Julian Johnson - The Crusader's Councillor for April

Who are our local councillors? I thought it would be interesting to have a closer look at one of two of them. Did you know that Councillors got paid? Not just expenses, a salary. Neither did I. Apparently the current Labour government introduced pay for councillors a few years ago. Still, sitting though all those meetings must be torture, I’m sure they deserve some compensation. But how much? Difficult to find out.

The most recent document I can find on the subject on Salisbury District Council’s website is dated October 2004 – Members’ Allowance Scheme for 2003/2004. In that year the highest allowance went to Mr. K.C. Wren, Upper Bourne, Idminston and Winterbourne - £18,519.42. p.a. I can’t quite make out if that is an allowance, i.e. expenses with an unlisted salary added, or the entire annual payment. Still I am sure it was worth every penny.

However, we shouldn’t quibble about the existence of salaries. What I want is a little more rigour for our money. Let’s forget the old adage about not biting the hand that feeds you, I would like a few bites on behalf of us electors.

Which brings us to our Councillor for April, Mr Julian Johnson, County Councillor for Downton and Ebble Valley Electoral Division. Julian brought himself to the Crusader’s attention by speaking at the recent extraordinary meeting of Salisbury Council on the planning controversy. He thought it would be useful for the audience to know how the consultation and planning process had been conducted and how the powers that be had arrived at their decisions. As an ex-Chairman of Wiltshire County Council and former Chairman of the Transport, Highways Planning Committee and the Council Planning and Transport group he should know. He carefully explained that they had met and consulted and eventually come up with the figure of around 9,000 new homes for the Salisbury District. (The Crusader plans to try to find out how they came up with this number.) Then about a year ago it wad decided by central government that the number of new homes to be built in Salisbury should be increased to 12,400. How? Why? Julian only said that he ‘thought it unlikely that central government would change its mind’.

Come on Julian! You were speaking the very day that the government did a U-turn on the 10p tax issue. You are a Conservative councillor so you must remember John Major. Governments do change their policies. Get a grip and pay attention.

Anyway, some background information. Julian lives at Newcourt Lodge, Nunton. Sounds lovely doesn’t it? Well, actually we all have a chance to enjoy Newcourt Lodge because Gillian Johnson runs it as a B&B. http://www.circlehotels.co.uk/accomodationinfo.asp?id=280 It is promoted as an 'Attractive house with many orignial features, set in mature garden with views over the Wiltshire countryside.' As indeed there are - the image on the left shows the fields around Newcourt Lodge.


Curiously enough my perusal of the Black Book didn’t indicate that Nunton was going to have a huge development of 2,500 houses just next to it, but perhaps I have missed something. However, if they were going to build there I am sure that Julian would say a bit more than 'I don't think that central government is likely to change its mind.'

Julian has three council jobs, he sits on the County Council, is a member of the South West Local Government Association and is a member of the South West Regional Assembly, but I am sure that he can’t possibly draw three separate salaries for his duties. He also sits on the National Park Authority for the New Forest (probably just for fun with no payment) and has had a few trips to Brussels to liaise there on our behalf.

In his interests he lists military and colonial history, wildlife and the environment. He also enjoys travelling to remote places. Julian, just a hint, if you live in South Wiltshire, Brussels is not a remote destination.

The Red Mist Party

Apparently Kelvin MacKenzie (not previously my favourite person, but hard times make strange alliances) is standing as a local councillor in next Thursday’s elections. He has decided to become the founder member of The Red Mist Party. Red Mist rises when some action of local government changes your mood from grumpy acceptance to outright fury. Sounds familiar? Perhaps we should form our own branch.

His moment came when he discovered that Elmbridge Borough Council had increased the parking fee at Weybridge station by 43 percent to £5.00 per day.

Good luck with your campaign Kelvin and, when you calm down, just be grateful that parking at Weybridge is still cheaper than leaving your car at Salisbury station for a day.

