TMSTH Area Forum Meeting - 24th February 2025

40 people in attendance

Including: Ray O’Luby (Chair); Conor O’Luby (Secretary); Jean Kirk (Treasurer); David Pickett (Castlepoint Manager), Cllrs T Slade, L Northover, K Wilson

Of those attending: 13 received a leaflet, 2 saw our FB page or website, 2 saw street banners, 1 saw Cllr Slade’s weekly email,

1. David Pickett (DP), Castlepoint (CP) Manager:

40 person team management, communal parts (not shops). I’ve been there for 8 years, 5 years of the car park works.

I can’t talk much about new retailers, but some of the empty units may be taken but no signatures on page yet.

41 acres area. Large free car park. We’re 2nd biggest shopping centre in UK. We’re 10% up on custom since last year. ANPR system to check numbers.

We have a lot of events coming up: Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day. At Easter we have a pirate ship coming (with Julia’s House). VE Day, we have the Spitfire coming back. We will have the summer garden again this year. It went very well last year, with all the sports happening e.g. Olympics. Pride event in June. Back to school events.

Question (Q): Anything for Xmas 25?

DP: Yes, Festive Point, very successful in 2023, though expensive. Retailers pay towards this through a service charge.

2024 was Festive Flight, also successful, but smaller scale.

Footfall at Xmas is about 1/3 higher than rest of year.

Q: Smaller units on ground floor?

DP: Yes, takes a lot of work. At the moment the units are all shut, things are being discussed, early stages.

Q: Before Covid, very nice ‘Eat and Treat’ cafe.

DP: We are trying to bring things like that back. They had to move because of car park work. At the moment it’s really quiet on the ground floor. We had a market in 2023 which was successful. We have a market starting in March, with some smaller, artisanal, independent retailers.

Cllr LN: I come as a pedestrian and cyclist. I think there’s a real opportunity for improvement in promoting these forms.

DP: It’s quite difficult nut to crack, the car is king. We are trying to make some amendment so the car is less dominant. I ride my bike too sometimes. To reroute car-park is tricky.

Cllr LN: It’s difficult to know where to head for

DP: Add more signs, wayfinding. We work with More Buses

Conor: The metal plates covering potholes on Hamblin Road are quite bad, making a noise next to the bus stop.

DP: We own this road and will be fixing it this year.

Q: Do you support different charities each year?

DP: Yes, this year Julia’s House. Also, Ukraine supply drop-off in old Argos units

Q: Aren’t the upper areas big enough for open-air cafes?

DP: We are trying to encourage people to take up spaces

Q: Losing Sainsbury’s cafe, there aren’t many cafe places at CP

DP: the landlord is trying to encourage more food and beverage, we need to improve this provision

Cllr KW: Are there still events at Waterstones and others which could be promoted?

DP: We are trying to bring in other events as I mentioned earlier. What would the audience like to see?

Audience: Events, food and drink, food festival

Q: Who controls the food delivery people?

DP: Uber, Just Eat? Are they causing problems? Abandoning bikes? I can have a word with retailers.

Q: Are these delivery people insured?

DP: I assume so, but it’s the retailer’s responsibility

Q: Kids flying about on bikes, could be dangerous.

Conor: Could unused units offer something to kids e.g. table tennis etc?

DP: We could think about this

Q: Will car parking charges be introduced? Will the council try to ‘force’ CP to introduce charges to protect the town centre?

DP: No. CP is not the cause of town centre decline. I think we need each other. Bournemouth town centre has quite a lot of places to eat, for example. The centre needs to play to its strength, beach front, gardens.

Q: Are there any stores at threat of closing at CP?

DP: Not as far as I know, though that’s not my area. Waterstones is doing very well after the refit.

Q: You hinted at increasing the size of CP?

DP: There may be some plans to expand within its own footprint.

Q: The box junction outside B&Q is quite frustrating.

DP: The lights on Castle Lane are BCP controlled. The light phasing is not in our favour i.e. access to CP. We’re criticised for not giving people enough time to get away (in their cars). We are looking at fixing the scoop ramp

Q: Lights at Woodbury Avenue. Your bit of land with pampas grass looks nice but at night drivers entering Castle Lane from Woodbury Avenue are blinded by cars on CL.

