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Shrewsbury Conference 2007

Monday 29th October 2007, The Music Hall, The Square, Shrewbury

Shrewsbury Conference 2007

Results on the Night

Question 1

Are you satisfied with the current site of the Quarry Swimming and Fitness centre or would you prefer to see it developed out of town?

77% - Very Satisfied (62 Votes)
10% - Neither Nor (8 Votes)
12% - Prefer Out of Town (10 Votes)

Question 2

Are you satisfied or dissatisfied with the council's performance in affordable housing?

9% - Very Satisfied (8 Votes)
52% - Neither/Nor (43 Votes)
37% - Very Dissatisfied (31 Votes)

Question 3

Do you agree with proposals to Co-locate Shrewsbury's colleges at London Road?

2% - Definitely Agree (2 Votes)
16% - Neither/Nor (14 Votes)
80% - Definitely Disagree (67 Votes)

These are the results as voted on 29th October 2007.

 

Below are the response to public questions on the evening.

 

Topic Public Question SABC Response
Unitary Where will the money come from to pay for the unsuccessful Judicial Review? The costs for the appeal to the Court of Appeal are being paid for by Councils from Durham, Wiltshire, Northumberland, Cornwall and Cheshire.
Unitary If the unitary authority does go ahead is there any ways of ensuring the £50m of SABC funds are retained for Shrewsbury & Atcham residents benefit as presumably this is their money? What's to stop the new authority using it to pay off SCC debts? Any money in the capital fund or in revenue balances when the Unitary Authority takes over will be for the Unitary Authority to determine how they will be used.  The Borough Council is considering a capital programme of schemes costing about £15M to £20M at the present time.
River Severn One of Shrewsbury's great assets is its position on the river Severn. In the past our predecessors invested a lot of time and resources on the river. Do we currently have an annual budget for maintaining and improving out greatest asset. There is no budget as such.  A group of people have been working on ideas for the river regeneration and a scheme is presently out for consultation.  The Council is considering setting aside monies to carry out some works.
Gay Meadow Just what did happen to the covenant on the Gay Meadow ground? In relation to the covenant on the Gay Meadow, the Council transferred it to land at Oteley Road where the new stadium is, i.e. onto part of the frontage and the Council took part ownership of some of this frontage.
College Co-location Have SABC formally endorsed the co-location of SSFC and SCAT as is claimed on the projects website? In relation to the co-location project, some months ago there was some support.  However, the endorsement referred to should now have been removed from the website.
College Co-location The official co-location website states SABC support the co-location project, is this true? If so, what is the support? In relation to the co-location project, some months ago there was some support.  However, the endorsement referred to should now have been removed from the website.
Quarry Swimming Centre If you choose to have a new site out of town, what will happen to the existing one? The site is likely to be marketed and receipt received used to build a new facility. There is likely to Planning Brief proposed to the site.
Quarry Swimming Centre Why can't the swimming pool be moved to the Sports Village in Sundorne?  The site of the Sports Village is likely to be one of the sites considered for any "Out of Town' provision.
Quarry Swimming Centre Why hasn't it been made much clearer that the redevelopment of the Quarry Fitness Centre will be at the expense of the Priory pool? This point is made clearer in the second more detailed consultation paper currently being proposed.
Quarry Swimming Centre Have the responses from questionnaires already filled in been published regarding the Swimming Centre? If not, why not? Will be put on Council website.
Quarry Swimming Centre Where will users go if the pool is closed for 18 months, and will they then come back to the new site? This is a major issue to be taken into account if a decision is made to re-furbish or build new on the existing site.
Canals Will you be giving financial support to the Shrewsbury and Newport Canals Trust to bring the canal into Shrewsbury? No decision has been made on this issue. At present SABC has purchased land for a canal basin and in time this may be mean the canal being reintegrated. No financial back has been proposed.
Affordable Housing Is there any reason why after unitary amalgamation the planning function cannot deliver 10 new houses for each and every village in Shropshire? This would make a useful dent in the overall county target. From an enablers point of view that would be utopia, unfortunately planning law only allows development in villages that have to have a certain number of community services such as a pub, shop, village hall, school, bus route etc. This restricts the number of villages that are "suitable" for development and means under current legislation many villages and hamlets can never grow to meet local demand. Once a suitable site is identified, a local needs study would then have to be undertaken to ensure the local demand exists for 10 affordable homes within that community.
