Turning up to corporate services committee tonight,  yet again the Committee clerks were handing out a report on an ‘important’ council strategy.  This time on their capital programme.  How we were supposed to read and analyse it within a few minutes, who ever knows?  It didn’t matter to the Tories as they just voted it through despite my objections.

This is local council taxpayers money that we are spening at the council and yet we are given a few minutes to read  with no prior briefing available and vote through.  It is certainly not something that I am comfortable with.

 Press Release: Embargo Immediate, Friday 28^th March 2007 

Lib Dems respond to report of Maladministration at Forest Heath 

Ian Radford, Lib Dem Group leader on Forest Heath has responded to the verdict by the Local Government Ombudsman of maladministration by the Council.

Cllr Ian Radford (Lib Dem) said ‘We have  received and read the Report issued by the Local Government Ombudsman into a planning decision taken by Forest Heath District Council in 2006. This report is clear in its finding of maladministration.

Cllr Radford continued ‘It has sadly confirmed our opinion of the lack of control and professionalism shown by the lead Tory Group over several years. Their massive majority on the council has lead to a complacency which appears not only to have affected their management of budgets and council affairs, but to have fed through to legal and regulatory processes.’

Ends

I see the Conservatives at Suffolk County Council are  only going to pursue a unitary Suffolk option to the Boundary committee.

They abandoned all pretence of going for a range of options when they imposed a three line whip on their councillors to force through this against opposition form Lib Dems who preferred a more balanced approach to the Boundary Committee.

I always thought that Tourist Information Centres are likely to do a good trade on bank holidays as people look about for things that are going on and Tourist Information Centres are a good place to start for a daytripper.

Conservative led Forest Heath has been pushing the  district in general as a tourist destination and Newmarket in  particular through its ‘Home of Horseracing’ Project.    Unfortunate then that the Tourist Information Centre was closed for the entire Easter weekend.   That’s the way to go, have a Tourist Information centre closed just when the Tourists turn up!    In Conservative controlled Forest Heath, you just can’t make it up!

Nothing surprises me with Conservative controlled  Forest Heath.  Currently Conservation areas are being looked at on a parish by parish basis.  Barton Mills is one of the first to be looked at.  At the last planning committee on Forest Heath, it was proposed that a six week consultation period would be instigated into the conservation area at Barton Mills.  The council was looking at various things  such as boundary, permitted developments, planning rules/guidance etc.  I proposed that the six week consultation period was extended to 8 weeks and luckily I managed to persuade enough Conservatives to back it against opposition from others.

I was shocked to find that more than two weeks after this had happened,  Forest Heath has not even told Barton Mills parish council about the consultation!  So at the Parish meeting on Friday I was the first to tell them about it.     If  Forest Heath wasn’t going to consult the parish about their own conservation area, who were they going to consult?

 I had to apologise to the Parish for this lapse and felt personally embarassed.  Luckily as Barton Mills has monthly meetings, they have a chance next month to discuss the proposals.  The other parishes in my ward Freckenham and Worlington meet bi-monthly and when their parish conservation areas come up for review,  I think I will inform the parish clerk forthwith.

At a packed meeting of Worlington Parish Council on Wednesday, many concerns were raised concerning the planning application at 21 The Street, Worlington.  The Parish Council has objected to the proposed demolition of the bungalow and the building of Five houses.

I see that the recommendation of the planning officer is for refusal.  I will report back when the reasons are given.

I have been asked to provide names for three roads at the site. I am happy for the PC to suggest names.  The only rules appears to be it must not be named after a living person or similar to existing street names.

My ideas include Bridge Farm Close, Old Station End.  I am keen for some history to be retained in the site.

The time frame is quite limited so quickly please.

Tonight,  I get home to receive notification that next week’s full council is cancelled.  I would like to believe it is because of increasing pressure from the Lib Dems on correct procedure for reports for Council, my colleague Ian Radford has been increasingly vocal on this issue.

I think that probably is because its Maundy Thursday and that a lot of the Tories will be on their Easter break.

I see there is another by-election on Suffolk County Council in Stowmarket North.  It is only a few months that the Tory was elected there in another by election.    I hope that those people that voted Labour or Green last time will have the sense to back the Lib Dem Nicky Turner to remove yet another Tory from Suffolk County Council.

Last time the Tory won with just 31% of the vote.

This mean spirited Tory administration has imposed charges on the elderly and infirm and introduced uncertainty into the education of our children.  I hope we wont have to suffer them too much longer.

Since being elected to Forest Heath,  I have come to the conclusion that the Conservatve Group likes having special meetings.

Tonight I got home, lo and behold we are having another full council on April 2nd.  That will make it 3 full council meetings in 3 weeks, this is in addition to having had a full council just 2 weeks previous and another one just 1o days before that.  That means in  just over three months there will have been 6 full Council meetings,  most councils have about 6 or 7 full council meetings a year.

