Graham Ellis - my blog
Why I support petition "Create a path to settlement for Ukrainians in the UK"
I support and have signed this petition at https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/700776 . Let me explain why and invite you to sign..It'll be three years ago this spring when the first of our guests arrived from Ukraine, looking to us for a place of safety from a war that had broken out in their home country. I'm proud of how the people of my home county of Wiltshire, and indeed people across the UK, opened their homes to receive people who were looking for temporary refuge from a conflict that in some cases had seen them literally running for their lives - literally in some cases and emotionally in many others.
It was very brave of these people to make a decision to move from Ukraine, and very brave of people in the Uk to offer them accommodation and support in their own homes too. And it was a messy and risky business too, with families torn asunder (families are not neatly wrapped packages with boundaries), people arriving into an unknown place where even the character set of the written word was new to them, and residents quietly living here in Wiltshire welcoming people in need of substantial help into their homes not for a couple of days or weeks but for 6 months or years. I am proud that Lisa and I helped and received guests. I am proud of our community that did so much to help them sort out issues, learn, feel and be safe here. And I am proud of the team of staff at Wiltshire Council who provided help and a safety net as these people settled in for "the duration" - to sit out the war with a view to returning to Ukraine to help rebuild in due course.
Our guests arrived in the UK 'for the short term'. That's the short term in life terms - in transit and as a phase in their lives, looking at their short term survival and not their long term life plans. After a surprisingly short period - leaning some of the language, recovering from the transit, setting up the trappings of society in the UK such as IDs, phones, bank accounts, learning to get around, they found gainful employment, or schooling / education, and most have become a part of the economy of our society. And yet these people have no permanence - no ability to take on a mortgage, sign a long term housing least, meaningfully build up a pension. They have been in limbo - in a fog where they can't see ahead beyond a year or two.
It was right that in the Spring of 2022 we re-acted to an immediate crisis and provided short term help, without any committent to the longer term. To have given such a committent - even to give a hint at it - would have encouraged economic migration and not people coming purely as temporary refugees. But times change. The war in Ukraines is not over. And many of these people are now very much members of our society - and useful and respected members too. And so now in early 2025, I have signed the petition to government asking them to "Create a path to Settlement for Ukrainians in the UK", an I commend it to you. It is at [url].
In my view, guests who have already been in the UK for a year or more under "Homes for Ukraine" should be offered a path to stay here permanently. They have become a part of our community very much like others from all over the world have in various ways, and they benefit us too - so this is not just a sympathy "thing" - it's also common sense. But it's bound to be messy around the edges - life is. So this path to permanence should be offered to the people who have been here for a while - this is not my support (but neither a rejection - I'm taking no view) of the tailed off trickle of new arrivals - it applies, wholeheartedly - to the initial flood and following flow – those who had no “forever” thought.
Yes, I know that our guests started off as being welcomed and identified as Ukrainian. I look forward and commend to you a future in which (if they wish) they are people who live here - a part of our community - and we don't even think about where they happened to have been born. People who are part of Great Britain and in the fabric that helps keep it a great place to live.
Planning application - please provide transport
Yes, Melksham is and will grow with new homes, and some applications such as the one that comments are due in today are "plan lead". It's my view - and here is my input - that the development should include public transport provision and not be reliant on all travel being by car. Some needs to be by car, but joined up public transport has accessability, environmental and health benefits, allows the housing to be occupied by those who can't drive too. It stops our towns getting gridlocked and more roads (like the road to Lacock) becoming rat runs.PL/2024/10345. Proposal: "The construction of 295 homes; public open space, including formal play space and allotments; sustainable drainage systems; and associated infrastructure; with 0.4ha of land safeguarded for a nursery. The principal point of access is to be provided from a new northern arm on the existing Eastern Way/A3102 roundabout junction, with a secondary access onto the A3102. Additional access points are proposed for pedestrians and cyclists." - comments by 17.1.20125
My input ...
Thank you for this opportunity to comment. I request that if you are minded to grant this application, you add a condition requiring appropriate public transport provision enabling and encouraging residents to access areas over 1km away and onward connections without a private car.
Public transport to be provided from when the first homes are occupied for a minimum period of 5 years at a maximum cost per journey not exceeding that of a town bus journey. Provision may be in association and shared with other developments and should run at least once per hour and connect onward to and from bus services in the town to and from Bath and train services at the station to and from Swindon and Westbury throughout their daily operation.
It is likely that this condition would be met by a developer construction of road / bus stop infrastructure and the running through contribution to the service also used by passengers who live elsewhere.
Background / logic.
