Category: Winchester

Categories
Snow Winchester

Useful snow update from Hampshire County Council

I’ve just received the following very useful update about the weather:

I can now confirm that the weather forecast is predicting, with high confidence, that we will have snow tomorrow morning from around 3 am onwards, across the County. The heaviest snow is expected from 8am onwards and a fall of 5cm – 10cm with potential drifting is possible away from the coastal strip, where accumulations will be lower. We expect the snow to stop by late afternoon, but it is then likely to be a cold night, and we expect continuing overnight freezes through the weekend – so the snow will probably be around on the ground during this time, freezing hard each night. We are not expecting any further snow falls over the weekend at this stage.

We are now running the P1 routes and will do so twice more (at 18:30 and at midnight) to get a good volume of salt down before the snow arrives. We will then have the gritters on standby with snow ploughs fitted, at our depots to deploy as necessary tomorrow morning. The community routes are also being run now and will be again early tomorrow morning to ensure that they are well salted to ease access to schools and community facilities such as doctors surgeries etc. We are targeting additional salting on known previous problem areas such as the A31 at Four Marks or the A339 south of Basingstoke. Any community self-help action using the grit bins should be aiming to get salt down before the snow comes, to maximise effectiveness. We are planning to replenish grit bins over the weekend where we can. The farmers we have arrangements in place with for snow ploughing will also be operational as required tomorrow.  The Police will lead the communications on messages to motorists, but the theme will be don’t travel unless you have to, and if you do take proper precautions and be prepared for winter driving conditions.

On Saturday morning, assuming that we have control of conditions on the main P1 routes, the emphasis will switch to supporting access to shopping areas and we will also plan to run the secondary (P2) routes which should ease access in residential secondary routes early on Saturday. We are also liaising with our colleagues in the District Councils to co-ordinate activities away from the main and secondary salting routes, and will as usual mobilise our sub-contractors to support the winter response. I hope that this information is useful to you and the message can if desired be passed on to Parish Council contacts and others.

The note is sent directly to District Council Chief Executives for further distribution to District colleagues as required.

There’s a useful map of gritting routes on the Hampshire County Council website.

Categories
Education Fulflood School Places St Paul Winchester

School places consultation finishes tomorrow

The consultation about Winchester’s primary school places is still ongoing at http://www.hants.gov.uk/winchesterprimaryplaces and it’s vital that as many local people as possible respond before the closure date of June 15.

Under both the main scenarios being consulted upon, Fuflood is by far the most affected area in the whole city with either a 100% or 50% increase in local primary places.

I was at the public meeting in Westgate School with our local County Councillor, Phryn Dickens, and fellow City Councillor, Robert Hutchison, and Phryn attended the public meeting at County Hall (unfortunately, it was the same night as a Winchester City Full Council Meeting so the City Councillors couldn’t attend). We have also met council officers and the chair of governors and head teacher of both affected local schools.

While quite a lot of new information has been added to the website since the consultation began, there are still a lot of questions to be answered and extra details needed – particularly on ‘Option B’ where 5 schools are due to be expanded: what exactly are the facilities that we will see in each school under the various options – and what exactly will they cost?  I’ve also been asking a series of questions about likely catchment areas under the two options.

Phryn has also suggested some extra sites for evaluation and raised questions about the traffic assumptions in the proposal.

In addition to the questions above, I’ve also been asking about traffic, for more information about 4-16 schools and more specific details of the assumed facilities available in Western and Rotherley under both of the scenarios.  I also managed to highlight several developments that had not been included in the county’s calculations. (There’s a whole issue about the linkage between planning of houses and planning of schools which is a real priority for me to sort out as a councillor).

It’s not long to go now.  The consultation ends tomorrow. If the County Council sticks to its plan to have a decision in July, we should see the proposals from council officers on July 9.  And the final decision will be made on July 17 by County Councillor Roy Perry.  The papers for the decision and details of the meeting should be available on this page here.  I’ll keep reporting on progress via Twitter and on this site.

Categories
City Council Twitter Winchester

Twitter feedback on Winchester City Council’s Information Management strategy

As an experiment, I posted a message about Winchester’s draft Information Management strategy on Twitter to get the input of local information professionals (and anyone else who was interested).

Given that we have an IBM Research Centre in the district – as well as many IT professionals living locally including those involved in groups like WinchesterWeb – it seemed sensible to tap into their expertise.

