Monday, October 09, 2006
11/09/2006 Mobile one-stop shops get Lib Dem support
11th September 2006
Cllr Paul Sample has supported the concept of mobile one-stop shops for the District Council. Speaking at a meeting of the District Council’s Resources Overview & Scrutiny Committee on Monday night, he was critical of the Council’s half-hearted attempts to set up one stop shops in rural areas.
“As a District Council serving a largely rural area, I think we need to do more to take the services to the people. The Council is spending millions of £££s on new offices in central Salisbury. They are expecting people to come to see them.
“That is not the way it should be. I want to see less money spent on grandiose schemes in the City of Salisbury, which gets more than its share of investment, and more in the rural areas. Villagers and people living outside Salisbury should not bee seen as second class citizens by the Council. We need to put more time and effort in setting up and promoting one-stop shops in rural towns and larger villages. The attempts so far half been half hearted and of limited success.
“I think we could probably provide mobile information points for the rural areas, with the minimum of investment. The rural mobile library service is already set up and running. It is really popular. The service is well established and people in villages have come to trust and use the mobile libraries. I’d like to see if there are ways of Salisbury District Council and Wiltshire County Council could work closer together to use the mobile libraries as mobile information points. We could perhaps consider putting payment and information points into the mobile libraries, when they are replaced.
“I’d also like the Government to relax the rules on what Post Offices in rural areas can and cannot do. It would be great if the District Council could use the rural post office network to take more services to the people. It would also provide an additional revenue stream for rural postmasters.”
Cllr Paul Sample has supported the concept of mobile one-stop shops for the District Council. Speaking at a meeting of the District Council’s Resources Overview & Scrutiny Committee on Monday night, he was critical of the Council’s half-hearted attempts to set up one stop shops in rural areas.
“As a District Council serving a largely rural area, I think we need to do more to take the services to the people. The Council is spending millions of £££s on new offices in central Salisbury. They are expecting people to come to see them.
“That is not the way it should be. I want to see less money spent on grandiose schemes in the City of Salisbury, which gets more than its share of investment, and more in the rural areas. Villagers and people living outside Salisbury should not bee seen as second class citizens by the Council. We need to put more time and effort in setting up and promoting one-stop shops in rural towns and larger villages. The attempts so far half been half hearted and of limited success.
“I think we could probably provide mobile information points for the rural areas, with the minimum of investment. The rural mobile library service is already set up and running. It is really popular. The service is well established and people in villages have come to trust and use the mobile libraries. I’d like to see if there are ways of Salisbury District Council and Wiltshire County Council could work closer together to use the mobile libraries as mobile information points. We could perhaps consider putting payment and information points into the mobile libraries, when they are replaced.
“I’d also like the Government to relax the rules on what Post Offices in rural areas can and cannot do. It would be great if the District Council could use the rural post office network to take more services to the people. It would also provide an additional revenue stream for rural postmasters.”
