Bere Regis Village

Purbeck District Council

Click the image above to visit Purbeck District Councils Website

Our District Councillor is Peter Wharf

You can read his monthly reports below. You can also find his Surgery Timings straight below here -

Surgery

Surgeries are held on the first Saturday of every month. These are held at the communal Lounge in Turbeville Court in Bere Regis from 09.30 a.m. to 10.00 a.m. and in the Bloxworth Village Club from 10.30 a.m. to 11.00 a.m. If you have any questions or queries related to the business of Purbeck District Council please come along. If anyone wants to contact me and cannot get to the surgery my email address is here.

For older Monthly Reports, you can read his monthly report Archives by clicking the Photograph below

You can find out more about his role by clicking here

January 2010 Report

Bere Regis Polling Station

The polling station in Bere Regis will change from 2010 and will move from the First School to the Drax Hall which has recently been refurbished and is now fully accessible, as well as being more centrally located in the village. Using the hall will also avoid disrupting some school activities on polling days;

Heathlands Planning Framework

A group of local Authorities including Purbeck have issued this document for public consultation. It proposes the roll forward of the current Interim Planning Framework (IPF) for a further two years to the end of 2011. This is necessary because of the delay in producing the longer term strategy for Dorset Heathlands. The IPF retains as its guiding principle that there is no net increase in urban pressures on internationally important heathland as a result of additional development. The IPF is published for public consultation for an eight week period commencing Friday 27 November 2009 and ending Friday 22 January 2010. The document can be found on the websites of the relevant local authorities i.e. Bournemouth, Christchurch, Dorset, East Dorset, Poole and Purbeck; as well as being in local libraries. The Borough of Poole is co-ordinating the consultation arrangements and any comments should be sent by email to planning@poole.gov.uk with ‘IPF roll forward Consultation’ inserted in the subject box, or alternatively in writing to IPF roll forward Consultation, Planning and Regeneration Services, Borough of Poole, Civic Centre, Poole BH15 2RU. In responding to the consultation it would be helpful if you could address the following questions:

• Does the project list represent a range of projects to satisfactorily mitigate the adverse impacts of residential development on heathlands?
• Is the level of contribution per dwelling type reasonable?
• Is the definition of large scale developments as 50+ dwellings appropriate?
• Do you have any comments on the existing operation of the IPF?

Grass Cutting

Below is an abridged version of a recent report into grass cutting.

Purbeck District Council is keen to make progress with the rationalisation of grass cutting in Purbeck. The key aim is to have a single agency cutting adjacent pieces of land. Discussions have taken place with both Purbeck Housing Trust (PHT) and Dorset County Council (DCC) officers to try to find opportunities for rationalisation.

With PHT, officers at PDC are seeking to ‘swap’ responsibility for maintaining sites where that would provide a more coherent service. PHT do not intend to make major changes to their current service provision at present, but it will be reviewed as part of an overall review and may be provided in a different way in the future.

DCC are currently developing a policy based upon a ‘needs based’ approach to grounds maintenance. This approach involves setting a defined level of service for grounds (currently 12 cuts in urban areas). What that means in practice is that DCC will agree a number of grass cuts per annum for a type of site which they will either carry out directly or fund. DCC will not provide any additional funding for sites that other Councils or bodies wish to be maintained to a higher standard. DCC intend that the cost of any enhancement to that basic service will therefore fall to the District Council or other body (potentially the Parish Council) seeking the enhancement.

At this stage, officers at PDC have discussed three broad options to be explored once the DCC policy is finalised (hopefully by early this year). These are for PDC or for DCC to take responsibility for grounds maintenance sites (to be identified). In the latter case, DCC would offer only their basic service and PDC may have to fund any enhancements to that service. The third option is for DCC to be responsible for all PDC grounds maintenance.

DCC and PHT officers are currently producing a map showing all sites they maintain. This should help in dealing with the confusion over who owns which sites.

Peter Wharf
District Councillor

February 2010 Report

Planters

Purbeck District Council has offered to install two “planters” with flowers in Bere Regis. They will be replanted twice a year with seasonal flowers by PDC’s contractors at no cost to the Parish. For their part the Parish have agreed to water the planters regularly. The Parish Council have accepted PDC’s kind offer and will be discussing with Gardening Club some potential locations for these planters. More in future parish magazine reports when the locations are agreed.

Dustbin and Recycling Collections

Many thanks to everyone for their patience and toleration over the XMAS Bank Holiday period. Over this period SITA, who collect the rubbish, had very considerable difficulties particularly in Swanage and some of the outlying areas of the district, due to ice preventing the lorries from physically going up a number of hills! Fortunately we were relatively lightly affected with just one or two areas having their collections made a day later than scheduled. If we manage to avoid any more severe cold weather this should not happen again!