This proposed development is some considerable distance from the Town Centre, medical facilities, business / work areas, secondary school, main supermarkets, and public transport to neighbouring towns from the Town Centre (buses) and from the railway station. A single daily bus runs on Mondays to Fridays to Bath, and to Calne and Marlborough (return the next day) from the main A3102 road passing the proposed development. Two buses a day call in the neighbouring estate to pick up passengers for the Town Centre. Other buses described in the application will return people to that other estate, but it should be noted that they are impractical to use outbound as their route varies depending on where people already on the bus wish to go.
This proposed development is located to the east of Melksham, whereas the major road network is located to the west. Private motor vehicle journeys beyond Melksham will be made though the town centre (already congested), along the lane to Lacock which is already a rat-run carrying too much traffic along a rural walking and cycling route, or looping all around the town via the eastern relief road, across the south and around western way. Residents and visitors need to be offered the option of practical public transport - and to have that available to them at all hours they need it, and from when they purchase their property prior to considering the purchase of additional private vehicles.
The NPPF, subNational Transport Plan, Local Plan, Joint Melksham Neighbourhood Plan and Local Transport Plan all signpost the provision of mass transit and sustainable alternatives to the private car. For a new development at this location, some distance from many facilities, provision of bus service all day, every day is the practical way of doing so. The distance to facilities rule out walking and cycling for people who are less fit, have shopping to carry or children to take, are time constrained, simply don't want to be out in inclement weather, or have a destination which does not have changing / cycle storage facilities. A bus service which should also serve other housing developments to the East of Melksham but runs along the A3102 and then the Melksham East Relief Road, and is served by bus stops with appropriate shelters, access and real time information systems at the entrances to the estate, and runs to the facilities identified earlier at times to connect, should be provided.
In my view, the service should be characterised as one that runs within a few hundred metres of homes and with good walking access to them, providing fast transit to other key locations, and not one which visits each road on each estate that supports it to the detriment of journey time and frequency; such as scheme would be more suitable to a development which has a significant sheltered / protected / senior living bias.
In conjunction with a Town Council initiative in September 2022, the feasibility of an hourly bus service using a single (we used electric) vehicle from the railway station was tested, serving the Town Centre, East of Melksham, Oakfield sports facilities, doctors surgeries, and Bowerhill and Hampton Park business areas to end at the Police Station connecting with the x34 bus was tested and found good. A new section of the Melksham relief road has since opened and that should improve performance. Testing confirmed that the bus could lay over for a few minutes at the railway station thus connecting with trains both ways.
Author: Graham Ellis, acting chair of Melksham Transport User Group, Town Councillor, vice chair of steering group of Melksham Neighbourhood Plan, written independently but reflecting views and inputs generally made at those organisations. Very happy to share details. Text of above also at https://grahamellis.uk/blog1478.html
The illustration here on my blog is of our feasibility test, shown here in the business area.
Published Friday, 17th January 2025
Heart of Wessex mayor - bus future in the region
Reference - Stour Avon Magazine (their header picture of the three council leaders)So we are to have a Mayor of Wessex!
It's the way the government wants us to go, and central funding to the regions is likely to be channelled through this mayor so we have little choice. As I read it, Richard Clewer, leader of Wiltshire council, may not be ecstatic about the way it's going but never the less is pragmatically accepting of the approach and is looking to make it work.
Transport, and buses in particular, are one of the big things to come to the mayor. Much of this already happening in Manchester and in the West Midlands.
So - Somerset, Dorset and Wiltshire. Not sure about Swindon yet? Population of around 1.5 million, characterised as temperate countryside with large and small towns sprinkled across them, but without and big cities. Much of the working population and economy looking just outside the area for its commercial centres - Swindon, Bath, Bristol, Bournemouth, Southampton. And then perhaps flows to Exeter and toward Oxford, Reading, Basingstoke, and London.
Buses have been "deregulated" for many years with network planning subservient to commercial operations. Witness the 2 buses an hour - but competing and 2 minutes apart we used to have in Melksham and could still be seen in Dorset (Weymouth) when I visited last summer. In some places this may work, in others not, and in any case the government ethos is moving us towards a more socially lead network rather than commercial competition between operators at the key. Talk is not so much of nationalised operators, but rather of network / route / service / performance specified at the mayoral level and then with franchised operation by the very skilled and knowledgable companies we already have. You may spot an irony in that rail franchising is to end and yet here comes the franchising of bus route operations.
In my view, a joined up transport network - common standards, interlaced and connecting routes, and provision of service where it makes the best economic, environmental and social sense rather than where maximising financial outcomes for operators and their shareholders - makes sense. But the big question is who will do it and how?
