Somerset this week: 20 June 2025

This week a new CEO for Taunton's UKHO, more Police on our streets, Somerset Council quietly exits FixMyStreet, we ask why, no questions on the accounts of Somerset NHS and a merger at Langport

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Ask no questions, tell no lies

NHS Somerset, the ICB that holds the budget for NHS services in England held a meeting this week. The purpose of the meeting was to approve the organisation’s accounts.

This was, according to the board, sufficient reason for there to be no public questions. The notice of the meeting was accompanied by a note explaining: “this is an Extraordinary meeting mainly to approve the Annual Report and Accounts and therefore the usual standing items, including Public Questions, are not on the agenda.”

The great irony being that within the accounts that the public are not allowed to ask questions about, is a statement that runs: “Our ICB Board meetings are open for the public to attend. Members of the public can raise public questions….”

This is perhaps the most important document that NHS Somerset produces each year. Of course no one would expect the board to change their minds about signing the accounts because of public questions.

But this is the one perfect opportunity for the public to ask questions about the accounts and for the board to demonstrate some sort of financial accountability – not to central government, but to the population they are paid to serve.

It all smacks of a certain arrogance. Why should the little people be expected to have a view on the accounts or – perish the thought – wish to ask questions about them before they are signed.

should the little people be expected to have a view on the accounts

One question the public might want to ask is why NHS Somerset spent £2.5m less than the funding they were given in 2023/24 and £8.2m less than their funding in this year 2024/25. Money that could have been put towards improving dental services in the county or perhaps to sustaining the Hyper Acute Stroke Unit at Yeovil Hospital.

Another issue that the accounts are reassuringly silent on, is why NHS Somerset undertakes public consultations and then ignores the views of the public when they give the wrong answer. Why waste money on a consultation exercise in the first place?

There is, it seems to us, a growing issue with public accountability with our NHS Somerset.

We have repeatedly asked questions over the past three weeks about the former, which NHS Somerset appears to have dealt with by simply blanking us and our requests for information.

Library service cuts

Although it is one of the less expensive of the statutory services that a county or unitary council must provide to its residents, libraries are a service that often seems to be a target for budget cutting. As Somerset County Council found to their cost when the Conservative administration proposed to slash the number of libraries in 2010, which would close 20 of the Council’s 34 libraries.

The outcry was large and loud and accompanied by a legal challenge which eventually saw the plans scrapped.

However, as cash-strapped councils across the country are struggling to balance their books library services are once again under the microscope. North Somerset Council proposes cutting £217,000 from the service in 2026/27 and a further £217,000 in 2027/28. The £433,000 cut represents 20% of the £2,177,170 budget for the year just finished.

the council is facing challenging financial times

A North Somerset Council spokesperson explained: “Our library service is at the heart of our communities but due to rising costs and reduced national funding, the council is facing challenging financial times. We need to save £44million over the next three years which means difficult and challenging decisions need to be made to set a balanced budget. Like many other councils across the country, all services across North Somerset Council are being reviewed and where possible savings are being made through doing things differently, working more closely with partners or reducing services.”

North Somerset Council currently runs 10 libraries.

In Bath & North East Somerset there are, for now at least, no such strictures. The budget in recent years has been kept more or less flat:

• 2023-24 budget £2,775,945.03

• 2024-25 budget £2,686,131.22

• 2025-26 budget £2,699,906.00

However, and importantly, the Council is not planning any cuts to the service. Councillor Manda Rigby, Cabinet Member for Communications and Civic Services, told Somerset Confidential®: “Bath & North East Somerset Council’s 2024/25- 2028/29 Medium Term Financial Strategy does not contain any reference to savings from the libraries service. The service comprises four Customer Services and Libraries in physical locations, a mobile library and a Home Library service, as well as supporting a network of community run libraries.”

Similarly, Somerset Council which covers a larger area and three times as many libraries, has a much larger budget and has no immediate plans for cuts. Which given the dire financial situation of the Council is a statement in itself.

Like B&NES, the last three years have seen the library service budget kept flat. The figures for Somerset Council are as follows:

• 23/24 = £4,239,400.00

• 24/25 = £4,343,400.00

• 25/26 = £4,343,400.00

And in a statement of intent they have just announced their participation in a new initiative bringing Virtual Reality (VR) headsets to libraries over the summer. The VR experiences will allow the wearer to accompany Wallace and Gromit on an adventure, sit in with a full orchestra while they play Lark Ascending or experience riding in a World War Two bomber.

