The vote was 42-28.  41 Tories voted to scrap Middle Schools, 3 Tories voted to keep them and only 1 out of 11Tories in  West Suffolk did so.  The link below is the official record of the vote.

schoolorganisationreview.pdf

Everyone agrees that parts of Newmarket Town centre is becoming increasingly congested.  My approach is that we have to 1. Look at ways of reducing the number of cars coming into the Town Centre for long stay periods.  The park and shuttle in Newmarket is at present a joke.  There needs to be  site that is safe, secure and allows people waiting for what must be a frequent service comfortable from all the British weather can throw at them.   2. Give local residents much greater alternative transport options if they work elsewhere particularly larger service centre such as Cambridge, Bury or London.  By improving public transport frequency, reliability, links and comfort can  Town centre residents  feel that taking the bus and train to work is a real alternative to the car commute.  3. We must make it much more friendly for Townspeople to be able to walk or cycle to the town centre and secure for them to lock up bikes.  

The trajectory of ever increasing car usage in the town must be slowed or reversed if we are to avoid gridlock.  Only once the council has put into place these options, should RPZs which only allows a household one permit to park a car within their zone be considered an option.

Fiona Whelan, the new County Councillor will make an excellent addition to the Lib Dem team on the County.   In East Anglia that makes it 4 gains out of 7 contests in the last five months.  All 7 contests were Tory seats to start with.  I hear the Tories are running courses on how to beat the Lib Dems in Suffolk.  I hope there is a course on how to run your council well without wasting taxpayers hard earned cash and listen to local people and the concerns they have.

It seems that in South Cambridgeshire, the Tories are doing their best at emulating their colleagues in Forest Heath in the complacency stakes.  Poor financial management and a rush to get rid of their housing stock against local residents’ wishes have not gone down well.  Once again residents have shown that they value their vote and will not just vote for anyone with a blue rosette in rural East Anglia.

My big worry from what could ensue when Roundabout are left in major schemes only has to look at the Black Cat roundabout on the A1/A429 junction at Wyboston.  Another scheme that eases congestion in one place only to put it in another, far better if the Roundabout had been done away with when the Great Barford Bypass was built.  Anyone who is there at the wrong time of day is assured of a wait in traffic.

One of Kings Forests first actions was to build a plush new office complex in Mildenhall. Meanwhile whilst all this was happening it transpires that 1 in 12 routine repairs are not considered satisfactory - a more than doubling of the level since it took over. Virtually every satisfaction rating has fallen and it has been given a fairly intensive action plan to improve. 

Conservative controlled Forest Heath for its part has failed in 5 years to draw up a legally binding contract with King’s Forest to set and monitor minimum standards of performance and satisfaction levels. Such an agreement is stated in the consultation document of October 2003.  

A set of action points as long as your arm to improve, truly terrible for this district and those in need of social housing that it has come to this.

Last night most of the Tories and the Independent (who always votes with the Tories) refused to protect one of the oldest trees in Lakenheath because that would  increase bureaucracy for the farmer/developer who they are sure wont harm it and if a tree preservation order was applied would no longer care for it!  Credit must go to Cllr Bill Bishop for opposing this decision, 1 of just 2 Tories to do so.

To me it shows that they only care for the environment when it suits them.  This decision was just indicative of that. 

She expressed a very firm opinion on why we had to switch to two-tier.   There then followed a discussion in which the Chair called a succession of Tories who had a variety of things to say including a complaint about a school wall in Lakenheath!

When it cam to the chance for the opposition to say anything we were told by the (Tory) chair that we could only ask one question each and not make any statement (despite  the fact we had just had to listen to a totally random monologue from a Tory).

Yet again we are denied equal speaking rights in Council from Tories who refuse to listen on issues that affect the people.   We are apparently to get another chance to speak at a further council meeting - watch this space.

 After the meeting we had a Tory whispered that it was not a party political issue the schools review,  well I disagree  it needed 38 votes at County Council to make the switch, the Tories provided 41.   Much as it shames me to say it, 1 Liberal Democrat voted for it also.  The  West Suffolk Liberal Democrat  local party has been steadfast in its opposition to the review from the outset.

I wasn’t surprised to see that Richard Spring MP opposes the closure.  However if he hadn’t sat on the fence when the schools organisational review was up for discussion two years ago and had exerted a little pressure on his Conservative underlings then Paddocks would never have faced the threat of closure in the first place.

If he hadn’t been so concerned to make cheap political points when he responded to Liberal Democrat concerns  that we had expresssed in a leaflet about where the Tories were leading the school organisational review in Suffolk then Parents wouldn’t be worried sick about the future of their childrens’ education. 

Mr Spring said in a letter to the local Lib Dem Constituency Chair, Terry McNally on 4th April 2007  ‘As you well know, explicit assurances have been given about the future of Primary schools’.     He went onto say ‘I have never persionally sought political gain by scare stories you have initiated.’

Thanks Richard but how can I believe anything you now say on this issue,  its no use just campaigning piece-meal for individual schools but now is the time to scrap the whole review, yes Paddocks needs to be saved but so does the whole school system in this part of Suffolk. 

Anybody who wants a copy of the letter can have it by contacting me.

Uproar (quite rightly) about plans to merge Houldsworth Valley with my old school of Paddocks and create a mega primary on the Houldsworth Valley site.   The probable disappearance of  the play areas except a concrete playground for 420 kids to exercise and play in.  As well as a school where kids as young as five can fall out of the system.

I do hope we get a chance to vote next year for the Suffolk County Council elections and give the Tories a good kick up the backside!