Elections and school admissions

Vote of confidence in our elections team

On Friday we formally published the notice of the European Parliamentary Election. It’s not something we had initially planned on having to do but obviously events at Westminster and beyond have brought us to this point. Even though there’s still a certain degree of doubt whether the election will actually take place, we have to follow the correct process and are working on the assumption it will happen. In short, that means we will be very busy until 26 May. We have to organise poll cards, polling stations and count venues and staffing, among many other actions. The election itself falls on a bank holiday weekend so that presents its own challenges, particularly as many people will have already made plans. It’s a real logistical headache but our hugely committed and passionate elections team are no strangers to working to tight deadlines. In 2017 the team successfully delivered local elections and a general election within the space of around five weeks. We are under no illusions the pressure we’ll be under but with plenty of support, and coffee, we should be ok.

An admission of success

Another busy team at the council at the moment is our school admissions service. They have the rather unenviable and very challenging task of allocating school places. This week it was the turn of primary schools. Just like elections, this is a hugely logistical process, and the result of which matters a great deal to many parents and carers. The team has once again done a great a job with 98% of families offered one of their top three preferences and 93% their first. The team is well aware of the responsibility they have as a child’s primary school education sets the foundations for the rest of their lives. We thank them for all their hard work.

Salisbury the place to be

We were delighted to see that Salisbury was named as the best place to live in the UK by

the Sunday Times. This is testament to everyone involved in helping the city recover from the incident last March and those communities who remained so resilient throughout. The city has taken great strides since then and with that in mind, we confirmed some changes to the current parking arrangements in the city this week. We now feel the time is right to end our ‘free after 3pm’ car parking initiative, but park and ride will remain free. Salisbury finds itself in a good place but we will continue to support the city and the south of the county as much as possible. We recently confirmed the OVO Energy Tour Series will be returning in May and we of course have the Armed Forces Day National Event in June, so there’s so much for the city to look forward to and many visitors to be welcomed to see the best place in the UK to live for themselves.

Looking forward to long weekend

We can’t quite believe we’re almost a quarter of the way through the year already. We probably sound like a broken record, but It’s been a particularly busy few months for everyone, so we hope that you have a relaxing long Easter weekend. Thank you as always to everyone on call or those having to work over the long weekend, we really appreciate your support.

Alistair, Carlton and Terence

Solid structure to build on

As you will have read recently, we have now confirmed the new tier 2 senior management structure. The Hot Wire has all the details you need so we won’t go into specifics here, but thank you to all of you who provided feedback. Any structure changes at a senior level will invariably have an impact across the organisation so your perspectives on how you feel it will work day-in, day-out is really useful. We now believe we have agreed the right structure to put in place, which will help us continue to be resilient and visionary, and that is essential in these uncertain times. We will update you as soon as we have all the people confirmed in roles.

Continuing to work with families on our vision for special schools

We recently announced plans to extend our consultation into our vision for special schools, following discussions with local families. As we fully expected, over the past few months this issue has provoked a lot of discussion and debate, which we very much welcome, and we feel extending the consultation is the right decision and will help further strengthen the working relationship with families. We have always said we want the families affected by the proposed changes to be fully part of the process, and following further consultation this will ensure cabinet will be in a position to make a fully informed final decision, which is expected to take place this summer.

Melksham milestone 

For anyone with a vested interest in Melksham, you may have been tracking the progress of Melksham Community Campus over the years. It’s fair to say there have been some ups and downs in the project but we’re delighted that a planning application has now been formally submitted. We’re aiming for a mid-2021 opening if all goes to plan. It can’t be overstated how impressive the facility will be when complete, and we’re excited for everyone to see what’s planned. Leisure facilities have been improved up and down the county over the last few years and they will bring positive health and social benefits to our local communities. A new monthly newsletter dedicated to Melksham Community Campus has also been published which will keep you up to date on everything that's happening.

Making a bid to improve our towns and city

Chippenham town centre

We have submitted three Expressions of Interest for funding from the government’s Future High Street Funds to help support our ambitious plans for Chippenham, Trowbridge and Salisbury. With the prevalence of online shopping, town centres have to offer something a little different to compete and encourage people to take a trip out. If we’re successful, we will work with those towns and government to develop full applications which, if ultimately supported will, we think, greatly improve the offer for residents, businesses and tourists alike.

Trying to Brexit plan amidst the uncertainty 

Alongside our partners, we are still regularly having discussions about Brexit and the likely impact of the various possible scenarios, but as you can imagine it’s challenging given the current national uncertainty. Of course, by now we were meant to have left the EU, but we’ll continue to keep a close eye on proceedings i
n parliament and prepare as much as we can.


Electing to plan carefully
As we said, national uncertainty doesn’t help with our planning, and that’s certainly the case for our elections team as much as anyone. For obvious reasons the team is very much alert to the possibility of what could occur in the next few months – from referendums to elections, as well as staying on top of the day to day work.

Real assets for Devizes and Chippenham

The Devizes asset transfer was recently completed

There have been two recent positive updates for our programme of work to transfer assets to local communities. It has been confirmed that Devizes Market Place will have a dual role as a car park and community space, following discussions with local businesses and residents. We believe this is a great outcome for all concerned. We have also agreed to transfer a number of assets to Chippenham Town Council, including markets, play areas and streetscene services. Local councils are embracing this approach and during this programme, invaluable working relationships are being strengthened, all for the benefit of local communities.

Alistair, Carlton and Terence