Affordable Housing Why not offer council housing again? The housing minister Yvette Cooper's July green paper laid out plans for an initial 14 councils to begin building homes again after over 20yrs of being financially unable to do so. However SABC does have a capital project to build affordable homes. We are spending £10m to build homes on Borough land, and then lease the houses to a housing association to manage. We currently have 14 completed and a further 37 with planning permission.
Affordable Housing How many of the housing completions were on windfall sites in 2006/07? There were 25 affordable homes built on windfall sites during the 2006/7 financial year.
Conservation Officer Will the council consider expanding the remit of the Conservation Officer to include 'Energy Conservation'' after appropriate training? It is important to balance the issues raised by both aspects of conservation, that is conservation of historic assets such as listed buildings and the character of conservation areas with other aspects of sustainable conservation. There are many areas where no conflict exists between the two. For example reusing existing buildings is sustainable compared with new build and many traditional craft skills and repair methods using locally sourced materially and methods are also inherently sustainable when one considers the carbon footprint associated with typical modern construction. There are cases where a conflict might arise, such as putting a wind turbine or solar panel on a house in a conservation area might be considered unacceptable if it is prominent. In such cases there is a balance to be made which raises the issue of whole life costs. In other words how long does it take to recover the cost of the energy saving device? English Heritage has undertaken research that shows a good set of heavy curtains can significantly reduce heat loss through windows and can be much cheaper than replacement windows. We should work towards putting out more guidance to reconcile both sides of conservation in the future.
Allotments There are about 100 homes waiting for allotments but there are none in Copthorne. There are not enough allotments in Shrewsbury for a town of its size, what can be done? The matter is currently being investigated .We are in correspondence with Mrs Churchill and amongst other factors we are determining how we compare with other local authorities and evaluating if there are any opportunities available to us both in terms of available /suitable land and the finance to facilitate it.The unitary authority transition may also impact on this process.
AWC Since the introduction of AWC we are now limited to filling one green wheely bin, at this time of the year I can easily fill 7-8 bags in an afternoon and I've had to drive to the recycling centre as I don't have the space to store the bas for weeks on end. Is it possible for extra bags to be picked up in the autumn? The new service only provides one free new bin 4/5 equivalent for compostable waste /cardboard. If residents require any additional capacity then an extra bin can be rented for £30/year. We cannot collect extra bags as these are no longer deemed an acceptable safe method of operation following a recent Health and Safety intervention The service mirrors the base service operating in the remainder of Shropshire and is generally compatible with the majority of UK local authorities.
Recycling Why are recycling targets not set for business premises and only for households? The Government sets policy for recycling /composting targets and these are only local authority based at the present time.SABC does encourage commercial recycling and has recently introduced a successful scheme which recycles approximately 11%.
Town Centre Pedestrianisation (Air Quality) Have you examined the issue of who disagrees with pedestrianisation of the town centre? Have you talked to other towns that have introduced pedestrian areas? As part of the consultation process all comments, whether for or against further pedestrianisation will be incorporated into an Appendix of consultation responses that will accompany a further report to a future meeting of the Development Control and Environmental Protection Committee. The elected members will then be able to take these comments into account when considering whether the further pedestrianisation option will be included in the Council's final Air Quality Action Plan.
The Borough Council is represented on a national group of local authorities that are all considering various measures, including increased or proposed pedestrianisation, to address air quality issues in their town and city centres.
Town Centre Pedestrianisation (Air Quality)
The whole town centre could be pedestrianised if all vehicles except round town electric buses and small delivery vans plus resident's vehicles were the only ones allowed. This happens in several UK towns and many old continent towns e.g. Dijon.		 This is an option currently being explored with Shropshire County Council who will need to carefully consider the implications on traffic flow and road safety etc on other routes to which general traffic would be displaced if such a scheme is progressed.
The means of funding the capital and revenue costs of providing dedicated around town buses will also have to be determined and this is something that Shropshire County Council have been exploring as part of the Transport Innovation Funding bid.