I have submitted a motion to full council in support of Adopted and Special Guardianship Children which will also be on the Agenda, if councillors are particularly interested I am more than happy to send you a copy of the motion. It is not likely to be debated on the 16th as there are 9 other motions on the Agenda in front of mine.
Roads and Highways:
I have had two meetings with the Highways manager for our areas Max Kelly. I need to have further meetings with him to cover our very large division but Max was the existing highways manager for most of the new Severn Vale division so does have a good understanding of the roads and pavements here.
I have also set up a roads and speeding survey with our MP Cameron Thomas. This is for residents across the constituency to be able to raise with us any road and highway safety concerns. We have also created a petition to County Highways for a safety review of the A38, this was following a meeting with County Highways officers where they suggested that although there have been a number of accidents and fatalities on certain stretches of this road, we would need to demonstrate public support for this to be fully reviewed by highways. I have shared the survey and petition online and will also be sharing through a residents newsletter in due course. https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdQ3IsjSF0y5OkCaLGcHo25eM_4p-y1xPauKVTXm_3wFEmgUA/viewform
Councillor Surgeries:
I committed during the election to being available for residents across the constituency both online and in person. I have therefore set up a number of Councillor surgeries across the Severn Vale which I hope will ensure that residents from across our large division are able to meet with me to raise questions, concerns and ideas about the things they would like to see in our county. If any parish councillors would like to join me at any of these you would be more than welcome. My surgery meeting date are going to be held on the last Saturday of the month so the coming dates are 26th July, 30th August, 27th Sept, 25th October.
Times are:
10am-11 at the Bakery Bird in Coombe Hill,
11:30am-12:30 The New Dawn Inn, Norton.
1pm-2pm Shurdington Community Hall.
2:30pm Bishop’s Cleeve Library.
Grass Cutting:
I am aware of the issues in some areas regarding the cutting of County Council Grass by Tewkesbury Borough Council and that the ending of this contract has caused some issues and frustrations. I confirmed at todays Borough Executive that the borough will look to bring a paper in July which temporarily reinstate grass cutting where needed, working with local borough councillors to identify the priority areas. We will then have a further paper in the Autumn to look at a more long term solution. I hope this is helpful and please work with your district councillors on this if you help in this area.
Local Government Reorganisation :
Just briefly as this is a topic that can take up a lot of time, there is currently a public engagement survey which I hope you have been sent a copy of. The Survey is not a full consultation on the options and is more around engagement to give people the opportunity to feed into the process with further work to follow. It would be really helpful if Parish could share this with residents.
I am happy to give a fuller update at the next meeting but you would are hopefully accessing details on this through the Association of Town and Parish Councils. There will also be a district council session in due course.