Administration. 

​

This has been a very productive year.  In July 2024 Mrs Julie Wallis joined the Council as the Clerk and Responsible Financial Officer.  This was a welcome opportunity for a major reset of Council procedures.  Cllr Andy Havard resigned, and he should be remembered for energetic service spanning two decades.  Two further Councillors were co-opted in July, Paula Page and Jackson Ellis.   The 2023/24 FPC AGAR was reviewed by an Internal Auditor, and accepted by the External Auditor.  Plans are well in hand for this year’s reports.  Although we had been able to keep the Precept in Fovant almost unchanged over the last three financial years, Parish reserves have become seriously depleted and must now be brought back to a safe level with a small increase – an annual Council Tax addition of £22.65 on a band D rating.

Improvements include:

·        formal adoption of several best practice policies;

·        installation of Scribe Cloud software for managing our accounts, budgets and programmes;

·        tailored training for Cllrs;

·        improved planning for the annual governance and performance reporting to the County;

·        derogation to the Clerk for specified financial and planning decisions, avoiding the need for excessive extraordinary meetings.

·        additional training to enhance the role of the Clerk and ensure the council can use its funding more responsively to the needs of the village.

Website and Community news.

The Fovant Village website is increasingly used. Thanks to Mrs Derryn Hinks for her energy as the ‘webmaster’, it has more than fulfilled its promise for up to date communication about local activities and issues. Derryn also spreads County news onto other local platforms. The Fovant Parish Council (FPC) section which we keep up to date fulfils the duty of the Council to be transparent about its policies and activities and also provide notifications of new planning applications - important as the Planning authorities now seldom put up green notices. The Council continues to fund the licences and charges for the website, which increased in May 2024 to £230 pa. Discussions to ensure the long term sustainability of the Website have not yet taken place.

When the Three Towers Community magazine was about to cease, in 2022 the Council approached the management of the Village Buzz magazine, which serves a dozen nearby villages at no charge. They agreed to include a Fovant news section, but in December 2022 the Buzz became digital only as a result of rising printing costs. With limited interest detected among Fovant residents to pay subscriptions towards a regular booklet, the Council could not justify the significant amount of taxpayer money needed to print a monthly booklet. However, Cllr Martin Wallis undertook to extract 2 pages of news from the Fovant website, each month, and arrange for 20-30 copies to be printed and left for collection in the Village Hall and the Doctors surgery by kind permission of Dr Kinlin. Initially copies were taken, but interest soon waned and this initiative has been stopped. We understand that Fovant news now seldom appears in the Buzz.

​

Health & Wellbeing.

​

The public access AED (defibrillator) installed on the porch of the village hall has since been joined by two more public access AEDs fully paid for by the Council – on the bus stop outside Clays Orchard and in High Street on the side of the Greater Good pub. There is also an AED available in the GP surgery when it is open. The argument for these additional AEDs arose from the long distances inside the village. The Council determined the policy of 999 operators, which seems to be to reveal the existence of an AED only if it is within 400 metres of the caller. We added these 999 protocols to the ‘Health & Wellbeing’ section under Resources in the Village Website.

Advertising by the Council in the 3 Towers magazine in 2021 had failed to find enough people interested in a half day AED awareness raising session to justify hiring a commercial trainer.

However, Swallowcliffe Council alerted us to the excellent and inexpensive training that could be requested from the South Western Ambulance Service. Cllr Andrew Cousely organised a public awareness raising session on 18 September 2024, provided by Paul Cosh, a professional trainer from SW Ambulance. Money has been allocated in the 2025/26 budget for a repeat session.

To serve residents living far from the waste bins at the Waterside and Village shop, the Council has installed two additional waste bins at the north end of the village and funds their weekly emptying.

 

Interaction with County for road safety and footpath grants.

 

The scope of an Area Board’s Community Area Transportation Committee CATG in April 2022 widened from road safety to cover waiting restrictions, footway and footpath improvements, and some drainage works. CATG was renamed Local Highways and Footways Improvement Group LHFIG. LHFIGs promote dialogues between parishes and county Highways Engineers and consider subsequent requests for grants for specific changes to improve road safety.

In the last two years, the number of project applications from the 38 parishes of our South West Area Board has greatly increased and the budget has not been able to cope. No arrangements for assessing the relative safety of competing proposals from parishes have ever been developed. The result is a long queue of projects with many taking 2 years or more for action. The standard grant to a parish council is 75%. The latest trend to try to tackle the budget crisis is for parishes to be pressured not to apply for a LHFIG grant for a footpath improvement but to pay entirely for it themselves. (Fovant has 16 footpaths and several bridleways).

