Appendix 2 – Action Notes 13 November 2008
Response to Action Points raised at previous Tain and Easter Ross Ward Forum
ACTION - Police to confirm what full strength of Tain Police Station is.
Tain has 2 Sergeants and 10 Constables, this will increase to 11 in January (then there will be 13 in total).
There are also 2 CID Officers, a Community Safety Officer and 2 Pro-active team Constables covering Tain and Sutherland.
Support staff, Traffic Warden assistance and assistance from Sutherland Officers (Constables and Sergeants) who are not included in this total are drafted in to provide support for serious incidents and routine calls as needed.
The North Division (Caithness, Sutherland & part of Easter Ross) pro-active team and CID, and the East Division (part of Easter Ross, Wester Ross, Skye and Lochaber) pro-active teams and CID, also assist when required.
ACTION – Police to look at clarifying to children about using bikes on pavements and when they must use lights.
Local staff have been briefed about this. It is illegal for bicycles to be ridden on pavements; they should be ridden on the road. We will be raising awareness of this problem through the local papers and the next Tain Royal Academy newsletter.
ACTION – Arrange dates for Ward Forum from July – Dec 2009.
Ward Councillors have agreed that the dates for Ward Forums for this period will be Wednesday 19 August, Thursday 8 October and Wednesday 9 December 2009. One or two people have asked about having the Forum on a day other than Thursday so Councillors agreed to alternate Thursdays with Wednesdays for a trial period.
Question given in advance – unfortunately this was not covered due to lack of time.
Question - Can the Area Housing Manager confirm that the new categorisation which has been introduced will allow these figures to be monitored on an on-going basis. (This question is a second question, the first of which was covered in the Public Question and Answer Session).
Answer - The Highland Housing Register Partners have agreed to changing the names of two lettings areas i.e. Seaboard Villages will be renamed Portmahomack/Inver/Fearn/Pitcalnie and Milton will be renamed Milton/Kildary. These changes are to the names of the lettings areas only. There are no changes in what communities make up these lettings areas.
If statistics are required in relation to demand this will be provided on the basis of the lettings area e.g. we can tell how many households have requested housing in Portmahomack/Inver/Fearn/Pitcalnie as a lettings area but not for example Portmahomack as an individual community. The information stored on the electronic systems is not broken down any further than this.
Applicants are allowed to select a maximum of 10 lettings areas and by grouping small communities together this allows applicants a wider choice of where they may want to live.
If there were proposals for housing developments within the lettings area the people on the register would be written to to establish their specific preferences.