Wotton Town Council Meeting

17th November 2025

My informal notes and personal comment from the Town Council meeting on Monday that I attended along with SDC Cllr Braun. GCC/SDC Cllr Cohen had sent apologies along with a few other town councillors.

A few members of the public were present but none wanted to speak at the public forum.

The Chairman said that he had visited the new Charfield station site and checked out the parking consultation. There will be a £2.80 charge for the day which may have gone up by the time the station opens. There is a possibility of residential parking permits. There are two community groups committed to fighting residential parking. The Chair said parking should be free to prevent people parking on residential streets.

Both the County and District councillors' reports were taken as read. Cllr Braun mentioned the current state of play with the Local Plan. SDC want a final report from the inspectors so that their observations can be incorporated into the new plan.

Town councillors are now being asked to consider installing a new VOIP system for broadband and telephones at the Civic Centre. The Chair said that fibre to the premises was required to replace the existing copper cables. Apparently,this cabling will not be installed before 2027 as Openreach are behind in their national roll-out. The programme has been put back twice already. Chair and deputy seem content to delay making any decision and continue as is. No merit in pressing ahead right now. Approved.

Next to agree membership of Walkers are Welcome. Deputy chair says the PROW partnership was asked to consider joining. 2 stage process. £70. apply for provisional membership. There are 6 criteria, if ratified one can apply for full membership. Then Town Council can use the Walkers are Welcome logo. 300 parishioner signatures need to be obtained (that's a big ask, there were only 270 responses to the community plan!) along with councillor support. The local steering group could be the PROW partnership. Cllr asks what Wotton gets out of it. Clerk interjects; We do we need to promote because it's a national organisation that promotes tourism. Wotton is known locally but does not have such a high profile as Dursley, for example. Approved

The council was asked to purchase colostomy friendly bag shelves for Civic Centre toilets. Three quotes £583, pressed steel £188, and £306. inc vat. Recommended option 3 as it has anti-bacterial coating. Cllr asks where are the five toilets? Where lacking in all buildings I think was the response. Approved

To agree to a stall at the Christmas under the Edge. The Council is on the final push to achieve the target for the crowdfunding of the Symn Lane Play Area Improvement. £58,557 pledged of £93,669 with 28 days to go. How to get attention, Clerk says company (or was that Theresa?) will produce boards. Pledge QR Code £2. Clerk wants the stall sited near the Town Hall. Approved.

The Budget 2025/26 was noted as were accounts for payment. The expenditure on Pride window stickers of £40 was queried as Cllr thought they were a donation from Cotswold Letterpress

Planning. Council to consider pre-application consultation of Proposed Telecommunications Upgrade at Land at Avonshire Plant, off Tabernacle Road. Even though comment is pointless Cllr thought it appropriate to fire questions back. To who? the applicant or the planning authority? Questions which maybe of interest to residents. Sigh, I really don't understand what purpose this serves.

Next up to consider a report from Stripe Consulting on Symn Lane Car Park planning application S.23/2101/VAR. Council had already sent off one set of comments to planning last Thursday. This is to take into account further comments from Stripe and how council deals with them.

Deputy chair says 2 stages are required to go through comments to ascertain if they need more advice. Then decide the sorts of comments to go to planning. Chair says comments need to be in 25th Nov. to allow SDC/DCC members time to look at them. Fairer to allow more time.

A lengthy discussion ensues on the detail of the eight points raised by Stripe in their report. Most of these points related to construction work already undertaken or addressed by conditions on the planning permission already granted. A Cllr commented that huge amounts of work had been done on this but none of the Cllrs are qualified to comment so what is the point? Shouldn't the developer and planners sort all this out? Other Cllrs commented that cars on the various car park diagrams, supplied by Stripe, were shown on the wrong side of the road. [The item under consideration was a variation to an application that has already been approved. I don't think this important point was properly explained to the new councillors.]

Myself (exhausted) and Cllr Braun left the meeting at this point for a catch-up meeting in the car-park.