The latest meeting of the Bishop’s Castle, Worthen and Chirbury & Clun Local Joint Committee took place on Thursday 9^th February at the SpArC Centre in Bishop’s Castle.

The Committee and members of the public received presentations for four speakers, and also reviewed a series of funding applications from local projects.

Inspector Rob Thomas introduced the Committee to the new Local Policing team for the town. Anne Gutteridge is the new Police constable; Ross O’Neil and Sheena Jones are the Community Support Officers and Adrian Woolley is the new Sergeant for the area. The priority of the team was to prevent offences and detect crime in the area when it occurs, and members of the public were vital in helping the police carry out these roles.

Members of the public could help the police by making sure their properties, cars and businesses were secure, as rural areas are increasingly being targeted by criminals from outside the area. He also encouraged members of the public to register their property on the website http://www.immobilise.com/ so if any items are stolen they can be traced by the Police and returned to their owners. Members of the public were also asked to report incidents to the Police. If a crime is taking place the emergency number is 999; if a crime has occurred and it needs reporting the number is 101; and people can also provide anonymous information about incidents through Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111

Martin Key, from Shropshire Council’s Public Protection and Enforcement team spoke about last summers water shortages in the Clun Valley, which affected people on private water supplies. The summer of 2011 was one of the driest on record, and as a result a number of supplies run dry. Shropshire Council worked with Severn Trent to make sure people had access to fresh water, but the cost for providing this was quite high – a bowser of water cost around £500, so was not a long term solution. The Council is exploring whether standpipes can be installed in public spaces, with the fire station in Clun being a possible location. Predictions suggest the problem will become more widespread in the future so the Council is also working with agencies on a region wide drought management solution.

A presentation on leisure services was also given by Alan Penton of Shropshire Council’s Leisure Services team.  There are 15 leisure centres in Shropshire which are run in different ways by Shropshire Council. The SpArC Centre in Bishop’s Castle is one of four run by Teme Leisure through a management agreement with Shropshire Council.

Like all council services, savings are needed to be made in the leisure services budget, of around 30% and as a result Teme Leisure’s budget will be reduced. Teme Leisure will be looking at how this will affect the services they offer at Bishop’s Castle and are developing a strategy for maintaining as many services at SpArC as they can. As the site is shared with the school there are also additional requirements to give the school access to the site during school hours. Whilst the impact of the reduction in funding still under negotiation, Shropshire Council have been happy with the way Teme Leisure have run the centre, and there are certainly no plans to close the site.

The final presentation of the evening was by Andy Mortimer of Shropshire Councils Planning team and Paul Sutton of South Shropshire Housing Association, who talked about affordable housing.

Andy Mortimer explained that Shropshire Council, as a new authority was developing its planning policies. The new Core strategy was adopted last year, and the new Samdev policies were being developed. These look at locations in towns and villages that are suitable for development. The Council supported affordable housing through a series of policies which make it easier to get planning permission than for open market housing. They also work with developers to include affordable housing within new developments. Town and Parish Councils are encouraged to work with the Council to identify sites in their area which were suitable for affordable housing.

South Shropshire Housing Association offer affordable housing in a number of ways, but their broad definition of the term is “below market value” housing either in terms of rent or purchase costs. They offer rented properties, shared ownership and also look to build their own properties where land and funding is available. Funding for new build affordable housing is difficult, and restricts how much new housing SSHA can build each year. They are keen to work with town, parish and Shropshire Councils to find suitable sites, and feel that the new planning processes in Shropshire will help them achieve this. Some parishes expressed concerns that affordable homes were not given to local people. Paul stated that homes were let through Choiced based lettings and while most homes were allocated to local people, sometimes people from outside the area were deservedly at the top of these lists and so were allocated the properties. Providing parish councils with more details of how the Choiced Based Letting system worked might help them understand the process.