They are the only council in the south west to take part in the initiative which is presented in collaboration with Arts Council England, British Film Institute, and The Space.

The programme for the VR Experiences Tour is as follows:

• Taunton Library: Saturday 28 June 10am-3pm

• Bridgwater Library: Thursday 3 July 10am-3pm; Friday 4 July 10am-1pm

• Yeovil Library: Saturday 5 July 10am-1pm; Monday 7 July 10am-3pm

• Chard Library: Tuesday 8 July 10am-3pm; Thursday 10 July 10am-3pm; Friday 11 July 10am-3pm

There’s no need to book. All ages will be encouraged to get hands-on with the venture from pre-teens to older people, although anyone aged 12 or under will need a consent form signed by a parent or guardian.

Libraries may no longer be all about books but they still have an important role at the heart of communities across our patch. Councillor Manda Rigby put it: “Libraries play a vital role in our communities. The council is committed to maintaining and enhancing our library offer, including through community engagement, digital access, and inclusive services such as sensory explorer bags for children and young people with additional needs.”

Fix My Street (but fix it quietly)

FixMyStreet is a charitable enterprise set up to provide citizens with a portal on which to report problems. They, in turn, send a contact report direct to the relevant council. However, and perhaps crucially, the report is made public so people can see the volume of issues arising at any one council.

Interestingly, a number of councils have recently opted out of using FixMyStreet, notably Croydon Council which is in special measures and now, most recently, Somerset Council.

Why have Somerset Council abandoned FixMyStreet? According to a council spokesperson it has nothing to do with the visibility of issues people have logged. Instead it is: “about improving the service by directing people straight to our own quick and easy to use web portal in the first place.”

The council claim that whereas under their own Report It system notifications go directly: “to a member of our maintenance team and they get the map locations first hand and can log the defect immediately.”

By contrast: “Fix My Street notifications do not go directly to our highways team, they create unnecessary delay by tying up contact centre officers with emails or phone calls, who then have to manually pass the defect on to the Highways Team to log in our own system.”

they create unnecessary delay by tying up contact centre officers

Understandable, but it does say something about the state of Somerset Council’s IT systems if upon receiving an email they have to pass the information on manually. Why, for instance, can the contact centre pass on all FixMyStreet emails to a single point of contact in Highways who can then “triage” the reports to the rights Highways officer?

You can find the Council’s own reporting system here.

It is hard to escape the feeling that this is not the real objection to FixMyStreet.

The council’s alternative does indeed look comprehensive and gives you a reference number to help you follow up on the progress of the item you have reported.

What it doesn’t give of course, is a public view so everyone else can see the problems reported and how rapidly the Council is fixing them. Something which FixMyStreet gave. Which offers a way for the public in general to see how their council is performing.

Certainly, Somerset Council are keen to explain it is not about saving money. Their spokesperson told us: “opting out of Fix My Street simply means precious officer time is refocused on dealing with other vital calls to our contact centre.”

However, we also wondered why Somerset Council had quietly withdrawn from FixMyStreet. The decision appears not to have been taken by any elected members or with any publicity. You might have thought if this was a really good idea, that the Council would have press-released the change so residents would know where to report issues?

Maybe we could have some dropped kerbs please?

Indeed Somerset Confidential® understands that some councillors are still pointing residents to FixMyStreet.

When we challenged them on this their spokesperson told us: “The council’s scheme of delegation means that many routine decisions can be taken without the need for a committee decision.”

That is as maybe. But as the new system has the advantage for the council that only the person registering the problem can see how short or long a time the council is taking to fix it, we couldn’t help wondering if elected members should have been given the chance to have a say on this.

UKHO appoints first woman leader

Listen very carefully… That was the sound of another glass ceiling shattering as the UK Hydrographic Office, based in Taunton, announced the appointment of Vanessa Blake as the new Chief Executive. Since the UK Hydrographic Office was created from the role of Hydrographer of the Navy in 2001, every CEO has been male. And there have only ever been men in the role of Hydrographer of the Navy (a post which dates back to 1795).