Grants for home improvement and energy conservation

Purbeck District Council is assisting people on low incomes this winter. The Council is offering a range of grants and loans to help relieve the hardship of high home maintenance costs and to help improve energy efficiency. An interest-free Equity Mortgage Loan of up to £15,000 is available to assist with substantial internal and external repairs, improving heating systems, insulation and thermal comfort and remedying hazards such as unsafe electrical circuits.

Small-scale and emergency works can be funded with the aid of a Safe and Secure Grant of up to £1,000. The Affordable Warmth Grant can help with heating repairs and replacement of a boiler, if not repairable, and free loft and cavity wall insulation is available for people over 60 through the “Council A to D Grant”. Last year the Government provided money for loft and cavity wall insulation to all home owners and privately rented tenants aged 70 or over. The A to D grant provided by Purbeck District Council extends this to all people aged 60 or over living in a property which is in Council tax band A to D. The grant can be used for topping up loft insulation, filling cavity walls, draught exclusion and hot water tank lagging. We have already seen a high demand for this scheme and as funds are limited grants will be available on a first come first served basis. We are working in partnership with the Dorset Energy Advice Centre who are overseeing the installation of the works, which are carried out by local installers. All works are guaranteed. This grant will fund 100% of the cost of the insulation works subject to a limit of £1000 per application.”

With high house prices and few affordable properties available to rent, many local people cannot make Purbeck their home. However, incentives are available to landlords who own a property in Purbeck which has been empty for six months and is in need of refurbishment. If they let to tenants currently on the Council Housing Register they could receive a “Landlords Empty Homes Grant” of up to £10,000. For further details on all the Grants and Schemes, contact the Environmental Services Private Sector Housing Team at Purbeck District Council on 01929 557311.

Peter Wharf
District Councillor

March 2010 Report

Council Tax

Every year I struggle to understand all the machinations related to council tax and to work within the competing constraints of providing a reasonable service whilst keeping costs controlled. This year I have been discussing this issue with the Chief Executive for nearly six months as we face one of the most difficult council tax setting points for many a year. In the paragraphs that follow, I have tried to give you some background information to put into context why the rises in this tax have been so difficult to manage. Please don’t shoot the messenger if you find the message unpleasant! By way of context; whilst PDC collect all Council tax they are only responsible for less than 10% of it. So for every £1000 collected the split is about £100 PDC; £700 Dorset County Council; £60 Fire; £100 Police and £40 Parish Councils.

The council tax was introduced in 1993/94 as a replacement for the community charge. It is now used as the main source of finance for local authority services. The tax is not automatically adjusted for inflation each year, in the same way as income tax and VAT is when people’s salaries go up or prices rise; and so any inflationary increase is very visible and has to be justified to both councillors and local residents. In the coming year, PDC will increase its council tax by 2.75%. This is one of the lowest increases on record although we are well aware that this will be difficult for many people, especially those on fixed incomes.

In its first year, the council tax had to be subsidised from its savings. This meant the council tax for just the district council’s services was set at £36.85 for a Band D property (reckoned to be a “typical” property”), whereas it should have been set at £65.48. Back in 1993/94, the district council’s services cost a total £3.8M, of which £2.7M was financed by grants from central government. Over the seventeen years since its introduction, the band D council tax has been increased to £165.75, which is still 2.5 times what the original level should have been. So what has caused the increase?

Over the years PDC’s expenditure has increased from £3.8M to £6.5M. If it had merely kept pace with inflation its expenditure would be £5.9M next year, but PDC has taken on extra services costing over £1.2M per year, largely at the behest of government. These extra services include recycling, Licensing, concessionary travel, community planning and community safety. Therefore PDC’s expenditure is about £600,000 per year below the £7.1M we would expect them to be spending.

So, if the government has told PDC to provide extra services, costing £1.2M each year, has the government increased its grant to PDC to pay for these services? Well, the grant has gone up from the £2.7M paid in 1993/94. To keep pace with inflation and to pay for the £1.2M worth of extra services, requested by government, the grant should now be £5.4M each year. But the grant is only £3.3M next year, which is £2.1M below the expected level.

Put another way, if the grant from government had kept pace with inflation and the extra services requested by government, the council tax next year would be £105 less than it will be, at £60.75 for a Band D property. So has your council tax gone up because of the PDC or because of the government; I leave you to judge.

Peter Wharf
District Councillor

April 2010 Report

Dorset for You Web site (Dorset4U)

It is with great sadness that I report the demise of the Purbeck District Council web site. We have decided to scrap our web site and amalgamate our web pages with those of Dorset County Council otherwise known as Dorest4U. This is a cost saving measure which I am unsure will succeed but I was outvoted on the proposal in a heated debate. The maximum savings are very small and the response of the public to Dorset’s web site has been poor so far – but we are promised a major improvement shortly. I will let you know the cutover date as soon as I know it.