I met yesterday with colleagues not only from Wiltshire but from wider, for some thoughts on the way forward. We have a lot of expertise already in some many of the areas with things like option 24/7, the Electric Bus Partnership, and the Somerset Bus Partnership. We have good relationships with teams here in Wiltshire, Somerset have seemed very busy dealing with their restructure and financial issues to engage much at present, and we have upcoming discussions with Dorset.
Draft document - at https://www.passenger.chat/How_202501_01.pdf - a very great deal of work already in this.
Here is what Councillor Jonathon Seed on Facebook has to say about our mayoral authority
| On Thursday evening I attended my fifth Council meeting of the week- this time an extraordinary meeting of Wiltshire Council at County Hall. On a cross Party basis, the overwhelming majority of councillors voted to ask the leader to write to Government and ask for consideration to be included in the first tranche of devolution being imposed by the Government with the creation of strategic mayoral authorities. Alongside most of my Councillor colleagues I do not favour the concept of Mayoral devolution but can see the advantage to Wiltshire residents of early engagement in this compulsory process. On this basis the Leader of Wiltshire Council together with the Leaders of Dorset and Somerset Councils have submitted a letter to the Government to confirm that together they wish to be considered as part of the Devolution Priority Programme. This is not a merger of councils. It will be a partnership of equals as part of a new “Heart of Wessex” authority with an elected mayor chairing the authority which will have jurisdiction on large projects, investments and strategic services. You will still have Wiltshire Council looking out for your interests and controlling most of your services and council tax. |
Published Thursday, 16th January 2025
Right hall, right place, right access, or no?
Community Halls ARE needed and used. You have only to look at Bowerhill, Berryfield, Queensway or the Assembly Hall and see how hard it is to get a booking there to realise that. However, I question whether an "East of Melksham" hall in the Singer's Elms area is the right hall, in the right place, with the right access.
We have around £1 million set aside to build a community building for the community that runs from the "Prime Ministers" all down to "the herbs" via "the birds" and "the berries", but is it right for us to spend that money on this facility at the extreme South end of the community to be served, sized as a village hall, and with awkward vehicular access to a small car park through a residential cul-de-sac like Angelica Avenue? I don't know the answer, and I don't know what alternatives we are left with having lost - for example - the potential site close to the Water Meadow that's now going to be a care home.
It may be that this is the right hall. It may be that this is the right place. But it may not be, and now is the time to ask.
From a very wise person (my Dad!) - when saying "no" ...
Express regret - yes, I am very sad that your Town Council didn't take the East of Melksham hall forward to the Eat of Melksham.
Give reasons - out of area, too small, poor access and likely to be limited in use or a darned nuisance in the back of an estate road.
Suggest alternative - here's a way out idea. Invest the money in making a decent small hall in the old Blue Pool as part of that project. It's virtully the same distance from the birds and the prime ministers as the Singers Elms site, it's in an area where there is already a community facility / hall that operates to late, much better access, parking, staff nearby to save the hall management headache ...
Just suggesting - if we could look for Melksham as a whole, as a community which incorportates Melksham Town and Melksham Without, would this not be a sensible idea and vision?
Published Wednesday, 15th January 2025
Who represents the public transport passenger?
Who represents the public transport passenger - now and in the future? Here in Melksham - as in villages, town and cities all around the United Kingdom, there are groups ranging from those involved with a single bus stop through to national and international ones. 1. Melksham Transport User Group - (link)
2. (rail) West Wiltshire Rail User Group - (link)
3a. TravelWatch SouthWest - (link)
3b. (mostly rail) Great Western Coffee Shop Forum - (link)
4. Campaign for Better Transport - (link)
5. European Passengers' Federation - (link)
It's rather like the rings of an onion
Do we need them all? Does each have its place and function? Yes - I believe it does - or at least there is a need for customer representation at all geographic levels, on current and future services too, and on all modes of transport.
1. At a local level we (the passengers) are keenly aware of travel needs. We have eyes and ears in the community any our inputs on adjustments and changes and issues are intensely valuable to the transport specifiers and operator.
2. Within an economic group of towns, sharing common services, operators and issues, the user and user groups can usefully come together to advocate for and provide a group with shared issues and concerns to work practically with the operators and local transport authorities in a co-ordinated way. Talks can be arranged relevant to this grouping looking at the pattern of services in the area and well supported by the core user team working with the providers to tailor services for everyone.
3a. Services are arranged and provided regionally. Though once you get to that wide an area, "In real life" meetings of user groups become problematic, requiring real dedication from passengers to take days off. But the networking benefits are significant, really knowledgable users will come along to occasional general meeting to speak to and listen to the well briefed representatives of groups at levels 1 and 2.
