Letters
Bourton residents urged to speak up n I’m writing in response to the recent letter from Jeremy Bloomfield about council tax. We have indeed saved £25million since Dorset Council was created in 2019, through our more efficient operating model. These efficiency savings are very much in line with the initial business case for Local Government Reorganisation. The money saved has been reinvested into vital frontline services for residents. As you will be aware, the need in our population for adult social care (which we have a statutory duty to provide) is growing year on year, as people live longer with more complex health conditions. Because of this and the impact of the covid pandemic, the cost of social care in Dorset has risen by £26million since the council was created. Consequently, we are not in a position to pass on savings to council taxpayers and indeed had we not become a unitary council, we would have been in a significantly more challenging financial situation than we currently are. Like councils across the country, the funding we receive from Government has decreased dramatically over the past decade. The Government expects councils to raise the income it needs to deliver services from council tax. In accordance with the two per cent council tax referendum limit increases have been relatively modest, with typical band D increases of about a £1 per week. I’m pleased to say that
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despite our challenging financial position we have been able to avoid any major cuts to the vital services we provide to Dorset residents. I know this continuity of service is highly valued by many residents and forms a key policy of the council. As regards your question on council tax for St Mary’s School near Shaftesbury but officially in the Wiltshire Council area, the site will be managed by a company owned by Dorset Council. This company will pay tax due to Wiltshire Council from its income. The company will derive income from all its operations including the school. There are two key benefits resulting from this bold and ambitious initiative: better outcomes for the young people who need our support, and better value for the Dorset taxpayer. This is typical of the ‘invest to save’ mantra which is embedded in the culture of Dorset Council. I hope that answers your questions. Cllr Spencer Flower Leader of Dorset Council n The columns of the BVM are the only route through which most people in Bourton will learn about a current planning application (a full application not an outline one) to build 30 houses outside the village boundary enshrined in the Neighbourhood Plan. This application has been timed so that the public consultation period runs over Christmas and New Year, so that there is minimal likelihood of the community being aware of the proposal or in a position
New Blackmore Vale, 21st January 2022
to take action. Once again Bourton Parish Council has ignored what many people would see as its basic duty. There has been no significant attempt to involve local residents; merely some brief words on the village website and a meeting of the council with minimal notice of which few were aware. Surely in 2022 a parish council should realise that its first responsibility is to ensure that the community’s views can be expressed and are respected. That requires real will and effort on its part. But no, the parish council has enthusiastically and unreservedly backed the proposal regardless of what the village as a whole may think. The lure for the PC is the developers’ indication that they will build a village hall if allowed to undertake major building on what is otherwise protected land. The site in question, at Sandways Farm, is the one that which was heavily favoured by residents in our community referendum over the parish council’s strange proposal for a site outside the village. The previous Sandways proposal, however, was for a very small number of houses in return for providing land for a village hall. The present application is utterly different. Bourton already has a large, long incomplete, development on the former factory site which has caused protracted and still unresolved problems and from which lessons should have been learned. It is surely plain to anyone that
a proposal for a further 30 houses linked to the building of a village hall in a settlement the size of Bourton needs to be gone into in real depth by the wider community and that, at the very least, the parish council needs to take proper advice on implementing safeguards that are stronger than normal planning conditions. The last thing that community representatives should do is to ally themselves unreservedly to commercial developers. That is not where their responsibilities lay. 30 houses, with only three somewhat discounted and none to rent, and the further spread of the village boundaries to which they may lead are too high a price to pay. Money has just been spent on the refurbishment of the existing village hall. Bourton already has other venues: the church and the school hall and playing field. If those three worked together Bourton would be well served and a novel and creative collaborative arrangement of that kind would stand a good chance of attracting funding. I urge Bourton people to express their views to the planning authority, Dorset Council, without delay. Application no. 04282. Trevor Bailey Bourton n Over Christmas week I took my sister to visit Woolland, the village where we were born and the little church where we were christened. I take my mother quite often, as we try and
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