Dear Councillor Benjamin,

Thank you for your enquiry – it is great to see the Youth Council is active and taking an interest in island life.

As their queries covered a number of topics, this reply represents the views of all three AIG Directorates and the Senior Crown Counsel where relevant.

To address the points raised, we would respond as follows:

Sheep
This subject has been dealt with in depth via your other Councillor enquiry on this subject and we wondered if you could use that separate reply to brief the Youth Council on that issue please?

Rodents and roadkill
The Environmental Health Team do patrol the roads and remove roadkill on their normal working days (Monday to Friday). They are also happy to respond to additional requests made to the AIG Help Desk on 66116 or email: help.desk@ascension.gov.ac

The EHO team do issue a quarterly update Public Notice about their activity and the last version was relatively recent – 18 October.

Jobs for school leavers
Although AIG are looking to improve the system still further, AIG do already have an effective system for school leavers. This has been underlined by various success story articles in the Islander. This year, all 4 students who applied for positions with AIG were accepted.

Post 16 education
Our understanding is that any child with a British passport can study for free until 18 years in the UK (if they have a British Passport). This means that the young people would need to have family to stay with and then apply to a college within that area. Following on from college, they would then have the same options available to them to apply to study at University. Here on Ascension in the last four years we have had one young person take up this route, organised by their family.

Presently on Island we have set up the online learning model with Wolsey Hall in Oxford for students to undertake ‘A’ levels via distance learning. This is very challenging for the young people bridging the gap from face to face teaching to distance learning. The idea of having face to face lessons remotely has been explored but given our very small numbers this would be a huge expense, (approximately £10 000 per A Level). There may be schools that would be willing to let our young people dial in to their lessons. A link has been set up between The Westgate School in Winchester and TBS, it is still in its early stages but we aim to explore this possibility with them. Councillors will also be able to brief the Youth Council on discussions in relation to this subject at JMC.

Letterbox walks
Letterbox walks like Sisters are not an AIG responsibility. Letterbox walks are an informal system of tracks loosely managed by the Heritage Society. This being the case, the queries raised need to be redirected to the Heritage Society. The only exception to this is that some walks within the Green Mountain National park are maintained by the Conservation Directorate. The Park Warden team maintain these and can be contacted via the Conservation offices in Georgetown. There is also a white board posted at the Red Lion which can be used to note hazards such as landslides, tree falls or other concerns that can be addressed by the Park Warden team.

Repair issues

On repair/fault issues generally, it is useful for the Youth Council to know that repair issues can be reported at any time by contacting the AIG Help Desk (via 66116 or help.desk@ascension.gov.ac).

We reviewed the issues mentioned and found the result of each was:

1. Repair swings in both TB and GT Playgrounds
The swings in both locations were checked on 12/11/24 and found to be defect free. During October an external company also looked at these swings for safety issues and found none. We are happy
to look at this further but would need more information.
2. Clean up the donkey mess in the sand in GT playground
The AIG team clean this area twice a week so this would have been dealt with shortly after being reported.
3. Repair the gate to GT playground
Repairs on this should be complete this week.
4. Repair the water feature in GT Playground
This appears to be a complex fault which we may not be able to fix immediately. It will be resolved but we cannot give you a timescale at this time.

Installing drinking fountains in the playparks
Via an external funding source, AIG may be able to install some new drinking fountains on island and we will certainly consider the playgrounds as options. Should Councillors wish water fountains in the Playpark to be an AIG priority this should be raised via the Public Works Committee. The AIMPACT fund is another avenue for requesting support for projects and infrastructure that would benefit the community. The next round of applications will be open in February 2025.

We hope these answers help, but if you do need anything further, please let us know. Also if invited, we could consider sending an AIG officer to Youth Council meetings if it would help.

Councillor Kerry Benjamin

Submitted: 11 November 2024

Response: 2 December 2024