Library Reading Scheme presentations On 17 September I presented awards to all those children who successfully completed the Woodbridge Library Reading Challenge 2017. This year 212 children completed, to gain certificates and medals. I also funded a poster competition and a magic show from my locality budget.
Suffolk’s Cabinet decision on controversial school transport policy changes called-in by LDGI Group A decision made by Cabinet on 12 September, to go to public consultation on proposed changes to SCC’s school transport policy, was ‘called-in’ to scrutiny by opposition councillors from the Liberal Democrat, Green and Independent Group (of whom I was one).
The call-in cited several problems with the report that informed Cabinet’s decision, and argued that to go to public consultation without a comprehensive impact assessment would be premature. The councillors questioned the expected savings and stressed the need to fully research how changes might impact on educational attainment, increased car use, and school viability.
The call-in was examined by the Scrutiny Committee on 28 September, who determined determined that the subject should be referred back to Cabinet again. Watch this space!
Consultation on Woodbridge Thoroughfare September 25- 1October saw the Thoroughfare Working Group’s public consultation in Woodbridge Library on changing the Traffic Regulation Order (TRO) in the Thoroughfare. A stall was staffed in Woodbridge Library for a full 7 days (I personally worked 44 hours staffing it).
The consultation is to ensure it more accurately reflects current usage and to make the provisions more enforceable. Three options were provided. Approximately 600 questionnaires have been received, and the information will now analysed and used to establish the basis of a new TRO.
Impact of Woods Lane development on A1438 The astonishing and unacceptable closure of Woods Lane for a prolonged period ( 3 weeks shortly and then three months in early 2017) to install utilities for the 180 house Bloor Homes development will divert heavy traffic between the A12 and Wilford to the B1438 (Ipswich Road) in the south and the Old Yarmouth Road through Melton to the north. I am one of many lobbying to ameliorate this situation, not least because of the number of schools and sheltered housing along the route. When I recently was able to secure permission for 20mph zoning in Woodbridge, a significant rationale was the impact of heavy traffic on our medieval town , the number of pedestrians and cyclists inconvenienced or endangered, and to discourage rat-running on the B1438 instead of A12/Woods Lane usage.
This diversion now underlines why the scheme is necessary. I am very concerned on the impact this will have on Woodbridge’s traders, students, and residents
Search for a new SCC Chief Executive continues A full day of interviews and assessments took place on Monday 11 September in the search for a new Chief Executive for Suffolk County Council to succeed Deborah Cadman. The interview panel included five councillors from across the three main Groups. (3 Conservative, 1 Labour, 1 LDGI)
Although the field of candidates was strong it was decided that there was no clear candidate that met the expectations for the role. Therefore no appointment was made, and the recruitment process will begin again in the coming months. In the mean time Sue Cook will contine as interim Chief Executive, supported by other members of the corporate management team.
PCC ‘not pursuing’ plans to take control of Suffolk Fire and Rescue Service Suffolk’s Police and Crime Commissioner, Tim Passmore, has announced that he will not be pursuing plans to take control of Suffolk Fire and Rescue Services.
Earlier this year the PCC commissioned PA Consulting to undertake an options appraisal to consider the future governance of the Fire and Rescue Service and a potential shift of governance from the County Council to the PCC. This review concluded that there is insufficient evidence to suggest that a governance change would be clearly in the interests of economy, efficiency, and effectiveness; or public safety.
Suffolk Fire and Rescue Service launches ‘escape plan’ campaign The Suffolk Fire and Rescue Service has launched a new safety campaign and website highlighting the importance of fire escape plans. The campaign addresses the fact that every year there are 40,000 accidental house fires in the UK. Having an escape plan will allow Suffolk residents to escape the fire quickly and safely. Please
Visitors to the campaign website will be able to:
Take a quiz to test how prepared they are to escape a fire
Create their own escape plan for everyone in their household
The ‘escape plan’ fire campaign will run until 31 October 2017. More information can be found at fire.suffolk.gov.uk.
October Surgery Cancellation I will be cancelling my monthly surgery this month (21 October) because of family commitments on the other side of the world. The remaining surgeries for 2017 are:
Woodbridge has been asking for 20 mph zoning for years .
