New Year Round Up

Wednesday 18th January

Happy New Year!

The work continues apace locally. The winter has seen a number of issues continuing and new ones coming to light. Herewith a sum up of whats been going on;

Windlesham Suregry

A number of locally interested residents have taken up the baton in order to see if there might be a solution to the proposed closure of the Windlesham Doctor's Suregry. Less a surgery and more of a consulting room, the Lightwater Surgery principals, who run the Windlesham rooms, notified residents that the service was to close. As outlined below in another blog post, this decision was a particularly unpopular one, and I was asked in October 2011 to chair a public meeting on the subject.
The interested residents came up with a number of possible solutions to the closure and listened to residents views on the subject. The most interesting arrangements involved the proposed pavilion, but what was abundntly clear was that the Windlesham residents didn't want to have to go to Lightwater.

Bagshot Library

The Friends of Bagshot Library have continued their sterling work in continuing with the unpopular Community Partnership arrangement in respect of keeping the libarary running. Over the Summer and autumn, a number of us have discussed alternative ideas, but it appears that the best solution for the library and for Bagshot residents, is for a rota of volunteers to take on some of the opening hours. What remains are significant discussions into the details of that arrangement, including leases, professional staff retention and IT hardware.

Snow.

Preparations this year have been doubled in order to avoid the nightmares of the past few years. The County Council has doubled its supplies this year and provided the Borough with 40 tons of salt for local provision. There remains some question over grit bin location - some which physically exist on the roadside don't exist on central records and some which exist on central records aren't on the roadside. I am advised thouh that county officers are looking into this as I write.
All recorded bins have been restocked.

Youth Service

There continues to be a reworking of the County Council Youth Service in order to attract the 'buy in' and management of outside agencies. This has raised concerns among many within the service. However, subsequent take up by some local charitable organisations such as the Y - who will provide an umbrella service for a number of elements of the service - has been encouraging. as ever, it is the detail that remains to be worked upon, and I remain confident that this is in safe hands.