Archive for category: News

Parish councillors serve a 4 year term before elections are held for the seats. This occurs on  1^st May 2025. Firsdown has 7 councillors, some are intending to stand in the elections, whilst a number are expected to stand down. This will provide an opportunity for new additions to the Parish Council. A successful Parish Council needs local people to contribute views and ideas on issues that are important to them. Firsdown Parish Council would like to better reflect the make-up of the community it serves, for example new arrivals to Firsdown, young families and women; new members from these groups would be particularly welcome.

Full details of how to join us are here: We need you Firsdown Election notice May 2025

Alternatively join the webinar on the 5th March.

 

As many Firsdown residents know, the road to Pitton was shut for many months during winter last year due to ground water flooding. This occurs every few years.

The closure of the road impacts residents in Firsdown who make use of the facilities in Pitton.

The residents of Pitton are working with their Parish Council and Wiltshire Council to make drainage improvements to prevent flooding but they are also creating a self help community group to undertake some of the work themselves.

Details of their plans and a crowd funding appeal to support it are here.

The soft plastics recycling bin at Great Croft will be removed on 12th December for approximately one month as the Parish Council are unable to resource the collection over the Christmas period.

Residents can still recycle their soft plastics at supermarkets in Salisbury such as Sainsbury’s, Waitrose and Tesco. The Parish Council will restart our scheme during the 2nd half of January.

Silver Salisbury is a local charity which celebrates older people. It provides a wide range of events in and around Salisbury and aims to improve well being for the older members of communities by making them feel less isolated which can in turn can reduce the need the for health and social care services.

The program of events is available here.

A directory is also available to download.

If you know of someone in Firsdown who could benefit from taking part in one of the Silver Salisbury activities, then please pass on this information.

 

The following has been provided by PCSL.

Planning permission granted
As many of you already know we gained planning permission from Wiltshire Council – a huge milestone!

A big thank you is due to the architects at Barclay Phillips who developed the plans and responded quickly to any queries or suggested amendments.  We are also grateful to those of you who left supportive comments on the planning portal, as it demonstrated that there is a good deal of community support for the project.

Donations from Pitton and Farley and Firsdown Parish Councils

We have received donations to our project from both local Parish Councils.

Their support is very much appreciated.

Legal work

Legal work is progressing well and both Pitton Community Store and Pitton Village Hall have appointed and instructed solicitors to work towards agreeing the lease for the land on which the shop will be built.

Fundraising

We have now raised over £65,000 and are very grateful to everyone who has contributed through donations or share purchases.  Thankyou to all who contributed to the very successful fundraising Race Night at the village hall.  This raised a magnificent £1,000 towards the capital building costs and provided  an evening of fun for all.

Capital funding

Capital funding to cover the main build cost remains a challenge.  The new government has still not indicated their plans for the Community Ownership fund.  Our bid, developed with help from Plunkett, has been ready to go since before the election, but we are now treading water waiting to hear if those grants will still be available.   In the meantime we continue to investigate other funding streams, such as crowdfunding, lottery and smaller grants.  We plan to bid for anything where we meet the criteria so if you hear of something that might fit or know of companies who may help sponsor us, do please let us know.