Eco Unfriendly

An article in The Spectator about the new Eco Towns proposed by this government and which are mainly to be built in non-Labour voting constituencies as part of the three million new homes by 2026 rush.

http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-magazine/style-and-travel/629411/tesco-village.thtml

Ross Clark writes much better than I can and covers the history of a site in Cambridgeshire previously turned down for development because it was a green field site with poor public transport links. This has now re-emerged as a potential Eco development.

In his article Ross asks why a site previously rejected on environmental grounds can suddenly become eco friendly and comments that the current planning process doesn’t owe a lot to democracy. I couldn’t agree more.

U Turn or Double Cross?

Well, I’m still confused. On Wednesday night I attended the extraordinary council meeting at Salisbury City Hall, but I am not sure that I fully understand exactly what decisions were reached.

There has been a huge fuss about the size of the development that has been proposed for Salisbury and, in our little corner of Wiltshire, an even bigger fuss about one particular option - building a new village of 2,500 houses on a green field site between the villages of Winterslow and Firsdown. There have been petitions, village hall meetings, a demonstration in Salisbury market square, a poster campaign and a flood of written complaints to the council. The extraordinary council meeting had been called at short notice in response to the public outcry.

The councillors looked quite nervous when we trooped in, filling the hall to the back and muttering evilly. However, the English middle-class are normally quite restrained when sober so the public gallery limited itself to raucous shouts of agreement when pleased and hisses and whistles when we disagreed with a speaker.

After about two hours the councillors forgot about their unusually large audience and concentrated on political attacks and personal abuse. At the moment Salisbury District Council is controlled by a Labour / LibDem coalition. As a group they mainly sit for city wards and one of the more serious complaints about the whole of the planning consultation process is that their communication with the people who live in the villages around Salisbury has been poor, or non-existent. There have been threats to sue the council over this which may have concentrated their minds a little.

After some party political abuse and recrimination the Labour / LibDem group came up with a number of suggestions and offers.

They first suggested that the option of the Firdown-Winterslow settlement should be scrapped. They then offered to re-submit the entire Core Strategy document cutting the number of houses that would be built. When I left at 9.00pm (hunger overcame me) they were still wrangling about details.

On the face of it this looks like a big climb-down by the council – but I wonder. In April 2009 Salisbury District Council will cease to exist and will become part of the much larger Unitary Authority to be known as Wiltshire Council. Will decisions made by our District Council in 2008 be carried forward? Will the whole decision making process be passed to the, largely unelected, South West Regional Council? Will Whitehall have the final say? Will anyone take any notice of our opinions? Are they simply trying to shut us up until the Unitary Authority takes over?

One thing is certain, the Wiltshire Council meetings will be held in Trowbridge and it will be a lot harder for 500 residents of Firsdown and Winterslow to travel to Trowbridge to protest when we are not happy with their decisions.

How did we get here?

The Government has decided that 100,000 new homes should be built in the South West of England by 2026. South Wiltshire, the area around the city of Salisbury, has been instructed to find room for 12,400 of these new houses. South Wiltshire is only one twentieth of the land mass of the South West but has been allocated one eighth of the proposed new homes. No additional money will come from the Government for roads, schools or hospitals. The plans include a target for new jobs – but this appears to be based on pious hopes rather than reality.


Salisbury District Council appears to think that resistance is futile.


A quote from the Salisbury Journal of 17th April 2008

‘Salisbury Council has issued a statement warning that failure to meet nationally imposed deadlines for completing the consultation process (on the new development) would make a bad situation worse….. Put bluntly, decisions about where development takes place would be taken out of our hands. Housing and job numbers for South Wiltshire will be set by the government and developers, and local people will have not say in how and where this happens.’


Through rising levels of fury I began to wonder how our democratic rights had been suspended. This blog, written by someone who has always found local politics mind numbing, will explore and try to explain in plain English, how this very strange situation has come about.