3b. Also regionally, our own Coffee Shop" forum. But whilst it's geographically regional, it's hardly met in real life - rather the Coffee Shop is open 24/7 to all comers, with interactive message boards for us all to read. Even as I write on Saturday - the quietest day of the week here - there are half a dozen regular friends sign in, in addition to uncounted visitors. Looking back at my analytics from yesterday, we had 211 people visit the Coffee shop (real people, not crawlers) of whom 199 were in the UK
4. Nationally, the Campaign for Better Transport listens to and references passenger user information to central government. It is key work, setting policies and dealing with central government in promoting customer needs there, and also percolating data back down the tree to regional, group and individual passenger groups.
5. Internationally, there are rail standard and operations that apply across Europe even now we are outside the UK, and the European Passengers' Federation provides a co-ordination framework. Last year's annual conference, where delegates learn from right across the continent, took place in Warsaw over two days, and this year's is on 13th and 14th June [2025] in Swindon. Personally, the international experiences of travel are immensely valuable brought back to levels 1, 2 and 3, and I look forward to spending two days - learning - and indeed showing others how we do things - in Swindon.
There are other organisations out there which may claim / suggest they are parallel with those listed above. Some indeed may call "foul" that I have not included them in the simple summary, and they are entitled to that opinion. We also lack in the list above an active organisation that looks to buses - either purely as buses or as buses linked with trains - at level 2. This is a gap where Option 24/7 should have a place - https://option247.uk - something of a gap that needs to be filled.
Footnote - organisations with have a customer / passenger role but which I have left off my mainstream summary largely due to them being more specialist interest or significantly funded / sponsored by governmental or other sponsors which guide their position are ... Railfuture; Bus Users; Transport Focus; Station Friends groups; Community Rail Partnerships; Bath Railway Society; Rail Correspondence and Travel Society; Railchat Forums.
Published Saturday, 11th January 2025
Tax rises? - Melksham Town Council budget and precept
UPDATE - 23:30, 6.1.2025 - precept set with a 13% rise rather than the 16% suggested as a prudent minimum (as I understand it). Some backing for the extra I asked for in my article to give the staff the tools to do and enjoy their jobs, and to have sufficient working capital. More to follow.
This graphic shows you in red the budget totals that Melksham Town Council is working to this year (1st April 2024 to 31st March 2025) and in blue our responsible finance officer's estimates of what the actual figures will be by the end of the year. Congratuations are due to officers who have worked hard to bring in extra grants, showing thet our income will be up on our budget - more money available. However, our expenditure is significiantly up, meaning the Town Council has a shortfall and that the extra expenditure needs to be made up from our general reserve. This is OK for the occasional year, but can't be a routine habit as we would run out of money.
Below is the proposal I'll be making to the Town Council for next year's precept
From: Graham Ellis, an Independent Town Councillor for Melksham South Ward for the public budget and precept discussion meeting to be held at 7 p.m. on Monday 6th January 2025.
Big "thank you" to the staff who have put so much time and effort into considering our accounts and formulating the budget proposal, and to my fellow councillors too with whom I have spent the best part of 12 hours in private session. We have gone through it line by line and reducing costs where we can. There remain just a very few pet projects for next year - most are in the end of this year.
Although the draft budget suggestion is a 16% increase in precept, taking a Band D property up from £3.38 to £3.93 per week, in reality it's simply correcting issue from current and previous years budgets.
As a council, we now have to both claw back overspends in the current year and in addition put a prudent budget into place for next year. We cannot go on spending in excess of our income and depleting a shrinking general reserve. That need to be restored to a level which allows for the running of the council and cash flow though the year.
Expenditure for 2024/25 was budgeted at £1.25 million but is projected to come in at £1.75 million, against a projected total income of £1.3 million. There are some exceptional spends in there. With the majority of Town Council expenditure on staffing, and with the requirement on the Town Council to keep individuals data private, I cannot tell you how that overspend has come about. Indeed, I don't know much myself. I have asked questions, but I am not on the Personnel committee so I am almost as much in the dark as the press and public.
This secrecy is to the extent that I am unable to fulfil the role of properly monitoring how the council spends your taxpayer money. Rather, I have no option but to trust to the good offices of a group that could be thought of as the "star chamber".
I am going to offer you two options tonight. Going with the proposed 16% increase from £175 to £204 per annum. That will give your new council to be elected in May a requirement to spend significantly less on staff next year that this if they are to balance the budget and keep reserve at at a safe level. In May 2021, last time there was a new council, two members of staff were made redundant within weeks. I was one of only two councillor who did not vote to support those redundancies, and I insisted on a recorded vote.
As an alternative, here is my proposal. To pass a budget with a 25% increase to £219 per annum. This can be characterised as correcting a number of years of underfunding. It would provide your new council in May with a solid foundation on which they can work prudently, continue to employ the excellent current staff, and indeed modernise communication systems so that the staff can work much more efficiently. This proposal is not new – it’s along the same lines I proposed at this time last year, and the year before.