The UK Hydrographic Office is not perhaps Taunton’s biggest employer (although they have more than 900 staff), but it is certainly one of its most prestigious. It has been in Taunton in some form or other since the 1930s. The principle business of the UK Hydrographic Office is the preparation of nautical charts and its biggest ‘customer’ remains the Royal Navy. However these days commercial shipping companies are also customers. Among the more eccentric (but important) publications it is responsible for is a multi-volume gazetteer of the world’s fog horns and light signals.

Prior to 2001 all of the hydrographers were naval men. Since then there’s been a mix of Royal Navy personnel and people from the world of commerce.

New CEO Vanessa Blake

Vanessa Blake is the latter. The press release on her appointment describes her as having: “served as senior executive of a data-driven technology organisation. With over 25 years’ experience in leading strategic change, she brings a strong commercial background and expertise in growth strategy, digital transformation and customer-focused innovation.”

she brings a strong commercial background and expertise in growth

We took a brief look at her track record. Her profile suggests she was engaged for much of her early career in two start-ups. First as Managing Director of “The Phone Room” a market research and contact centre business. She was a director of the business from its founding in 2001 until it entered liquidation in 2014. The company was eventually wound up leaving unpaid creditors to the value of £242,460.

Her second start-up experience was with DreamGenii a company making pregnancy pillows which she started in July 2005. This seems to have fared better and was sold to CMS supplies in April 2016.

More recently she’s had stints in integrated information and data management (Restore plc), Financial Services (FleetCor) and business technology (WestCon).

Vanessa Blake has already been at the UK Hydrographic Office since May 2024 as its interim CEO when Royal Navy Rear Admiral, Peter Sparkes, was appointed the new Chief Executive of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI).

Taking 13 months to get around to appointing a new CEO of an important Government office seems somewhat slow. Especially as a spokesperson for the Office confirmed Rear Admiral Sparkes served his notice before moving on. The point of a notice period is to allow an organisation to have the time to find a replacement.

Interestingly, the same thing happened back in 2020 when Rear Admiral Sparkes was himself appointed (also from the interim CEO post). He had to wait from his appointment as interim in July 2020 until the selection process confirmed him in the role in April 2021.

We asked the Office why it took them so long to get around to appointing a new CEO for what is, let’s face it, an important role. They told us: “As per standard Civil Service process, the UKHO takes time to review and approve the role before it is advertised to the external job market. We undertook a recruitment campaign to ensure the role was advertised to the widest pool of candidates as possible.

A shortlist was created followed by a comprehensive assessment and interview process before a final candidate was selected. Typically, we recruit an interim to cover the vacancy whilst the recruitment process is undertaken, ensuring continuous executive leadership for our organisation.”

All this may be true but it does not explain why the process has twice taken over a year to complete.

More police after all

Two weeks ago we reported on the Police response to rural crime following criticism of rural crime rates from MP Sarah Dyke in the House of Commons.

The Police told us the Rural Crime Team consisted of: “one Inspector, one Sergeant and three Police Constables.” Which sounded alarmingly small to cover Somerset and South Gloucestershire.

However, they reminded us that this is a specialist team which is there to add expertise to the neighbourhood policing teams as and when they need it.

The Police also confirmed the Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper’s claim that Avon & Somerset Police would be getting an extra 70 officers for the neighbourhood police teams.

Good news per se, but where would they go? The fear being that as happens all too often in our part of the world, the lion’s share would be allocated to Bristol.

We remained in touch with the Police who did not have allocations by area at the time. Well now we have the figures and they are reasonably encouraging.

Of the 70 new officers, 30 will be allocated to Bristol. A further 10 will be allocated between South Gloucestershire and Bath & North East Somerset, although as yet the exact split between the two has to be decided.

The more mathematically agile will realise that leaves a further 30 officers for Somerset and North Somerset. So, while there is a degree of estimation left, it rather looks as if half of the new officers will be allocated to the county of Somerset.
Which reasonably reflects the Somerset share of the new officers based on its population relative to the force wide area.

All that said, the latest figures from insurer NFU Mutual suggest the cost of rural crime in Somerset is rising rapidly (albeit these figures are for 2024). This is admittedly based on the value of insurance claims received by county, which may not be the most helpful gauge of the scale of rural crime.

