Parish Council Election 2021

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On 6th May all five seats of the Parish Council will become vacant. Your villages need committed councillors who are passionate about their communities and seek to make a change to help improve the lives of their residents. Please think about putting yourself forward for election. Full information is available at

wiltshire.gov.uk/elections-town-parish

and you can download a flyer and a sheet of Frequently Asked Questions below.

The more people who come forward, the better the Parish Council will be!

Neighbourhood Watch Coordinator

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The current Neighbourhood Watch Coordinator, Dympna Bell, wishes to relinquish the post. If you are interested in taking on this important role please contact Dympna:

Community Speed Watch – call for volunteers!

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The Parish Council is setting up a Community Speed Watch scheme. As a preliminary, a Traffic Survey was carried out by Wiltshire Council to determine the facts regarding traffic speeds in the villages. To do this, they placed rubber ‘Metro Count’ strips across the road at various places chosen by the Parish Council. These strips were placed in the villages before Christmas. The data has now been analysed and the summary results are shown below. The criteria for setting up a scheme have been met. The Wiltshire Police have therefore been asked to assist us in setting it up. This will involve training and the procurement of some equipment.

Our next step is to gather a team of volunteers. Jamie Fagan has agreed to take on the role of team leader so please contact him if you would like to volunteer as part of the team.

Census 2021

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Census Day is Sunday 21st March. You will get a letter with an access code to the website so that you can complete your return (which is mandatory). Here are Frequently Asked Questions.

COVID-19

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COVID-19: Recent and upcoming changes

Information and advice on Covid-19 for Wiltshire

The Parish Council has also set up a community self-help arrangement to help see us all through the crisis.

The purpose of this initiative is to help each other – not just the most vulnerable – because we all may need some sort of help, even if we are lucky enough not to fall ill. The closure of many shops and the disruption to other shopping and services can present people with all sorts of new difficulties. This is already a notably friendly and neighbourly place to live and between us we have an amazing collection of skills, talents and contacts. There is lot that we can do help each other not just survive but thrive at this strange time.

The kind of help we are thinking about ranges from making a phone call to a neighbour to dispel the isolation blues, to shopping and collecting prescriptions on behalf of those who find themselves needing to be isolated at home.

At the village level the coordinators are:

Kingston – Ted Flint: , 844507

Brixton – Chris Buchan Jones: , 841768‬

Monkton – Tass Richardson: , 844031

If you are worried, or need any help, please do contact one of these coordinators.

Please keep looking out for each other!

Useful information

From the Government

From the NHS

From the Police

From Wiltshire Council

From Mere surgery

Avian Influenza (Bird Flu)

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An Avian Influenza Prevention Zone (AIPZ) has been declared in England (effective from 5pm on the 11 November 2020) with additional housing measures in force from 14 December 2020. This means all bird keepers in England (whether they have pet birds, commercial flocks or just a few birds in a backyard flock) are required by law to take a range of biosecurity precautions, including housing their birds (except in very specific circumstances).
Close to home, H5N8 (highly pathogenic) avian influenza was confirmed in a backyard flock near Gillingham in Dorset on 19th December.

If you keep poultry or other captive birds, you must take action to reduce the risk of disease in your flock by following government advice on biosecurity. Further details of the measures that apply in the AIPZ can be found in the AIPZ declaration.

To assist all bird keepers in complying with the new rules the biosecurity guidance has been updated and a new Biosecurity self-assessment checklist has been published.

Good biosecurity improves the overall health and productivity of flocks by helping keep out poultry diseases such as avian influenza and limiting the spread of disease in an outbreak.

This applies just as much if you only have a few birds as pets, or if you have a large commercial flock. An outbreak of avian influenza in back garden chickens results in the same restrictions on movement of birds. It has the same effect on farmers and trade in poultry as an outbreak on a commercial farm.