refugees.

Vivienne Kynaston, Elms Cross Drive, Bradford on Avon

Democratic farce

WHY do we bother to vote. What is the point MPs do their own thing. I honestly believe they have no shame ! The whole lot of the cockamainie outfit who work in the House of Commons on both sides of the House have stabbed Mr & Mrs Democracy in the back.

R.O. Berryman, Bradford on Avon

Greed is to blame

RE Ben Farman (Letters, April 19), his son did not have a chance to vote in or out because he was not old enough.

I don’t know how old Mr Farman is but I am now 72 and I never had a chance to stay in or go as then it was 21 years of age.

But then we never voted to do what we have now with the EU and I have followed it for years. There are only two countries that runs this, the French and the Germans. We have no real say, we are just yes men and the people that are there are overpaid, that’s why we are now like we are, greed.

I can tell you now if anyone from the parties that are on any voting list come to my place that do not agree with leaving, to which they will not, they will have to have a good reason.

And I never had a chance to vote. Just think, last time there was more of us than you lot, you want to try again and get egg on your faces.

R J Lockwood, Queensway, Melksham

Wish with care

MR Tim Page (Wiltshire County Organiser of The Brexit Party) recommends a “sea change at the helm,” in his letter. It is no surprise who he recommends as The Great Helmsman, and doubtless Nigel Farrage and his Party will give the political establishment a kicking if the European elections do go ahead next month. It may alleviate some people’s anger, but it does not change the issue we have of finding a way through the Brexit crisis.

Those who are tempted by the Brexit Party as a protest vote against Westminster politicians, should however be careful what they wish for.

The Brexit Party is not a serious response to the political crisis brought about by Brexit, but is little more than a platform for an attention seeking political “chancer”, with a simple populist agenda.

Mr Farage said we should have a second referendum. I look forward to reading this commitment for a “People’s Vote” within the Brexit Party manifesto.

Tim Cottrill, Corsham