A walk around Mouldon Hill Country Park

The accompanying map

The Parish Council has agreed to provide some extra bins in other areas, where people take their dogs walking, but are badly served with bins at present.

• Consideration should be given to the redistribution of existing coucillors to equalise the electorate per councillor ratio
• The numbers of councillors should not exceed 60

See previous article Number of councillors to be addressed fpr more information

The intention is for the compliance with the original plans, that were ...

... to install a bus gate on Torun Way, between Casterbridge and White Eagles Road but the exact construction of the gate is not yet known. It might be just signage or something more substantial. It seems that the original developer plans just called for signs and road narrowing.

The bus only restriction is not enforceable until some adminstrative steps have been undertaken, such as something called a Section 38 agreement.

The situation, then, is moving along, as described on the Abbey Meads in Touch web site back in May 2009.

[From The Isle of Wight Council web site:   A section 38 agreement is a legal agreement between the developer and the Council to ensure that work carried out on the highway by the developer reaches adoptable standards (maintainable at public expense).

To give you an idea what Cluster Meetings are about, this was from the last announcement:

· Mouldon Hill Plans

· Leisure Centres

· Play Areas

· Libraries

· Arts Centre

· Arts Service

· Museums

· Youth Service

· Cycle Paths

· Street Smart

· Local Councillors / Haydon Wick & Blunsdon Parish Councils

Mouldon Hill Country Park

From the booklet:

"Swindon has a wonderful industrial heritage. Once there was a surplus of food to sell elsewhere and appetites grew for manufactured goods, the road system showed itself to be totally inadequate. The first major advance was the change from transportation of large quantities of goods by the rivers to the building of canals. "Canal fever" took hold, then railway "fever". This walk around the beautiful Mouldon Hill Country Park touches on both the heritage of the canals and the railways. "

Mouldon Hill Entrance

Mouldon Hill Car Park

"MOTORISTS who park dangerously in Upper Stratton will soon receive £30 fines in a police crackdown launched after complaints from residents. Officers this week delivered about 100 warning leaflets to homes in areas where vehicles are regularly left on pavements, too close to junctions, or in other inappropriate locations.

One of the main problems is cars parking on the pavements, thereby forcing pedestrians and people with pushchairs or in mobility scooters onto the roads."

Redhouse Resident's Association has written a report "Road Management and Safety in Redhouse." asking

"Can you help us inform the council and other bodies of specific incidents where the design of the roads, or how residents habitually use the roads has compromised safety?" It contains many interesting comments as it tries to address all sides of the issue. It is well worth a read.

Download it here - Redhouse Resident's Association Report.

Swindon has 59 Councillors which gives an average number of 2,500 voters per Councillor. However, in the Abbey Meads ward, that works out at 4,471 voters per Councillor, in 2010, rising to 5,174 in 2016. The disparity has risen because of the growth in housing in this ward without an increase in the number of Councillors. I'm sure that our three Councillors would agree that more are needed to spread the load more evenly. But something is being done. Click on [Read More] to read about Electoral Boundary changes.

From the Boundary Change web site:

------------

Swindon electoral review
Preliminary council size consultation

We have started the electoral review for Swindon. During the six week preliminary stage of the review, we are inviting proposals for the council size of the council.

We are only considering comments on council size at this time, and we will consider detailed electoral arrangements for Swindon during two further periods of consultation later in 2010.

-------------

The Swindon Advertiser gave more information. From its  August 6th article "It's your chance to improve democracy"

 -------------

Max Caller, who chairs the commission, said: "There are currently 65 per cent more voters in Abbey Meads ward than the average across in Swindon.

"By contrast, Penhill ward has 15 per cent fewer voters than the average.

"Put simply, the natural movement of people in Swindon has skewed the electoral map.

"It's our job to iron out those imbalances by re-drawing ward boundaries so that elections are as fair as possible and that wards genuinely reflect the communities who live there.

"We will be asking for your views at every step of the way."

The whole review will take just over a year and final proposals are expected to be published in September next year.

The first stage of the review is to determine how many councillors should sit on the council.

Once the commission has established the right council size, it will invite proposals on new ward boundaries and where they should lie.

Mr Caller said: "Based on what we hear, we will then publish a set of draft recommendations for public consultation next March.

"Again, we will be asking you whether we have the ward boundaries right and we pledge to take seriously each and every representation we receive.

"Councils also tend to work up their own proposals for ward boundaries.

--------------

Click on Abbeymeadsintouch, or the picture, to get the latest news from our councillors, on items such as the new Aldi proposals, the cancellation of bus routes, or the Haydon End Farm planning proposals.