Paul Crossley1

This is the last posting in this BLOG under my name. I have now got my ward colleague on board and we are going to share a new blog specifically on Southdown

please select SouthdownBath from the drop down list of blogs or type www.readmyday.co.uk/SouthdownBath

I will leave a reference back on the new BLOG for anyone interested in the historical angle of the blog.

Bye from this blog and I look forward to greeting you on our new shared blog.

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Posted by: PaulCrossley
Modified on January 17, 2008 at 8:47 AM

In Bath we have a tradition of two community services each year lead by the Mayor - a Call to Prayer for the Christian Community and the Multifaith service where all faiths come together for a collective service. The services take as their theme the current Mayor's theme for the year in office. Sharon Ball's theme is Care - both those being cared for and those providing care. This week we had the first of the two services and the Banquetting room was packed out. The Mayor also has a chaplain for the year who leads these services. This year it is Rev Richard Wilson of St Michael's in Twerton. Richard is a dynamic vicar and works hard and effectively with the community. The service had an opening from yet another of Bath's many varied and great choirs - The Bath Youth Gospel Choir - who entertained us at other parts of the service as well. Bath really is a singing city. Apart from good hymns that everyone knew and could sing along easily with we had three personal statements - from a lady who has been a foster mum for 30 years and who has looked after 350+ children, from the chair of a local Alzheimer Charity, The Peggy Dodd Centre and from a group of young people aged 7 to 15 who themselves are carers looking after parents or family. They were all powerful testaments and things like this really bring home to you just how much we as a society owe our carers and also just how much we as a society undervalue the work they do for us all. I have been a Bath Councillor for nearly 17 years and this was the most moving Call to Prayer I have attended - and I have attended most of them in that time.

This afternoon met with one of our Council officers to discuss what happens to the Bath Communities Partnership(BCP) in the next few months. We applied for a regeneration bid from the SWRDA several years to address social needs with our pockets of deprivation that we have scattered across Bath. The RDA dismissed our bid calling it a pepperpot and told us to resubmit a bid based on economic outcomes with a geographical base and a key community type. We resubmitted one based on the Southdown and Twerton triangle and our ethnic minority communities. It has been hard work to meet the terms of the fund because what we needed was social interventions not econmic generators. What next - well the fund ends in May and we will put on an event to celebrate all the grants, many successes and projects we have funded. What happens to BCP - well thats not clear yet. We have regeneration parterships now established in Keynsham and Norton Radstock. Whatever happens BCP will have to change if it is to continue into something that serves all the communities of Bath and not just the two imposed on us by the SWRDA.  

The Southdown PACT partnership committee met today to discuss our second PACT public meeting. The first PACT identified as its top three priorities 1. Litter 2. traffic issues 3. vandalism at the Co-op and St Josephs. A bit of a strange vote really as the over-riding issue is anti-social behaviour by a small number of young males and St Joseph's hadn't been vandalised for quite a while!

Still we had our public meeting and the PACT process being developed by the police says these then become priorities to fix. In actual fact the overwhelming effort by everyone over the last three months has been tackling the issue of the youngsters causing social issues. Our partnership includes Police, Councillors, Co-op, Somer, Councilsections - Youth, Cleansing, Parks and Highways  and of course the whole community.

Anyway the agenda is agreed:

1. presentation by Police on the issues on asb (anti social behavior) with an explanation of the various options abc (acceptable behaviour contracts) ,asbo (asb orders) etc etc

2. report back by the beat team on the police activity in our community over the last 12 weeks on asb

3. report back on priority 1 from B&NES Waste service and Somer Cleansing section

4. report back on priority 2 from B&NES Highways and Police

5. report back on priority 3 From Police

6. report back on any other priorities that have been addressed 

6. break out into small groups to discuss issues together

7. list the community concerns

8. vote on the communitie's top three priorities for addressing over the next quarter

This whole new PACT process is proving to be very labour intensive and we are going to have to look at how we manage committments of  staff as we have the system set up with a pact for every ward - 33 across B&NES. So for example we have three highway engineers covering the patch - so in theory each highway engineer could be expected to attend 10-12 PACTS.

NEXT MEETING Monday Feb 4th at the Southdown Methodist Church in The Hollow from 7pm 

ALL SOUTHDOWN RESIDENTS WELCOME  

Todays surgery covered many issues. Those that are not of a confidential nature included:

A derelict garage being used as a rubbish tip and becoming a health and safety issue. We have passed this onto Sharon in Westmoreland ward as the garage concerned is not in Southdown.

Slippery footpaths from Marsden Road to Englishcombe Lane. We will put this onto our next meeting with our Highway engineer.

Anti social behaviour in Wedmore Park. We gave an update on all the activity we have been doing on this issue in recent weeks and inform our beat officer.

Poor lighting in some of the Wedmore Park back alleys. We will take up this issue with Somer Housing.

Grounds maintenance and getting the various operations sequenced properly before the spring starts and everything bursts into life again.

And finally a garden being used as a rubbish tip in one of our streets.

As ever the main issues in the ward - litter, lighting and anti social behaviour concerns. A typical Saturday morning surgery.

NEXT SURGERY : Saturday 2 February - Methodist Church The Hollow from 10am to midday.

Or feel free to contact either of us through this blog. 

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Posted by: PaulCrossley
Modified on January 6, 2008 at 5:12 PM

One of the recurring issues over the life of this blog has been developing the Roundhill YMCA project. This is part of Bath YMCA outreach project and it has been very successful running a variety of courses and activities for the community and getting involved with young people to channel their energy into positive actions.

The building itself is old and tatty and we have a public convenience on the side which has often given us drug related problems. About a year ago the YMCA apoproached us with an ambitious development plan to refurbish and enlarge the site and do far more there. We are both very keen on this. Today together with reps from the YMCA we met the property department and the cabinet member with responsibility for the decision.

Basically the YMCA have been leasing the building from the Council for a pepprcorn rent. Now they want the freehold transferred to enable them to borrow from the bank to be able to deliver the project. We have solved the panning issues, the YMCA board have worked out that they can deliver. Now the Council needs to decide whether to transfer the asset with safeguards. I think it will be a win all round. The Council gets a problem building of its hands. The YMCA can build on its work of the last 10 years. Southdown gets a new invigorated asset which is much needed. The only issue will be the loos. If that is solved everyone is a winner.  

We all left the meeting feeling positive and Property have said they will try and get back to us within 2 or 3 weeks on the matter. 

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Posted by: PaulCrossley