I had my own concerns about the paper:

  • While it referenced the council’s immediate ‘Transforming Winchester’ organisational development programme, I didn’t see it reflecting Winchester’s strategic priorities (as laid out primarily in the Community Strategy and associated change plans) – particularly the short-term ones of
    • supporting older people,
    • making our services more accessible
    • reducing the District’s carbon footprint;
  • There wasn’t any reference to best practice or benchmarking or, for example, a SWOT analysis
  • I wasn’t able to take a clear set of objectives or priorities from it
  • Important issues such as open data and security weren’t reflected

but before blogging or speaking about these, I wanted to see what other people who know more about these issues than I do had to say.

The response (below) has been critical, but also helpful.  The most helpful aspect is that a group of local residents with expertise in this area are planning to meet in the Hyde Tavern from 8 pm this evening to discuss a fuller response.

There will be a public participation session at tomorrow’s meeting where members of the public will be able to have their say.

Needless to say anyone who wants to contribute to this evening’s meeting (or tomorrow) will be very welcome.

Twitter response to the IM Strategy

Peter Jordan:

The paper doesn’t say very much at all!  – no mention of security. And it’s an IM strategy, *not* IT. it’s wrongly named on the Cabinet agenda.

No mention of cloud/G-Cloud, or open source.

Julian W:

8 pages saying absolutely nothing of use. Or have I missed something in there?

Are the IT Technical Strategy and IT Technical Specification & Plan available (see 1.7a & b)?

Alistair Rae:

Main comment would be that the document isn’t a strategy, it’s a vague statement of aspiration. No reflection of best practice?

Then jumps straight into technology and systems solutions, only passing mention of the business change programme.

IM should be mainly about business activity, rather than constraining the business to suit the technology.

Nothing about interoperability or service delivery integration with other local gov, national gov, third sector etc.

also slightly concerning that at same meeting is a request to release 100k for re-procurement of an IM solution pre strategy

would also disagree with conclusion that Sharepoint is an EDRM, doesn’t comply with National Archives principles for IM

demonstrates that council IT department is disconnected from both the council business and internally

I’d also question assertion that procurement is really below the public contracts threshold. 2k down suspiciously convenient.

would question why “lowest cost, technically compliant” is preferred procurement route, assumes well formed requirement…

in the absence of an IM strategy I’d question the maturity of the requirement. No discussion of business change.

for a business change project like EDRM modernisation Most Economically Advantageous Tender would be more appropriate

Tanya Jane Park

They should “Go Google”! Other UK local authorities have so won’t be trail blazers

Sarah Jones

There are a lot of words there but the doc doesn’t tell me much. Where are the business objectives? What do they want to achieve? I’d expect this doc to explain clearly and concisely how IM will be used to deliver the business strategy…

Fancy a pub meet-up tonight to put feedback together?

 

Categories
Fulflood St Paul

Planning for the future – St Paul’s Church Community Consultation

While I was at today’s St Paul’s Community Day helping out with the Winchester Churches Night Shelter stand, I was given a leaflet about the St Paul’s Church Community Consultation.

They want people’s views on how the buildings and open spaces beside the church could be updated and improved to serve the Fulflood community better.

If you’d like to respond, the questionnaire is available online via http://stmatthewsandstpauls.org.uk/our-future/how-can-we-be-better.

Categories
Crime St Paul Winchester

Police community meeting for Fulflood – May 25

Just been forwarded the attached via Neighbourhood Watch:

Police and partners will be holding a community meeting for the residents of Weeke, Teg Down, Harestock, Littleton and Fulflood areas of Winchester.

The first PACT (Partnership and Communities Together) meeting for these areas will be held at 7pm on Friday, May 25 at Peter Symonds College.

Sergeant Matt Fancett, said: “The aim of this meeting is for members of the public to set local policing and community safety priorities by discussing local issues with the police and our key partners locally.

“If you believe that there are issues within your community this will be your chance to discuss them with the police and our partners. If you live in Weeke, Harestock, Littleton and Fulflood areas of Winchester, just turn up on the night, and we can discuss any community issues with you. We hope to see you there.”

We would like to encourage as many members of public to attend as possible to discuss these issues and we will be advertising this soon in the area. Please feel free to pass this information on to anyone who you may feel would benefit or like to attend.

The meeting is at 7 p.m.  Flyer is attached here.