Full Council meetings are in addition to the myriad of Committees and working Groups that I am on.   I can see why it can be quite difficult to persuade people with busy working lives and/or young families to stand for council.

I don’t know whether it is because they are not able to get themselves organised to get all the papers together so that we can have them in the usual cycle of meetings or that they have nothing better to do.  Most meetings don’t last longer than an hour and a half.  So its not as if we burn the midnight oil at these meetings.

Reports that are considerable in verbiosity regularly turn up just a day or two before the meeting, this gives little or no chance to read them thoroughly.  Alternatively its a verbal report by an officer with little chance to challenge what has been said with the information at hand.  I am swiftly coming to the conclusion that the Boundary Committee should put Forest Heath out of its misery sooner rather than later.

When I came onto this working group at Council, I thought that this would be something that I could really contribute to.  The regeneration of Mildenhall, a market town of which I have much affection for.  I thought I would be involved in drawing up a plan that would raise up and regenerate Mildenhall and make it takes its place as one of the best small market towns in Suffolk.

I was to be disappointed though, I had one written report for this months meeting.  Passenger footfall at Mildenhall bus station!  No grand plan, indeed no plan at all.  I hope for that it gets better than this for Mildenhall’s sake.

Conservative controlled Forest Heath has committed itself to a makeover of its council offices.  Last night my colleague Ian Radford proposed that we should a) Get costings for the works that have to be done and b) In light of the current uncertainty as to whether Forest Heath will even be here in two years we should pause before spending taxpayers money on a major refit before we know that outcome of that review. 

I  fully agree with Ian on this, we were not proposing that other projects that benefit the community should be paused, just the office refurbishment.  Major works may be carried out  only for the burden to fall on the taxpayer to make the building fit for its possible new purpose.  Until we have a clearer picture of the Boundary committees proposals we should show  some prudence.  Their draft recommendations are only 4 months away after all.

Forest Heath does not have a great reputation for its handling of large capital projects, caution should be the watchword in this one.

Ian’s proposal attracted only Lib Dem support though Cllrs Allen (Ind) and Cllr Waters (Con) abstained.

On the referendum question,  personally my position is clear.  When we are elected as representatives we often have difficult and sometimes unpopular decisions to make at whatever level of Government.  That is the essence of representative democracy in this country.  We should be honest enough to say what our position is, too often a call for a referendum is a figleaf to avoid arguing for a positon which may seem  unpopular in which one truly believes in. 

It was a mistake to call for a referendum on the draft constitution, we are forever bemoaning the lack of standing that parliament at Westminster has, no wonder when the politicians of the day are forever passing decisions that the people thought they had already passed to elected representatives back to the people.

The Lisbon treaty, which is a revising treaty is even less of matter for parliament to opt out of making a final decision about.  In future, would we pass all international treaties that the Government signs up to  back to a referendum?  I think not.

The problem for my Lib Dems colleagues is this, you may lose a couple of hundred votes for having promised a referendum on the must larger and now defunct Constitution but surely being permanently lowered by several percentage points in the polls as a result of the party being percieved as split by the electorate which surely endanger their seats much more.  There is nothing that has cost us more support over the last 100 years as the fact that on many important issues of the day we had our Westminster MPs going through opposing division lobbies on a regular basis.  My colleagues at Westminster would do well to remember that.

As i promised to tell you who will recieve this allowance - it is Cllr Nigel Roman!   It was duly voted through.

Tomorrow evening we have a report recommending giving a special responsibilty allowance to the deputy leader of the Council.   

This is obviously an important job because I have asked my Lib Dem colleagues who this is, they have as much idea as me - that is no idea.   I’ll let you  know how the vote goes and who it is by tomorrow night when they might identify themselves by collecting their special responsibilty allowance of £2,954 per annum!!

My Liberal Democrat colleague Andrew Appleby has been trying to get to the bottom (forgive the pun) of why Forest Heath are having such problems trying to get spare parts for brand new loos in the Guineas Centre in Newmarket.

The response Andrew has been given is less than satisfactory,  one consideration of any contract by a council is the sourcing of spare or relacement parts.  Conservative controlled Forest Heath seems as bad at small projects as it is at large projects such as the Leisure Centre.     

Forest Heath is reviewing the  conservation areas within the district.  Barton Mills is now out for review.

Key points in the draft plan are:

- no change to current conservation area.

- current undeveloped areas that are within the conservation area that need protecting.

- UPVC windows and doors not allowe dwithin conservation area and Forest Heath considering  withdrawing permissions on all residential properties for them within area.

- undergrounding of all overhead wires to be encouraged.

- The former Wilhire site to provide opportunity for sensitive development.

- A number of buildings worthy of inclusion in a list of buildings of local importance.

- A survey of boundary walls witha view to developing grant aid for scheme for their repair.

 Anyway submissions have to be in to the council by the end of April.  Please let me know what you think of the proposals.