DP: I can look at that.

Q: Pedestrian crossing at library is ridiculous. Waiting times are very long.

DP: Not my area.

Q: Banking Hub?

Brin: at the Post Office you can pay in take out,

Brin: Shoplifting. Do you just escort people to the boundary of Castlepoint and let them go?

DP: As CP we are not permitted to detain someone in a store if concealment of stolen goods not observed.

Brin: Would CP sponsor the Forum?

DP: I’ll talk to Conor

De Lancy and Columbia Threadneedle own CP

2. Reading the accounts

Ray: these have been confirmed as accurate by Ian Clark. Ray recaps the history of funding for Forum. We are volunteers, main expenditure is website, followed by leaflets and hall hire.

Cllr LN: The website is a very good resource, archived material.

3. Councillors’ news (Lisa Northover, Kieron Wilson, Toby Slade)

KW: Plan for Play – investing in play parks, we were unanimous on BCP to invest in parks across.

£600,000 for the Forum area in phase 1. Townsend Noyce Gardens, Muscliff Park and Langford Way. Bradpole Rd play park is in phase 2 (currently unfunded)

We’ve passed our budget. We had to make savings, but we didn’t have to make as many cuts as in early years.

BCP CEO Graham Farrant will be resigning this summer

Q: Commend BCP for removing bramble. However, fly-tipping along feeder road from Vanguard Rd continues. Footpath K29 is covered in wet leaves, dangerous, as is a nearby oak tree. Can we please have something done? Some was removed, but other material has reappeared. I contacted KW about this but he didn’t get back to me.

KW: If something comes in my email, I’ll get onto it. Sorry that I didn’t get back to you earlier.

TS: I’ll visit the site with the gentleman after the meeting.

Alan G.: to be fair, an amount of material dumped was taken away quickly.

LN: We want to hear from you if the reporting systems aren’t working. It’s not necessarily the role of councillor to report, but to help fix the systems.

Q: speed restrictions on Bradpole Rd? Speeding down the hill, there was an accident

LN: We can do area-wide 20mph zones, pilot schemes.

KW: I’ll talk to the transport team, say it came up at the meeting. They’ll probably come back and say it’s low down on the risk assessment

Conor: Council assesses risk looking at serious accidents/deaths, those that have worse statistics will get calming funding first.

A: How can we police the 20mph zone?

LN: The costs for 20mph zones have gone down because it’s better to do them in areas rather than single roads.

Q: More bicycle lanes?

Ray: cycle lanes are to encourage future generations, there is no money for new lanes.

Q: Throop Road towards Marquee the council widened an area, traveller camps on land there. Can we put a barrier to prevent parking? Also, the motorbike barrier at Strouden Woods Bradpole Rd entrance gone. Why?

KW: I’ll look into this. Conor, please send this to me.

Jean K: Bus back to Throop?

KW: Not looking good at the moment. More Buses not really interested.

Conor: I don’t think the community bus idea has been explored.

KW: I’m happy to talk to community buses

DP: Take forward idea of SedCat bus access to Castlepoint speak to Natasha.

Ian C: Local Plan?

KW: Still under review (Inspector). Labour Government want BCP to double the amount of house building we’ve achieved. We may have to increase the amount we build.

No big housing development in our area in current LP, but government could ask us to change plan.

KW: It’s difficult for BCP to build housing in town centre as we don’t own a lot of land.

Introducing Cllr Toby Slade: It’s not easy always to find the right people to talk to in the Council, thanks to Kieron for helping out here. I send out a weekly area newsletter. I’ve raised concerns about standards of councillors or officers. I think it should be basic courtesy that you get a reply from your councillor or officer. Communication within the council not great. I know that officers are busy, I appreciate this.

Cob Barn Updates:

We have done the survey on the Barn and when we get the full report we will hold another meeting to discuss next steps.

Ian C: Muscliff Community Centre for next meeting?

Ray: we can think about this, probably

Q: Driving centres for Bmth?

A: Write to MP Tom Hayes.

There is a BCP email every Friday giving local news updates