Last Night, The Conservatives held onto the Eriswell and Rows  Council seat previously held by now banned local Tory Councillor Terry Waters.  This was despite  a catastrophic drop of over 24% of their vote  share.  Ukip also saw their vote share half in the ward.   Lib Dem John Smith  polled just a touch under 40% but failed to take the seat by just 54 votes froma  standing start.   The new Councillor is Cllr Waters son, James. 

The by election appears to have been timed so that though the Standards Board adjudication was issued the day before poll its findings would not find its way into the local press before polling day. The findings of the Standards Board can be downloaded here

The result
Forest Heath DC, Eriswell & the Rows
Thursday 22 October 2009 12:00

Con 400 (45.8; -24.4)
LD John Smith 346 (39.6; +39.6)
UKIP 128 (14.6; -15.2)
Majority 54
Turnout 29.2%

Con hold
Percentage change is since May 2007.

At the Planning Committee of Forest Heath on the 14th October,  the draft Conservation area report for Freckenham was put out to consultation.

 The proposals can be found here,  not surprisingly buried deep inside the Forest Heath website:-  http://www3.forest-heath.gov.uk/minutes/pln/pln2009oct14/reports/pln09604%20Freckenham.pdf

 So if you want to make any comments or have objections please send them to Forest heath as soon as possible.

Over the past few weeks I have been going across ot Bedford to help an old Friend Dave Hodgson campaign for the Mayoralty of Bedford.   Bedford is one of only two places in the East of England to have a directly elected Mayoralty, the other being Watford.

As of Today, both now have Lib Dems Mayors.  Dave won after supplementary preferences were counted.  A great victory for Dave but more importantly for Bedford.  Dave has been an active campaigner in Bedford for many years and knows the area well.

The District Auditor signed off Forest Heath’s accounts last night but  not before making sure that there was a major amendment to the balance sheet.

That the £15 million that The Conservtive administartion had valued the centre at - that is what it cost them to build it.  This should be valued at £11 million.

 In effect the Auditor was saying that if the planning, and design process had been right then it should have cost at least £4 millionless to build and should have been significantly less than that as a completed building should have value added not value deducted.

Now a great leisure centre we do have  in Newmarket but what other great facilities could we have had that have been poured into this money pit had the building been built the correct way in the first place.  Could Brandon have had a new pool or Mildenhall a new Leisure Centre to replce the current one?