The period has seen new successes for parishes in our Board Area that have continued to press a case for speed limit changes which was initially refused by County officers. Examples are the change from 30 to 20mph in Ansty; and the change from 40 to 30 mph in Stourton. This does seem to reflect the promises made by the Conservative County Council to listen to local arguments. From these local successes it may be that Fovant PC should return to the arguments of fifteen years ago about the speed limits on the A30. At that time, County officers insisted on the previous 40 mph section being raised to 50mph, in spite of vigorous arguments from the PC and a local petition of 150 residents.

 

Highways achievements for Fovant.

 

Fovant PC attendance and lobbying at the quarterly meetings of our LHFIG continues to lead to safety improvements to Fovant roads. Road safety continues to be a major focus for FPC, both on the A30 and the village roads.

The latest achievements are that 30mph Gateway signage and rumble strips have been installed on the A30 approach from Shaftesbury, and the overgrown verge cut back to improve visibility of the 30mph sign. The LHFIG recently supported Fovant in a major ‘Substantive Bid’ to the central County fund, for a pavement buildout on the curve into High Street from the A30 to increase safety for pedestrians. This would mean a change in the traffic flows. This project was first suggested to LHFIG in November 2020, an example of the delays in their process. In February and March 2024 FPC convened a Working Group to canvas the views of a dozen residents near the junction with the A30; the great majority were positive. If funded this work will be combined with a more recent proposal (May 2024) to improve the safety of the footway turning round the corner of the Greater Good public house. Results of these bids are expected in March 2025.

LHFIG has also agreed to install standard Pedestrians in the Road signs at the four entrance roads to the 20 mph limits, but frustratingly this simple task is still waiting from November 2022. Other projects agreed but repeatedly delayed are white lining and bollards at the Greater Good corner and also around the curve from High St into Tisbury Road. A request for rumble strips on the approach from Dinton into our 20mph limit has recently been actioned, with good effect.

 

Speeding and SIDs.

​

SID’s (Speed Indicator Devices – were three installed at fixed locations in the 20mph limits in early 2022, cost £8K supported by an Area Board grant). These SIDs are on verges kindly permitted by householders on Tisbury Road, Dinton Road and High Street. They are working well to display speeds. Cllr Horne has periodically extracted the SID speed data.

Attempts to persuade police officers to visit the village to carry out speeding enforcements have continued for years but with limited success. The Police and Crime Commissioner has appointed three civilian Community Speed Enforcement Officers, but it has proved difficult to engage them. They have once come to Brook St – we don’t know why that choice – and had a session on the A30 with some results. But they have avoided our requests to come to the 20mph through-routes of the Tisbury Road and Dinton Road - where metrocount data from 2016 and 2021 and the continuing SID data show 50% of vehicles exceeding the legally enforceable speed of 24mph. The PCC team have fielded a sequence of objections, starting in 2022 when they said the SID data we were providing didn’t fit their algorithms. The most recent objection is that our metrocount (tube) speed measurements are more than a year old and will need to be repeated. We continue to protest about their logic and these unnecessary costs. Among the several dozen villages that provide SIDs data we seem to be the only one with SIDs in a 20 mph limit – the others are 30 mph. There may be a tacit assumption in the PCC team that our roads are therefore less dangerous to pedestrians. If only we can get them here we can demonstrate the dangers!

The attitude of the Community Police Team stationed in Warminster couldn’t be more different, but it has a small team for the huge area, and a high staff turnover. They are sympathetic about our speeding and their PCSOs have come to chat in the village several times including at the 2023 fete.

In 2024 FPC fully funded a fourth SID, to be moved periodically between two locations in the 30mph section on the A30 and a third location near the Dinton Road entrance to the village. Metrocount speed measurements have been requested at the Dinton entrance. The Highways Engineer Paul Shaddock has been very helpful.

 

Working group among the Ward parishes on road speeds.

 

Ward Councillor Nabil Najjar had set up an informal working group for his 14 Parish Councils of the Chalke Valley, and Cllr Phillips attended. This has not generated any assistance to Fovant’s problems about speeding, but we understand has helped dialogues among the villages along the Valley road about the speed limits and their transitions from 60mph sections. Placing Fovant in a group of parishes with which we have no common issues seems strange. Our natural geographic link has been with Swallowcliffe and Ansty.

