Working Party Update 28.06.20

Published: 29 June 2020

Joint Working Party Update 28/06/2020

Since our last update on 22 June, the Joint Working Party (WP) has been working on producing a survey that will be distributed to the households who are directly suffering from the ASB, drug and traffic issues. Thanks to everyone who has supplied information that we have been able to consider.

We have spoken to SDC’s “Insight Unit” and they are happy to prepare the survey and review the supporting documents using their specialist computer programmes and to analyse the results. This will be an independent control to the WP’s work.

The WP has concluded its work on the questions that need to be asked in the survey and the anticipated timeline is currently:

1. Draft of questionnaire and covering letter to SDC on 28 June;

2. SDC’s computer analysis of the survey questions, resulting queries resolved with WP, survey and covering letter printed by SDC, documents packaged for delivery (including reply paid envelopes) and retuned to the WP by close of business on 3 July;

3. Survey packs delivered by Residents’ Association deliverers over weekend 4 and 5 July;

4. Completed surveys to be returned by post to SDC, or placed in the PC letterbox, by first post Monday 13 July;

5. All survey returns placed in the PC letter box to be delivered to SDC on 13 July;

6. Data processing by SDC during the week commencing 13 July and the full results made known to the WP as soon as that work is completed.

As you will appreciate, this is a tight deadline, especially considering the exigencies of Covid-19 working but we are pushing for no slippage. Please watch the PC’s and RA’s websites for updates and how to obtain a copy of the survey results.

The WP had a cordial Zoom meeting with the Chair of Earlswood Area Safer Environment (EASE) on 24 June and we had a meaningful exchange of ideas and objectives, which was very helpful to the WP.

Thank you to EASE.

The WP held a second Zoom meeting on 24 June and the following items were discussed:

1. It was decided to look at the ANPR system that Barston has adopted. It was decided that the Claverdon model, although a quick fix, is done on the cheap with a lack of monitoring.

Investigation may need to be followed up with a site visit.

Discussions have been instigated with Barston Village PC.

2. There was an indication from our County Councillor that WCC Highways were planning on closing the causeway without consultation. It was decided that we would write to WCC to confirm this.

There has been a detailed reply to the effect that everything is still on the table for consideration, except for the clearway proposal, which has been shelved.

3. The Chair expressed frustration with CRT and, in particular, that they had not even acknowledged several emails that had been sent over the past two weeks.

This has now been followed up – see below.

4. A question was raised as to what our District Councillor (Tony Dixon) is doing to support our efforts.

TD was contacted and has subsequently replied saying that he is “happy to assist”, which we appreciate.

In view of our non-responses from CRT and, in view of the full-blown 999 response by the police on 24 June, we wrote an open letter to Adnan Saif, CRT’s WM Director. The letter is still on the website.

This resulted in an immediate response stating that, in the first instance, security guards would be on duty around the Lakes from 18.00 to 00.00 hours from that night, for a limited period. The other issues raised were not dealt with satisfactorily and a subsequent (closed) letter has been sent. CRT promise to deal with these questions by 1 July.

Also, as a consequence of the 999 call-out on 24 June, we wrote to PC Sue Blundell and her team to thank all the responders concerned for their efforts, which have widely been appreciated by the residents.

By return, Sue has sent a very nice thank you letter and is very appreciative of the positive feedback.

Ewen Cunningham

Chair, ASB and Traffic Issues Working Party

28/06/2020