While the value of claims across the South West region as a whole fell by 4% between 2023 and 2024, in Somerset claims rose from £800,000 to £2.1m.

The number of crimes has, however, risen much less steeply

The number of crimes has, however, risen much less steeply. The most recent published data for Avon & Somerset Police shows that they recorded 524 rural crimes for the year 2022/23 and 547 for 2023/24.

So, there will be plenty of work for those 30+ new officers to get their teeth into.

Not least the recent situation in Glastonbury where drug dealing in St John’s churchyard and an intimidating atmosphere left by anti-social behaviour around the Market Cross and along the High Street.

For the past month and following interventions by local MP Sarah Dyke, the Police have promised to significantly increase their visibility and the number of officers on the beat in the town centre. Exactly the sort of thing the increase in officer s for Neighbourhood Policing was designed to enable.

Somerset’s “Risorgimento”

At the heart of Somerset lies the well known town of Langport, surrounded on all sides by the less well known parish of Huish Episcopi. For decades the two entities have evolved to merge completely into each other such that if you were to drive through you would not see where one ended and the other began.

At least you wouldn’t were it not for the road signs welcoming you to one or the other. To all intents and purposes this is now one community, with shared schools, shared facilities such as a youth club, a MUGA, a recreation ground, a cricket club etc.

Over the past 12 months the two councils have slowly travelled in the same direction as their communities, working out if they can merge together, creating a new council to reflect the geographical reality of two conjoined communities.

The process through which this is done is a Community Governance Review and it must be overseen by Somerset Council.

The latest stage of the process involved consultation with the two councils, local MP Sarah Dyke, the two Somerset Councillors Mike Stanton and Richard Wilkins plus the head of the primary school and academy.

A spokesperson for Somerset Council told us all the initial feedback had been positive. The consultation had been open to individuals to comment as well.

However, now the next phase involves a full public consultation for residents of Huish Episcopi Parish Council and Langport Town Council to have their say. It’s probably worth recapping what the proposals are:

• Creating a new parish council of Huish Episcopi and Langport

• Dissolving the existing two councils

• The new council to have 11 councillors

• The new parish will not be divided into wards

The creation of a new parish council is a legal nicety. We understand that the council will be free to vote itself into being a town council once it has been established and set up. Readers may recall the same process applied on the creation of Taunton Town Council which was, in the first instance, a parish council.

Having 11 councillors will be much more in keeping with a council serving the population of Langport and Huish Episcopi. To put that into context, the 2,150 residents of Huish Episcopi are represented by nine councillors, whereas the 810 Langport residents have 11 councillors to represent them.

That currently leaves 20 councillors serving a population of barely 3,000. Compare that to Somerton where 15 councillors serve a population of 5,500 or Ilminster where 15 councillors serve a population of 6,000 and it is clear that the current arrangements make little sense.

If you want to give your thoughts on the proposed merger you can do so by following this link.

You will need to respond before the consultation closing date of 8 August. Both Langport Town Council and Huish Episcopi Parish Council are encouraging as many residents as possible to take part and let Somerset Council have their views.

The final decision will be in the gift of Somerset Council’s Constitution and Governance Committee. That Committee is expected to make a final decision in September this year.

However even when that decision is made, if it is to endorse a merger, the merged council will not take over until April 2027 with elections in May of the same year to choose the new councillors.

Sean Dromgoole: “It is now for us to make the case”

Meanwhile the community has organised another debate/public meeting which will take place on 3 July. Long Sutton resident and councillor Rupert Cox will be in the chair, as a neutral from beyond the boundaries of the two councils.

Chair of Langport Town Council, Sean Dromgoole told Somerset Confidential®: “This process is a careful one. Somerset have now published their recommendation, which is for a single parish council called Huish Episcopi and Langport with eleven councillors and no internal wards. It is now for us to make the case that this represents a better way to govern our area than the current mishmash of two separate councils. To some of us it is obvious, but others remain to be persuaded and that is the work of the summer”.

As the Langport and Huish merger progresses, other communities in a similar position are looking on. If this merger works well, they might be next in the queue. Ansford and Castle Cary for instance. Or Wells and Wells Without.

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