Town council could ‘take back control’ of local services from Wiltshire Council

WESTBURY could take back control of local assets and services under proposals being considered by the town council.

If the proposals are agreed, it would see facilities like public open spaces and grounds, bus shelters, allotments and toilets being run by the Westbury Town Council, rather than Wiltshire Council.

Wiltshire Council has offered the town the opportunity to take on owning, managing and maintaining all public open spaces and grounds, allotments, play and MUGA or multi-use games areas, (the town council already manages all Wiltshire Council-owned facilities on a rolling lease), street cleaning, bus shelters, trees on amenity land, and the Leigh Park car park and Bratton Road viewing area. The offer of public open spaces and grounds would include the day centre at Grassacres.

Wiltshire Council has also offered the town council management and maintenance of the cemetery grounds and the public toilets at Warminster Road and High Street car parks.

The town council says that if approved, the work would be split between a mix of in-house and outsourcing in order to best deliver the services. The council will consult with the public about taking over the services when details are clearer.

The town council says, “There are a number of benefits for Westbury should the town council take ownership and control of the services currently delivered by Wiltshire Council such as having control over the frequency and standard of the contract, it will enable the town council to focus on priorities and have flexibility when priorities change as well as improving the look and feel of the town making it feel loved and cared for.

“This will also give the opportunity to develop, protect and enhance green/open spaces as well as enabling the town council to introduce new initiatives such as recycling points and rewilding and community orchards.”

At a meeting of the town council on Monday 4th September councillors voted to agree in principle to take on these assets and services subject to further negotiation with Wiltshire Council about other assets in the town to ensure best value for the public.

Speaking at the meeting, Westbury Mayor cllr Mike Sutton said, “I see this as part of a journey and part of localism. This town has come a long way in the past ten years for what it does for its citizens.

“If we can take control of things that are financially viable, it gives us control of our town which means we can do things like cut grass and dispose of the clippings rather than let them rot in the grass, we can do more re-wilding and we can do some of the environmental things that we want. It’s a step forward for this council. We have the money for this as it has been put away for the last five or six years.

“There are bigger risks in not doing this – Wiltshire Council has made it very plain that they will dive down to what is legally possible with this, which may turn out to be just one grass cut a year or one bin emptied a month, we don’t know. The danger for us is that if we say no, and other nearby towns take up this offer in their own towns, we could become the dirtiest town in Wiltshire as we could be reliant on the one Wiltshire Council scrub up every so often.”

At the meeting cllr Matthew Dean asked for an amendment to be added to the proposal so that discussions about the town council taking on these services could also include discussions about taking on other assets in the town to ensure best value for the public.

He said, “We’ve got the money to do this and some of that money has come from developer contributions, but when that money is spent it is gone – that pot is not topped up. If this goes through as is, we are effectively taking on long-term liabilities that our neighbouring parishes do not have.

“If we take this on now, if it comes to the discussions about taking over the assets, we would have lost our main bargaining chip. The reason Wiltshire Council wants this off the books is because it’s very expensive for them to deliver but the capital cost of keeping things going such as the library and the cemetery is a secondary consideration for them. Their strategy is to get day-to-day services off their books and then deal with the capital stuff later on.

Consideration of the scheme follows work by a task and finish group of Westbury Town Council who recommended the scheme to full council, who will now progress negotiations with Wiltshire Council and then consult the public.