My proposal would cost households an extra 29p per week, giving the opportunity of a stable council for the next 4 years. We have some areas of severe deprivation in Melksham, and it is worth pointing out that council tax rebates will mean that the most stretched are unlikely to be asked for the extra 29p per week of my proposal. And the Melksham Town precept would remain significantly lower that that of all other towns in north and west Wiltshire.
29p per week is the equivalent of one mobile phone top-up, per household, per annum.
Are any of my colleagues prepared to second my motion which is intended to provide the next council with a stable restart for Melksham?
Graham Ellis
48 Spa Road, Melksham - 07974 925 928
https://grahamellis.uk - graham@sn12.net
My emailling policy: https://grahamellis.uk/email
Published Monday, 6th January 2025
How did MTC do with the 2024/25 budget?
Background
At this time last year, we as a Town Council predicted we would spend £225,000 on our central team's salaries, National Insurance and pensions in the year 1st April 2024 to 31st March 2025. However, after 9 months out of 12 we have already spent £290,000 and our responsible finance officer suggests we are going to have spent £416,000 by 31st March - that is 85% up on what we allowed for. These figures are open for all to see in the Agenda pack for next Monday's full council meeting that will be making predictions for the year from 1st April 2025 to 31st March 2026.
To put the figures in context, in the current year we have charged our electorate £1,047,000 in precept, so central staffing should have cost us 21.5% of our income from that source, but it looks like it will end up costing us 39.8% of the overall budget. The two pie charts above show the predicted incomes and expenditures by the end of this financial year, and that biggest blue wedge on the right hand chart is nearly twice the size it was planned to be.
Several active local residents have written to make enquiries as to how we "got it so wrong". Hmmm - we didn't necessarily get it wrong. At best, a budget is an educated guess and in some years (the year Covid struck is a good example) there are some exceptional issues that blow plans out of the water. However, I simply do not know more than a few bare bones this year to be able to answer residents questions. I can agree with one of my fellow councillors who wrote "anything to do with personnel is strictly confidential and therefor not for public discussion". We are between a rock and a hard place here, having to balance the confidentiality of our staff with the rights of the public to know how their money is being spent. I am not one of the five councillors on the Personnel Committee, and I too can't get answers and have little option but to accept that although elected as a councillor to represent you, I can only make an educated guess as to why we are spending just under 40% of your precept rather than just over the 20% planned on your central staff team.
I can and will move on to some positive thoughts:
1. Although we budget annually, much of our spending such as staffing and the consequences of staffing carries on year after year. At this time last year, Simon Crundell was our mayor, and now Tom Price is our mayor. Both have impressed me in many ways, and you should see the current staffing cost issues as relating largely to matters they inherited. And working within the local and national systems and guidelines we have, I could probably have done no better.
2. Most of our staff, and three of our councillors, have only recently joined the council for the first time. These are some really good people there who have inherited a situation rather than their being any potential thought of responsibility for how we came into this overspend.
3. We have an opportunity in 2025 to move forward for Melksham and we should do so. Even with a precept increase of 16%, we will still be significantly lower than other towns, and we have great opportunities here. That's not to say we (or, rather, the senior councillors and staff who are or have been in the know) should not learn lessons - we/they should - but rather we should move on. We should be setting the precept to restore our depleted reserve (where the extra money came from) and also to move forward for the town. Last year - 3 years too late - we set out a strategy which I commend to you, and to the electorate on 1st May for the next four years. You can read it further down my blog - {{here}}
Published Thursday, 2nd January 2025
I'm looking forward to 2025
January to April - I remain on the Town Council. I take on roles and challenges for the rewards they bring, and those rewards include things like being able to make a positive difference, friendships and learning. Yes, some of that has been achieved but well below my own personal (and critical) standards. The public - the customers - the electorate are lovely; even on social media, where one of my council colleagues told me not to risk engaging, I am more than comfortable. I will be delighted to be able to step away from some aspects of council life, and concentrate much more again on things that make a bigger positive difference, enduring friendships even with those from whom my views differ, and where I can continue to learn but in a much more effective way.May onwards - I will be travelling on and off, some of the time with Lisa. Returning to some great places found across Europe, and finding some more too. We have Interrail passes, but as yet no reservations - just ideas that will jell slightly before we travel. We do have a friend coming to look after the house and hounds while we're both away, and UK life will not stop because one or both of us are away. We are unlikely to cruise this year - but have a reservation already for a fortnight in 2026. Just because I or we are travelling does not put us out of touch - it never has, since we met in 1996!. Technology has come forward a long way since the mad dash to the Internet Cafe in Ketchikan; these days a normal phone call or an email reaches us All meetings (except council ones (!)) can be attended and even presentations given via Zoom or Teams.
