Trevor Carbin Liberal Democrat

Wiltshire Council will be fixing the traffic lights at the junction of the A365 and B3353 from 2 March for around five weeks.

The lights are clapped out, and as they need to be replaced, the council is also taking the opportunity to make other changes to the junction.

This will see the replacement of all the infrastructure associated with the traffic signals; repairs to the drainage on both sides of the A365; and the complete resurfacing of the A365 and B3353 junction and approaches. The junction will also be remodelled to incorporate a pedestrian phase.

Bath council will impose an 18-tonne weight restriction on Cleveland Bridge as of February 3^rd. They say the bridge is in need of repair. They don't yet have the money to do the repair, so the closure could last a long time until they find the cash. When that happens (the best case scenario is summer 2020), the bridge will be closed to all traffic for the duration of the work.

The pressure for developing the space between Trowbridge and Southwick continues with an outline application from Waddeton Park Ltd for up to 180 houses, along with open space and associated planting; creation of new roads, accesses and paths; installation of services; and drainage infrastructure.

The development would stretch from the A361 to Axe and Cleaver Lane in North Bradley.

Wiltshire Council is asking for your views on two projects in Salisbury. Of course it won't take any notice of them, but if you're interested in the city it's still worth responding.

The first is the final phase of public consultation on the Salisbury Central Area Framework (SCAF), which will help shape the future of the city centre. This has been amended to reflect the comments received from the public consultation held last summer and Wiltshire Council now wants to hear further feedback on the draft SCAF.

Wiltshire Clinical Commissioning Board rejects results of its own consultation!

The Wiltshire Clinical Commissioning Group promised to respect the results of the Maternity Transformation consultation but when those results showed that residents wanted to keep the Trowbridge and Paulton Birthing Units open [62% - 1200 respondents out of 1800 replies], the CCG are now desperately trying to move the goalposts.

In previous years I've supported the increases in Council Tax by the Police and Crime Comissioner, as our local police force was clearly suffering from central government cuts. That was despite those increases being hugely above inflation, and being added to the Council Tax, which is a very unfair way of collecting tax as it disproportionately hits those on lower incomes.

Sadlers Mead car park will be closed for 11 months as work begins on creating a new surface and multi-storey car park.

The new car park will increase the number of spaces from the current 165 to 237, with three coach spaces and six motorcycle spaces. There will also be 12 electric car charging points.

Trowbridge Sports Centre was shut down by Wiltshire Council at Christmas following structural examinations exposing the need for urgent repairs.

The facility will partially reopen in the next month.

Wiltshire Council is working to get the dry side facilities in the centre open as quickly as possible. Significant remedial works are required to the swimming pool section, and it is anticipated these will be completed by the summer.

In November 2018 Bradford on Avon & Melksham Health Partnership (BoAMHP) submitted an application to Wiltshire Clinical Commissioning Group (WCCG) to close St Damian's Branch Surgery in Melksham. Following consultation the application was rejected by the CCG in January 2019.

BoAMHP are now having another go. Here's what they say:

Soon after its formation, Wiltshire Council got rid of its chief executive and had a triumverate of semior officers running the show. Now with a new leader of council in Philip Whitehead it's been announced that one of the three will go, leaving two chiefs. One will deal with 'People' and one with 'Place'.