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
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