Relieved of the many hours of unrewarding council volunteering, and sleepless nights spent worrying over things, I will have much more time to be effective in the fields I specialise in - public transport stuff, with a view and bias towards planning for the future with environmental issues as our towns grow. And with a special consideration of current and future passengers. 2025 is set to be a year of great risks, but also great opportunities as a new order in UK public transport, beaconed under the new government, comes to pass or perhaps not.
Online, the First Great Western "Coffee Shop" Passenger Forum I helped found in 2007 is still up and running - indeed I have made major updates in the last few days and it' now fit for the next five years at https://www.greatwesternrailway.infoas well as https://www.firstgreatwestern.info and it can now be "flexed" to another name if appropriate.
Various updates to follow on:
* The Melksham Transport User Group (for the Melksham area), first meeting with officers on 2nd and 3rd January is we look forward to the year where I am chair until the AGM at least. https://mtug.org.uk
* The West Wiltshire Rail User Group (for the five towns of West Wiltshire, including Melksham) where I am on the Committee with responsibility for arranging the public meetings. https://wwrug.org.uk
* TravelWatch SouthWest (for the counties of Gloucestershire, Wiltshire and Dorset, Somerset, Devon and Cornwall) where I was voted back onto the Board of Directors after an absence of a few years in December. https://travelwatchsouthwest.org.
The Joint Melksham Neighbourhood Plan, where I have been a somewhat shallow vice chair, should come to referendum later this year. Because my place on the steering group is to represent the council, I don't expect to be there at the finish, but I will be cheering from the sidelines. With future growth planned in our area, this plan is key to us in Melksham having some say in our future and the work that had gone into the plan, mostly behind the scenes, has to be believed. A big THANK YOU to all of those who have put in far more than I have!
I will be continuing this Melksham Blog beyond the May elections but you will continue to see it slanting away form pure council stuff and be much more the interested resident - https://grahamellis.uk/blog.html. We'll be seeing where we go with the Friends of Melksham Assembly Hall via https://www.fomah.org.ukand with the Melksham Environment Group where I look after the web presence at https://mkmeg.org.uk.
On Social Media, my own Facebook page is at https://www.facebook.com/graham.ellis.melksham/ and I am and will remain active there. An accident and over-secured recovery meant that I lost my old page last summer, but in under six months I have welcomed back over 100 friends, and also regained access and where appropriate moderation and admin capabilities. Again some thinning out as the Town Council changes in May.
I have let Twitter fade away from me, do very little with WhatsApp, am not into Instagram, TicToc, Youtube, Telegram or Snapchat, Pinterest or Reddit. There are only so many hours in the day. Two others which are important - LinkedIn, where I a very great number of connections but have been far less active during my time as a councillor - my profile is https://www.linkedin.com/in/wellho/ - and BlueSky which is fairly new, and where you can find me - and will probably find me much more - at https://bsky.app/profile/grahamellis.uk
As we enter January 2025, there seem to be a number of deep consultations under way that started just before Christmas and close in the next five weeks. Part of me says they all deserve throughout reading and response. And another part of me takes a look at up to 350 pages of beautifully presented data and asks "would they really make changes to this based on my input" and I suspect not - are they just looking to tick a box at this stage? There is much good in some of these documents and I can already spot some things that "I could have written that".
One area I am aware that I have lacked time is Wiltshire Bus work. The Option 24/7 project / name at https://option247.uk has been somewhat quiet over the last 18 months - I am the only one of the initial "gang of four" living in Wiltshire. But that said, significant improvements have been made in the direction we have pressed for over many years and perhaps I see the groundwork of our philosophy coming to fruition, together with some excellent people on the team at both Wiltshire Council and at Faresaver. It's a long way from where we started eight years ago looking at bus service losses. Delighted to see the bus service improvements (at some of the very times of the week we advocated) and look forward to helping them succeed and carry on developing.
-- Graham
Looking forward to 2025 - and still around and happy to hear from you.
Published Wednesday, 1st January 2025
Web site update - Great Western Coffee Shop
7 p.m. on Saturday 28th December 2024This A progress report on the engineering work I have been doing on the "Great Western Coffee Shop" forum which has been tuning on my servers for the last 18 years. Intended as an 18 week project when it was set up in 2007, it is overdue for upgrade - it is looking very dated, doesn't fit well on the small screens people use on their phones these days, and uses the old protocols which set off all sorts of alarm bells in virus checkers. So there was a lot to be done! I closed the door in the early hours, completed a download (67Gbytes), updated the status page at http://status.firstgreatwestern.info for any members who had missed the alerts that had been going out for that week.
