County Councillor Report for Berkley Parish Council, 1 February 2023 by Adam Boyden, Somerset County Councillor for Frome North (Lib Dem)

Gritting

I have raised the concern about Berkley Street (with Berkley School) not being in the gritting network with Somerset County Council’s Service Manager for Highways Jeremy Fry who is responsible for the winter treatment programme, but await any official request from the parish council, so please let me know what you decide this evening.

SCC grit 21% of the county’s roads. before road surface temperatures are predicted to drop below 1°C and frost or ice is expected to form on the road. Resources are not available to treat all roads so criteria are used to enable the precautionary salting network to be defined – see Gritting – Travel Somerset.

Berkley Street is unlikely to meet these, but there may be a potential for parish councils to buy additional roads that do not meet SCC criteria into the countywide gritting service next winter through an arrangement that are yet to be made.

I have also had success in adding Frome Road (partly in Berkley parish) and Bath Road to/from Beckington to the effective network as it is a bus route and serves a major settlement with two schools, and after a school bus nearly crashed in December.

Berkley Lane pedestrianisation

An update from Claire Malcolmson, Head of Community Services at Mendip District Council, notes that the pedestrianisation order and responses from MDC to objectors are in the system and the council is currently awaiting feedback on any potential inquiry timeline, which is likely to be at least 6 months away. Claire asks if residents can still keep Mendip informed of any antisocial behaviour/fly tipping the council will continue to organise clearance and try to find evidence of culprits when the evidence exists.

School places

Dawn’s and my enquiry to SCC into the current situation regarding a new or relocated school at Edmund Park generated an update from Phil Curd, SCC’s Head of Education Places (Liz Smith has changed roles). Phil stated that SCC have just started a conversation with Frome’s schools and education stakeholders which will help understand the challenges associated with the current education structures in Frome and what the potential solutions to future school planning might be. A survey has been sent to all schools in the Frome pyramid (see map below). The next steps will be to analyse the responses, produce a summary report to discuss with colleagues from the DfE and Diocese, then meet with Frome’s school leaders and share the findings, with the aim of being able to identify a number of options which can be looked at in more detail. Ultimately the aim is for stakeholders in the area to help co-produce some proposals which can be taken to the community for consultation. Frome’s children will be at the heart of this thinking and Phil has offered us briefings as they progress. I hope that the parish council and Berkley First School will be engaged in this process.

Somerset’s local government reorganisation and budget consultation

In two months on 1^st April (Vesting Day, not to be confused with April Fools!), Somerset County and Mendip District Councils (and the other three districts in Somerset) disappear in a puff of smoke, to be replaced by the new unitary Somerset Council. Local Government Reorganisation (LGR) work has been going on since the Government’s decision to go with one unitary council for Somerset (despite people voting 2-1 for two councils in a local referendum) in 2021, but has reached a crescendo as all district and county services and staff teams have to be combined into a new council for Vesting Day.

There are meetings galore on the new arrangements. SCC’s Constitution and Governance Committee meeting on 30th January (see reports here) debated the proposed scrutiny, planning and other constitutional arrangements.

At the same time, the new council budget has been drawn up (see here), to protect and improve public services, but has been more challenging than usual due to high inflation and the rising demand for care services after the pandemic, as well as the challenges and opportunities of LGR. A public consultation on the budget runs until 10^th February – please see https://somerset.inconsult.uk/budget/consultationHome to find out more and have your say. Councillors have also scrutinised the budget and associated Council Plan on 1st February in detail at a workshop, and a Place Scrutiny Committee meeting (see here). The new Council Plan sets out clear priorities against which the council will be judged in coming years, and the current version is here.

Local Community Networks

One very important thing is the formation of 18 new local area boards called ‘Local Community Networks’, to disperse power away from the new larger council and to give local residents a better role in shaping how the new council operates. The terms of reference and LCN boundaries were set out at Constitution and Governance Committee on Monday 30th January (see item 9 reports here) after a public consultation last year – all the parishes around Frome including Berkley (see list below) are in the ‘Frome LCN’. These will not initially be formal committees of the council, to make them less formal and hopefully more engaging. Either the Chair or Vice-chair should be a Somerset Councillor, the other can be a parish councillor or other local stakeholder.

Developing the current ‘pilot’ Frome LCN (which has looked into services for children and young people) into an effective and engaging partnership with local people, parish councils and other local organisations to achieve positive local outcomes across all issues is the aim. The next Frome pilot LCN meeting is on Thursday 9th February at 7pm in Frome Town Hall.

Planning arrangements for the new council

Item 8 at the CGC meeting set out the proposed new planning arrangements for the new council (see report and Appendix 2 here), including Area Subcommittees for each district area – Somerset East (Mendip), South (South Somerset), West (Somerset West & Taunton) and North (Sedgemoor) – and a county-wide Strategic Planning Committee. The Somerset East Planning Subcommittee would operate largely as Mendip’s Planning Board does now but there will be some changes. A number of concerns were raised about the proposal that any decisions on major developments (see p5 here) at the Area Subcommittees that are contrary to officer recommendations would be automatically referred up to (and reheard at) the Strategic Planning Committee, as well as how much time should be allowed for public speakers, how planning applications should be referred to committee and other matters, so the paper is being revised and brought back to the next C&G Committee on 14th February (and will be published here), how romantic.

Consultation on Somerset’s Statement of Community Involvement

The Somerset Councils are now also currently consulting on a new Statement of Community Involvement (SCI) for the whole of Somerset, between the 1^st February and 16^th March 2023. The new SCI sets out how Somerset Council will involve and consult local communities, organisations and other interested parties in the planning process, including in preparing future planning policy documents such as a county-wide Local Plan, and in determining planning applications for new development. To view and comment on the document please visit https://somerset.inconsult.uk/sci/consultationHome

Other county news

Other SCC news including on the domestic abuse service support for young people, a recruitment campaign for social care workers, improvements in SEND services, smoking in pregnancy, a business mentoring campaign, fostering, helping patients leave hospital, and the council’s new branding, can be found at https://somersetnewsroom.com/category/press-releases/  

Best wishes,

Adam Boyden

Somerset County Councillor for Frome North and
Mendip District Councillor for Frome College ward

Mobile: 07809 284817

Email: adam.boyden@somerset.gov.uk

Web: https://adamboyden.mycouncillor.org.uk/

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