People Web International

By KT, PWI Reporter Wiltshire

WILTSHIRE, UNITED KINGDOM - The Wiltshire public are being asked by their local libraries to volunteer to help keep libraries open.  Some librarians and staff will either lose their jobs or be asked to work more flexibly. And opening hours will be halved at all but the bigger libraries. 

Wiltshire Council decided on these steps in response to the government’s 28% reduction in their budget as a result of the banking and financial crisis. Taken together, the measures have to achieve savings of £0.5m over two years for the county’s budget. 

By this week more than twenty volunteers had shown interest in the small town of Wilton in the south of the county. Typical of many communities, its small library boasts books, DVD’s, free internet access, a local history section, a home library service, children’s activities, and a local information service. Staff are well-informed, friendly and put themselves out to help. 



 
















The changes are all part of Wiltshire Council’s new vision for the library service approved in January. The county plans to keep open all 31 of the county’s libraries and ensure they remain at the heart of their communities. Ten will be community libraries, funded by the council and supported by its professional staff, but operated entirely based on volunteers. 

Libraries are also expected to increase in importance as the council’s local face for information about its services.

The establishment of free libraries in Britain followed The Public Libraries Act of 1855 which established the free access to books to raise public literacy. Counties and cities in the UK established large central libraries with smaller branch libraries and mobile library services covering rural areas. 

Wiltshire’s response to the drastic budget cuts sweeping UK public services is therefore in marked contrast to those councils which completely close libraries. However, success in the county is dependent on establishing a sustainable level of volunteering. 

Time will tell, but the first signs in Wilton bode well.

-- by KT - PWI Reporter Wiltshire - wiltshire@peoplewebinternational.com

WILTSHIRE - The small town of Wootton Bassett in west Wiltshire became well-known in the UK in recent years, as townsfolk and the streets often stood silent for the funeral corteges of service personnel killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. The tradition developed spontaneously, in a county where 20% of the population are military or connected with it making the impact of the war felt widely.  

Now that honour bestowed on the dead by townsfolk is itself being honoured. On 16th March 2011, the Prime Minister David Cameron announced that the Queen will rename the town Royal Wootton Bassett, ‘as an enduring symbol of the nation’s admiration and gratitude’. The re-naming will take place before the nearby Royal airforce base at Lyneham  is closed, with military transports relocated to Brize Norton in nearby Oxford by the end of 2011.  

The town joins Royal Leamington Spa and Royal Tunbridge Wells.  Both of these spa towns petitioned for the honour in recognition of their antiquity and Royal patronage of their facilities.  Leamington Spa was granted the title in 1838 by Queen Victoria, and Tunbridge Wells in 1909 by King Edward VII.  

Military personnel have long been an important part of the community, employment and traditions of Wiltshire. The army camps and training grounds of Salisbury Plain dominate the high chalk downland in the centre of the county. The civil population of the surrounding areas are used to seeing Chinook and Apache helicopters wheeling on manoeuvres, and to hearing the thump of artillery practicing in the distance on the Plain.  

-- by Ken Taylor - PWI Regional Reporter Wiltshire - wiltshire@peoplewebinternational.com

WILTSHIRE - Towns and villages across Wiltshire have been asked by their county council to pinpoint areas of flood risk given the more severe weather expected from Climate Change. Communities should each appoint flood wardens who will pull together the information, then coordinate any local action required by householders or the emergency services when severe weather and floods occur.

One small village, Quidhampton, lies in a valley at the confluence of the Rivers Nadder and Wylye, close tothe Cathedral City of Salisbury.Like many other rural communities in the county, Quidhampton developed hundreds of years ago sited above water meadows where sheep were grazed. No-one remembers rising river levels causing flooding in the village, although it’s normal to see the meadows covered with water most winters.  Nevertheless there are flood risks to act on. A broken and blocked drain and the subsequent flooding often affects a fast main road, and a potentially dangerous accident happened in December when a motorcyclist fell off. Residents also recall rainwater coming into their houses and cellars in very severe rains several years ago. 

Many other town and villages across the county are not half so fortunate. The new 1:1000 flood level predictions, mapped out nationally on the Environment Agency website (http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/), put the low lying parts of some townships and parts of the city of Salisbury itself below the predicted extreme flood levels.

The County’s plan to tackle increased flood risk is just beginning. Their order of priority for funding flood prevention measures is first risk to life, then main roads, property, and finally minor roads.

Indications are that communities who are not raising awareness of their risks won’t see funding allocated to them any time soon. And that couldn’t be a more challenging test to the UK government’s Big Society initiative which urges communities to take more responsibility for themselves.