* I have moved the domain name (what the site is called) to a new, more modern server that should be good for the next 5 years. It has more capacity (as the Coffee Shop has grown) and responds to the newer https protocol. It's also shared with other more recent domain names so we can move on no manner who is running our trains.
* The old forum software is so old it cannot be easily upgraded, and needs to run on an older version of underlying software, so I have left it where it was. And I have set up the modern server as a proxy server, facing the internet and acting as gatekeeper for the more mature server. I have used a balancer, so should we grow in the future or add resource greedy code (there are various temptations!) I can simply add another server. Rather like a doctor's surgery with a single receptionist adding another doctor. Again, this should be good for five years.
The forum software by far the most complex and oldest application on the server, and also the one that gets far and away more accessed on our server that everything else on there put together. So this re-engineering has been the bit task that I allowed 48 hours for - delighted to have go to where I am after 16 hours of work.
The following remain to be done over the next few days - the more major stuff starting at dawn tomorrow. No need to stop the service - the big structural change has happened and your posts are safe and into our backup systems again
1. The LIKE system does not like (!) the new front and back room setup - I didn't write it with that in mind and it needs fixing. There are issues with smiley faces too, and the post editor
2. The document mirror (2000 transport industry .pdfs totalling 10Gb needs a lick of paint to make it work again. It's vital stuff but not in particularly frequent use
3. There are odd bugs from the move, such as setting up your avatar
4. The forum support pages and indexes all need relinking, adjusting and testing. Lots of stuff there - maps, fare manuals, usage statistics and probably a dozen other things I will think of in the morning, and there will be an ongoing debugging and cleaning up process
5. Over coming months and throughout 2025, you'll see extra facilities added to the Coffee Shop, and the software becoming far more phone friendly. We have grown this year - from around 800 to 900 posts a month last winter to over 1500 posts a month in the last quarter so we must be doing something right (or the railways something wrong, which is another story)
Published Saturday, 28th December 2024
MTC draft budget 2025/26 - some key considerations
A question asked of me on 24th December: "Why is the proposed Melksham Town precept proposed to rise by 17%, which is far in excess of inflation, next year?". The question is based on the draft 2025/26 budget which is included in the agenda pack recently posted "for decision" on 6th January 2025.Some background - the precept for 2024/25 is £175.69 for a "Band D" house and scaled down for smaller and up for larger houses. Based on the number of houses that brings in £1.047 million. for 2025/26, the requirement with the suggested financial plans is £1.217 million, which is a precept of £204.11 - an annual increase of £28.42, or a rise of a 16.18% rise, or a rise of 55p per week.
The current consumer price inflation index in 2.6%, and the retail price index is 3.6%. Minimum wage rates increase for next year by 6.7%. So it's a good question to ask why a much greater percentage increase is being put to the Town Council.
Here are some reasons I have picked out for the new precept to be as it is proposed
See here for my personal summary / views
1. I am going to characterise the proposed rise not so much as a rise higher than it should be, but rather a rise that should have come in previous years (when rises, if any, were well below inflation rates). We have been spending money set aside in reserves, and if we continue on in the same pattern, we will go broke. Page 28 of the agenda suggests we will end the 2024/25 year having spent £448,475 more than we receive during the year, and clearly that is something that cannot go on year by year. Yes, we have reserves and they are now below the minimum level recommended by the local government association.
If reserves get "raided" for continuing spend, you have a double issue. Not only do you have to find money to make good the shortfall from the current year, but you also have to find the money for the same thing next year. Ooops.
I should point out that I voted against the budget for this current year (I was the only one to do so) to avoid this exact issue. There is no satisfaction in my having to write "told you so" as I wish I had been wrong.
2. Central Staffing costs this year (page 1) were budgeted at £225,000 but look like they are coming in at £416,000 (ouch!). Some of the extra costs of employment are one-offs, but the proposal for 2025/26 is £384,500 which is an increase over last year's budgeted figure of no less than 71%. Only members of the Personnel Committee are privy to all the details, but higher employer NI contributions, more staff, and better paid staff are factors.