Black Hill

Would the individual who is riding a motorised bike around Black Hill please stop it. You are damaging a piece of important habitat; it is an environmental noise nuisance as well as making the footpaths rutted and muddy. If anybody knows the name of this individual please let Jonathan Stuart at Wareham Police station know. The whole of Black Hill is an SSSI (site of special scientific interest) and an SAC (site of international importance) and as such has government legal protection (through Natural England) of its conservation status for the protection of wildlife. Riding a motor bike through any part of the area can cause disturbance to rare nesting birds, particularly during the forthcoming spring and can also cause damage to rare plants.

Cluster working

We have been discussing ways of working with other District Councils to pool our resources and to save money for some time now; it is known in the business as cluster working. However we have declined the proposal to merge our management team and staff with those of West Dorset along with Weymouth and Portland Councils under the leadership of one Chief Executive. A business case was produced which clearly demonstrated considerable savings for them but very little for PDC with significantly increased costs because of remote working and the distinct possibility of reduced service to Council tax Payers. We have thus decided to look for other areas of cost savings. We are already working in partnership with our neighbours, such as the successful merging of our Revenues and Benefits service and Building Control service with West Dorset and Weymouth and Portland. We are also participating in the formation of the county-wide joint waste management project and in addition a Dorset-wide procurement project which has already brought the council savings of over £50,000 this year.

Peter Wharf
District Councillor

May 2010 Report

Elections

There were scheduled to be eight elections for District Council seats taking place on Thursday May 6th but as you may have already know, residents of Bere Regis and Bloxworth will not have to vote as there was only one candidate for this ward. I am delighted to continue as your Independent District Councillor for another 4 years and will continue to pen these short articles each month. The resultant composition of the 24 seat Purbeck District Council following these elections may change from the current “hung” Council, I will let you know in next month’s report!

Peter Wharf
District Councillor

June 2010 Report

Annual Council Meeting

On Thursday 13th May we held our annual Council Meeting at which all key posts are decided following the election on May 6th. This year eight of the twenty four District Council seats were up for election including this seat of Bere Regis and Bloxworth. However as I reported last month I was elected unopposed, good fortune that none of my fellow Councillors enjoyed and the subject of some jealousy from my Councillor colleagues.

Previously Purbeck District Council was perfectly balanced with 11 Liberal Democrats 2 Independents and 11 Conservatives. This year one Conservative seat was won by a Liberal Democrat giving a 12/10/2 split of Councillors. The Liberal Democrats retained control of the Council appointing the Leader and the main portfolio holders. I am delighted to report that both parties were happy for me to continue as Chair of the Planning Board and I was reappointed without a vote.

Peter Wharf
District Councillor

July 2010 Report

Bere Regis Taxi Scheme

As a result of discussions involving myself the Parish Council and officers from DCC, Dorset County Council has agreed to introduce a pilot scheme of subsidised Taxis to and from Wareham. Details are shown elsewhere in this magazine but I urge you to use the scheme if you can as it will only be continued after a trial period if usage justifies it.

Recycling Bags

Large Recycling bags are now available for the collection of paper and light card only. If you are a keen recycler and find that you don’t have enough room in your box for all the items you are recycling please call Purbeck District Council’s Recycling Helpline on 01929 557279 and order yours. They are free and available on a first come basis (as stocks are limited).

The recent death of a Refuse Collector

A recent tragic death reminds us all not to overfill wheelie bins. Purbeck District Council is reminding residents that they must not overfill their wheelie bins, following the recent death of a refuse collector who became trapped whilst unloading an over-loaded bin.

The employee was killed after becoming caught in the bin lifting mechanism on a refuse collection vehicle. Overfilled bins reduce the collectors’ ability to ensure that the containers are correctly mounted on the bin lifting mechanisms.

Building in and around Bere Regis

There is a further report in the Parish Council report for this month and although the road shows are almost finished there is still time to log on to the web site to review the building proposals for the whole district and to register your views. The link to the consultation on the Dorset for You website is here

Peter Wharf
District Councillor

August 2010 Report

Core Strategy

Many of you will have followed the Core Strategy which is the process the District Council is going through to determine, amongst other thing, house building in Purbeck over the next twenty years. You will have read in the press that Regional Spatial Strategy in Purbeck is cancelled. As part of this Regional Spatial Strategy, the previous Government’s Secretary of State had proposed 2,750 homes on green belt land around Lytchett Minster. However, the new Government has confirmed that these proposals have been dropped.

