Cabinet to consider further investment in successful Parish Stewards programme

At its meeting on Tuesday 11 October, Wiltshire Council's Cabinet will consider a proposal to invest more money into its successful Parish Stewards scheme.

There are currently 18 Parish Stewards throughout Wiltshire - one for each community area. The stewards focus on small jobs in their community, such as filling potholes, drain clearance and cutting hedges. All work is based on the priorities of the local town or parish council.

However, they are limited one-person jobs and only have a certain selection of tools. So to help with this, the council is proposing to employ an extra two-person Parish Steward support team that will work around the community areas to undertake larger jobs with more equipment.

The extra investment would meet the council's business plan mission to have well-connected communities.

Cllr Dr Mark McClelland, Cabinet Member for Transport, said: Our Parish Stewards scheme has been a real success story. They improve the safety and appearance of Wiltshire's highways network and work hard to deliver on communities' highways priorities, such as fixing small defects on roads and cutting back foliage.

It's because of this success that we want to invest more into this scheme, with an extra two-person team that will work around the county to support the existing Parish Stewards.

If agreed, the new two-person team will be able to help with tasks that need more than one person to complete and will also carry additional equipment to complete larger scale safety and maintenance works. This investment would further deliver on local highways priorities and also improve the visual impact and safety of the county's road network.

If approved by Cabinet, the council will invest a further £233,000 each financial year until 2024/25 into the new two-person Parish Stewards team and work with contractors to source the vehicle and extra equipment.

To read the full Cabinet paper, people should go to https://cms.wiltshire.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=141&MId=14360 (opens new window).