Legal and professional fee are also part of our corporate costs. We budgeted £7,000 for them this year, but I note we have spent £39,705 so far this year (ouch!). Good news for next year in that we are told that we only play to spend £10,000 on this - but that's still another overspend of £32,000 - 357% on top of what we had planned to spend. (page 2)
3. Elections in 2025/26 are paid for by the Town Council - estimated at £20,000 against a 2024/25 budget of £8,000 - that's up 150%. (Page 3)
4. The Town Council owns 31, Market Place and charges a commercial rent for it (which helps keep the precept low). However, work needs to be done on it urgently - landlord responsibilities - at an estimated cost of £30,000 versus just £1,000 in the current year. (Page 14)
5. The Sensory garden was not budgeted this year, but it is projected that £14,000 will be spent before April and another £11,000 next year. This year's money needs to come from (and will deplete) reserves, and next year's needs to come from somewhere. (Page 19)
6. The CCTV, on which we have spent £32,000 was a zero budget line and has been funded from reserves (page 21)
7. Assembly Hall staffing costs are planned to come in 7% above the actual for this year. But then we are also predicting 25% rise in income from live shows (pages 23 and 25). So I don't see this rise above general inflation (but in line with employment costs) as being contributory towards the large proposed precept rise.
8. Play equipment needs replacing from time to time, and I am concerned that the sink fund contribution for this which is £25,000 this year has been zeroed for 2025/26. It looks like it could be storing up problems for the future. (page 28)
9. Over coming months, many projects come to fruition. Year to date spend is £1.168 million but that is projected to rise to £1.758 million. Some of that coms from other income such as Solar Farm money which we receive each year and other grants, but never the less our spending rate will be in excess of our income, and in order to remain solvent the income over which councillors have control - the precept - will need to rise next year to refill the reserves and ensure that the new council election on 1st May does not have a struggle to make ends meet in its first year.
10. New / expanded expenditure for 2025/26 includes £10,000 for a civic event (page 19) and "Proms in the Park" as a separate item at an extra £10,000. Line items which were in the 2024/25 budget but which are not in the 2025/26 budget include £10,000 for tree planting (page 16) and a reduction of small grants to help seed new organisations by £6,000 to £10,000; major grants to 4 Youth, the TIC, the Food and River Festival and to fund an Age UK project worker totalling over £30,000 continue. (page 4). As it comes to fruition, Neighbourhood Plan costs for 2025/26 are reduced from around £20,000 to around £2,000
11. It should be noted that the costs and reserve held for the East of Melksham Community Centre are not covered by the precept, but rather by developer contributions and do not directly effect the precept. Similarly, future significant work to the Blue Pool would probably be funded via the public works loan board and is not considered to be a part of the 2025/26 budget. But in both cases I would expect substantial central staff team time to be required, which will be paid for as part of the precept / staffing line referred to in item 2 in my list
The bar chart that appears alongside this article puts some of the figures into context to help you see the big "movers and shakers"; each column, though, is not directly comparable with the neighbouring columns and of necessity only big headline items are shown.
Drawing some conclusions
In my view, the precept should have risen in previous years and the proposed hike is partly to catch up with what we have already spent and to keep us safely solvent. Melksham has far and away the lowest Town precept in the area, and even with a 16% rise it will remain the lowest. The proposed rise this year is because we are catching up on several years of underfunding and need to both make a realistic balanced budget and replenish reserves - so it's a double whammie this year.
The majority of the money spent by the Town Council is on staffing (salaries, our ongoing costs of employment, and in the departure of staff and the arrival of new team members). The majority being spent on staff is a common feature of most councils, though in my view the way we have worked means we spend a lot more than I would like on departures and arrivals - I would prefer to have the same people in post next year as we have this year. I would like to see the money saved on a reduced staff turnover invested into working systems and practices that help them work more effectively and enjoy their jobs more. The time wasted (IMHO) in answering the same question and tracking the same issue has to be seen to be believed, and is frustrating to all concerned - staff, councillors, contractors and public.
A surprisingly small proportion of Melksham Town Council expenditure is on project work as opposed to staffing and general operation, and a small amount of extra money in that direction would allow massively more to be done (especially with improved working practise).
My view is that the rise proposed is a necessary catch-up and coverage of increased staffing cost and just like last year (sorry - I am a well worn record - see https://grahamellis.uk/blog1118.html ) we should be adding between 10p and 15p per household per week on top of the proposal to effectively fund out team's work rather that finding ourselves next summer with some real progress from the next few months, but back into another cycle of inefficient frugality imposed on the next council.
It should be noted that although the current Town Council sets the precept, it will be next one you'll be electing in May that will make use of the funds collected, and should they wish it is within their remit to make significal changes to how those funds are spent.
It has been very strongly pointed out to me that views expressed in an article such as this are mine as a councillor, but I am not speaking for Melksham Town Council. If you have any questions, please do ask me or if you want them answered official prior to the 6th January decision please email them to the Town Clerk or Committee Clerk on their return on 2nd January for am answer during "public participation". Personally given answers by me are required to be limited as much of the discussion has been in closed door sessions - your elected representatives working for you using the authority delegated to them via previous elections and the democratic process.
The full public agenda report pack (68 pages) may be downloaded from here on the Town Council web site
Published Thursday, 26th December 2024