​

Road drains and Foul water drains.

 

Several years of FPC requests for cleaning of Fovant road drains at locations prone to blockage continue to pay off, with better reactions from the two teams: the Wiltshire Sewers crew that carries out the discretionary gully emptying service; and the local tanker and crew (1 of 3 across the county) that normally only empties gullies on main roads and those considered high risk. The message that Fovant drains are extensive and tend to give block leading to flooding is now well established with the County. Essential in arranging tanker visits is the quick reaction by the Parish Steward Simon Simms, as a result of close contact started by Cllr Phillips and now improved by Cllr Wallis. Unfortunately, the My Wilts system does not always work well and sometimes cancels request without notification to the requester.

Despite the clearing of the drains, the Village Hall became surrounded by water during Storm Henck in early 2024, but ingress was prevented by sandbags provided by Cllrs Cousley and Wallis. The Council has a store of sandbags which can be provided on request.

Determined lobbying of Wessex Water to recognise the evidence that mains water enters parts of the foul water system stimulated a significant corrective programme. Following a camera survey of the entire network, targeted repairs of the mains water pipes were followed by sleeve insertions to damaged parts of the drains.

 

Emergency equipment and planning.

 

The two small emergency generators were loaned to several householders during the power cuts of February 2022 after Storm Eunice. With generous funding by SSEN a 10 kw diesel generator has been installed in a shed behind the Waterside (Youth Club) building. This completes the preparation of the building as a Community Emergency Hub for residents during severe weather or other emergencies. The Hub has power for heating and lighting, TV and cooking facilities. The village emergency plan was drawn up in conjunction with County advisers, with Cllrs Wallis and Cousley as focus points.

 

Proposed Land Swap with the County.

 

In June 2023 Wiltshire Council Residential Development officers began contact with residents of Clays Orchard sheltered housing complex to announce their intention to convert it to modern accommodation served by a lift. The most likely option emerging is a complete re-build. FPC sat in on these discussions (Cllrs Horne and Wallis). Discussion between the County officer Mrs Christine Brown and FPC progressed to a proposal for a ‘Land swap’ between the County and FPC. The PC would transfer the playing field next to Clays Orchard back to the County (it was ceded to the PC in 2014), and in return the County would purchase for the PC a paddock up for sale in the centre of the village, part of the former Millbrook Trout Farm. This paddock has had an H17 open space designation for many years, and it would seem ideal as a village amenity for public use. The Council is looking at grant possibilities for the re-wilding of this land.

The PC held a public meeting on 24 August 2024 to discuss the Land Swap idea. The meeting was well attended - 47 adults and 3 children, and five of the six Parish Councillors, the Parish Clerk Mrs Julie Wallis, and the Ward Councillor Mr Nabil Najjar. With many residents speaking, the swap idea was almost universally welcomed. However, surprisingly this project does not seem to have progressed since then – action is in the hands of the County. in February 2025 FPC heard from the County officer that they are reviewing their county-wide redevelopment programme timetable. The programme will need to be implemented over a longer period to reduce the effects of the cost of borrowing. FPC awaits the implications for Clays Orchard and thus the Land Swap.

 

Increasing concerns over Wiltshire Council’s planning process

 

Some recent planning consents and the way they are implemented by Wiltshire Council have caused concerns. We have passed a list of questions to Ward Cllr Nabil Najjar, who has asked the Cabinet Member for Planning to arrange for a written response from the Planning department. Points covered include preventing building contractors vehicles blocking through-roads for prolonged periods, and what seems to be an inconsistent application of Environment agency rules about potential harm to Fovant Brook.

 

Headline plans for 2025/2026 Financial year

 

·       Supportive funding to our voluntary group of gardeners to provide tools to enable them to carry on their good work at St. Georges Church.

·       Supportive funding to ‘Fovant Relief In Need’ - these monies will support local residents who may be struggling financially to cope with one off support.

·       Earmarking reserves for our ‘Fovant Green’ project to enable works to rewild an area of green space in the centre of the village for the benefit and use of all Fovant residents.

·       Joint funding with the South West Wiltshire Area Board giving opportunities for local youth initiatives for teenagers who live in Fovant, while enabling them to access youth facilities in the local villages as well.

·       Our ongoing programme of work to make our roads safer for everyone.