Purbeck District Council had unanimously opposed the plans put forward in 2008 and supported residents in their fight against the threat. The Council was proactive in fighting the proposals through commissioning of research on the impact of development on the district’s natural habitat, particularly the heathland which covers much of the district. We welcome the government’s announcement to give local communities the power to decide on how and where we should meet future housing growth”

The Council is currently consulting with residents and businesses on the location of housing that is needed in the district and is gathering feedback through questionnaires and consultation events. This is being done as part of the Council’s work in producing the Core Strategy - the new plan to manage growth and development up to the year 2026.

We still need to produce a Core Strategy (sometimes called a Local Plan) because our current local plan was not properly adopted 20 years ago and if we do not produce an agreed core strategy development in Purbeck could be decided by Developers. They would appeal against the Council refusing any application on the grounds that we do not have a Core Strategy and that there is therefore no guidance as to what should be built and thus developers could put their own cases forward on a piecemeal basis. We do not want that to happen which is why it is important that we have something that we can demonstrate has been the subject of proper consultation and subject to a due democaratic process!

By the time of the publication of this report the consultation period will have finished and I hope to produce a summary of the responses for the whole of Purbeck for the September Parish Magazine. This will be followed by a Council Meeting (provisionally) on the 5th October at Purbeck School starting at 19.00 hours. The meeting will be solely dedicated to this subject (somewhat confusingly called the Core Strategy) and will be open to anybody to attend and to speak at the beginning (subject to some controls to prevent it going on all night!). I will confirm all of this in my next report.

The Wind Farm at East Stoke

We have provisionally set a date for the Planning Board hearing solely dedicated to the Wind farm application at East Stoke. Because of the wide public interest in this application and its relevance and application to the whole of Purbeck we are going to hold a Planning Board on the evening of Tuesday 28th September at Purbeck School starting at 19.00 hours. This will be open to all the public and there will be opportunities to speak (for three minutes) by any member of the public who have previously submitted written comments. We will, however, be encouraging individuals to group together to appoint a spokesperson where possible, so that the meeting can be conducted in a timely manner and avoid undue repetition of points. Please do come along whatever your viewpoint. The Planning Board will debate the proposals and then vote as to whether to approve or refuse the Officers’ recommendations (which as yet I do not know!). Confirmation of all of this next month.

Peter Wharf
District Councillor

September 2010 Report

Rail reconnection Wareham to Swanage

Purbeck District Council has confirmed its support for the reconnection of Swanage to the mainline rail network by funding rebuilding work (£3M) to the Worgret Road signal box. Following last week’s commitment by Dorset County Council to the project for the reconnection, the District Council today gave its support as part of the Purbeck Transportation Strategy. This now gives the assurance that funding is in place to commence re-signalling works.

However a number of Councillors (including myself) voted against this use of PDC’s funds as we were disappointed that a study into the use and continuation of the Transport Infrastructure charge (which is funding this) has not yet been complete and the Committees final report could have a major impact on the future of this charge. We were also unconvinced that this represents value for money or, if money is to be spent, that this is the most deserving project. I will report in more detail in later reports.

The Wind Farm at East Stoke - Decision postponed

Purbeck District Council’s Wind Farm Special Planning Meeting set for 28 September has been postponed. To thoroughly assess the complex issues surrounding the potential impact of the wind farm, which would be situated in the Parish of East Stoke, officers at Purbeck District Council have advised that they will not be in a position by the end of September to make recommendations to the Council’s Planning Board.

Alan Davies, Development Control Manager at Purbeck District Council, said: “Whilst the time taken to formulate officers’ views has taken longer than had been anticipated, I am sure all parties will agree that this matter needs careful and thorough consideration in order to reach an informed recommendation.”

The Special Planning Meeting will now be held at the end of November 2010. I will let you know when it is scheduled to be held as soon as a date is agreed

Consultation on flood and erosion around Poole harbour

The Environment Agency is developing a strategy to manage tidal flood and erosion risk between Durlston Head and Hengistbury Head, including Poole Harbour, for the next 100 years. They are carrying it out in partnership with the local authorities of Bournemouth, Poole, Dorset County and Purbeck District Council.

They are doing this to work out the best way to protect communities and the environment into the future as sea levels rise. If you want to find out more information please contact the project team by email here

Information on the project and how you should submit your views should be on the project website here

The strategy has three main objectives:

i) to define a 100 year plan of investment for tidal flood and coastal erosion risk management by the Environment Agency and local authorities to protect local communities

ii) to identify and prioritise other flood risk management activities such as providing advice to utility companies to protect important infrastructure, providing advice to planning authorities to control development in inappropriate areas, and investment in flood warning;

iii) to decide where we should create new inter-tidal wildlife habitats to compensate for losses of habitat caused by rising sea levels.

Peter Wharf
District Councillor

October 2010 Report

Awaiting the Meeting