Trevor Carbin Liberal Democrat

Residents in Wiltshire are being urged to get tested for coronavirus as soon as they experience symptoms

Regional testing sites, open seven days a week, are at Wroughton park & ride in Swindon and Beehive park & ride in Salisbury. In addition, a mobile testing unit will be at County Hall's Mortimer Street car park in Trowbridge several days a week as of 13 July - initially it will be available from 13-16 July, then for six days from 19 July.

After a decade of broken promises, poor old Melksham has had its campus delayed yet again.

The inadequacy of the council's finances mean it's been kicked another year into the future, with no certainty that anything further will ever happen.

Cllr Ian Blair-Pilling, Cabinet Member for Leisure, said: "We're obviously disappointed that we can't proceed as originally planned, particularly after the fantastic progress the project has made in the last year.

Following last week's announcement by government on additional emergency funding for local authorities, Wiltshire Council's administration thinks this has reduced the chances of issuing a default notice.

On 2 July, the government said local authorities would receive an additional further £500m in a non-ring fenced grant to cover expenditure. The government also confirmed that it will introduce a new income loss scheme that will pay a percentage of all lost income from sales, fees and charges. This, together with the council's own measures, means reserves are not expected to be exhausted.

Wiltshire Council has announced a plan to prioritise walking and cycling in the centre of Salisbury.

The People Friendly Salisbury project will see several streets in the centre of the city prioritised for walkers and cyclists, but only between certain times of the day, and with some vehicles still allowed.

TransWilts Community Rail will be working to improve facilities and the car park at Melksham station.

This new project will see the lease of the council-owned Station Approach car park to TransWilts, who will make changes to the car park to improve the facilities, including installing a café, and extending the parking areas. It will also introduce parking charges.

New Wiltshire Council leader Philip Whitehead has taken the axe to the complex and expensive administration system built up by his predecessor Jane Scott.

In making a bold step in the right direction, Cllr Whitehead has cut the number of Cabinet members from nine to eight, whilst the number of Portfolio carriers has been reduced from 14 to 10.

In local and national government percentages are often used as a form of deception. But WC found itself on the receiving end of dodgy statistics for a change as the innumerate media picked up on a 300% increase in Covid cases, which was actually based on such as small number as to be meaningless.

Here's the official WC explanation.

Wiltshire Council is desperate to save money, so doesn't want to re-open libraries on July 4th as allowed by the government.

So it'll spend July 'consulting' with residents, and will then very very slowly start resuming some kind of library service.

However the council will drag its feet as much as possible and even the most ambitious option in the 'consultation' is a pale shadow of what could be achieved with a less negative approach.

The latest press release from WC shows that the Conservative administration is totally out of its depth and hasn't got a clue about what to do next beyond hoping that 'something will turn up'. The council leader is clinging to the impossible scenario of the government coming riding to the rescue and chucking fifty million quid into the kitty with no strings attached.

Wiltshire Council will be cutting the opening times of the Hub from Saturday 27 June.

As fewer people are now requesting help, the hub will only operate from 9-5pm Monday to Friday. The hub will close this Friday 26 June and then reopen on Monday 29 June. Outside of these hours, the emergency duty service will be in place as usual.