Speed calming and the Thoroughfare have been top issues for Woodbridge over the last weeks as I’ve been working with like-minded people from a number of fields to try and produce a global scheme to calm and improve traffic conditions across the town. Other issues of importance include Suffolk Norfold Devolution, now about to got to a final yea or nay vote, and the throrny question of the new telecoms boxes at the Sandy Lane junction,
Proposed 20mph zone & Thoroughfare calming in Woodbridge I have recently been working on initial – ambitious – proposals for speed calming in Woodbridge. These include :
a) the outline of the whole-town speed calming and 20mph zoning which Woodbridge Town Council will be discussing later this evening and which will hopefully be the foundation of a document that can finally be put before Suffolk County Council’s Speed Limits Panel and
b) the reforming of the Thoroughfare Working Party to try and tackle the continuing issue of the Thoroughfare, in relation to the roads around it.
I am grateful for the assistance and expertise of Nigel Barratt in examining the roads usage round the town in order to work on these issues.
I am hoping that the ‘Walkers are Welcome Woodbridge’ initiative will be supported by these proposals, and that they might link in with issues as diverse as the air quality work at Melton Hill, the passage of school children to school, and the rat-running from Wilford Bridge along the Ipswich Road – producing really joined up planning for traffic and tourism.
Conservatives lose their majority on Suffolk County Council With a LibDem win at the Hadleigh byelection last month, the Conservatives finally lost their precarious hold on Suffolk County council and are now a minority administration. The balance of power is now:
Conservative 37 – Labour 15; LibDem 8; UKIP 10; Green 2; Independent 3
Suffolk County Council’s vote on devolution deal – 23 November Suffolk County Council – together with all district councils – will be voting on the Suffolk Norfolk devolution deal at the end of the month. For the county council, this is:
The extraordinary County Council on 2pm 23rd November
The extraordinary Cabinet on 5.30pm 23rd November (or following the extraordinary Council meeting if later)
with the orders currently scheduled to be laid before Parliament on 24th of November.
The deal requires the 2017 election of a Norfolk & Suffolk Mayor, and the formation of a “super-authority” in which all councils from both counties would be represented equally.
This authority would have a budget of £100m to spend on an inflated governmental requirement for 240,000 new homes ( far more than required locally so presumably aimed at London overspill) for the next five years and would have new powers (but little new funds) to fund the required infrastructure programmes needed to support the development the deal requires.
Although Suffolk’s County Council and all its district & borough councils backed the principle of this devolution deal in the summer, in Norfolk the reaction was much less positive – four of the county’s seven districts (including Norwich City Council) voted to reject the deal .
New Telecoms boxes update After I raised the issue of the 5 telecoms boxes in Sandy Lane on both social media and BBC Suffolk, EE finally got in contact with the Suffolk Highways Officers. We are now in hope that the issue can be rectified without legal proceedings becoming necessary.
Parents urged to Have Their Say on New School Admissions Policy Suffolk County Council is seeking views from parents and carers on the proposed school admissions policy for the 2018/2019 academic year. There are proposals to make minor changes to the admission arrangements for schools in Suffolk and the policy aims to ensure school places are offered to children in a fair way. The consultation will run until Tuesday 13 December 2016.
Dutch Kitchenware Cold Callers Suffolk Trading Standards warn that they have had reports about (specifically Dutch) salesmen cold-calling door-to-door in Suffolk. They say these appear to be people who have targeted other areas in Britain.
The caller is typically a man selling knives, saucepans and cutlery sets that he claims that he has had left over from a trade fair. His story is that he needs to get rid of the products quickly because he is returning to Holland later in the day and cannot take them back through customs.
Although the products are described as being reasonable quality, trading standards are concerned that consumers may be paying over the odds and there are no customer rights. As ever they are concerned that undue pressure is put on elderly and vulnerable people.
Suffolk Trading standards ask that if anyone becomes aware of these (or other) salesmen operating in their area, to please contact via 03454 040506. They also remind Suffolk residents of the door stickers they supply to discourage cold callers.
Firebreak training in Hollesley Bay In late October I spent an afternoon at a ‘Firebreak’ passing-out parade at Hollesley Bay prison. This is a practical but inspirational programme taught by the fire brigade (Essex, not Suffolk, on this occasion) – and the first time ever this programme has been delivered in a prison!!
Outcomes were outstanding: 12 hard-to-reach prisoners of very different ages and backgrounds had worked together to become a team, learned the cooperative and practical skills needed in firefighting, got a serious qualification, and all reported they have gained a lot from the course.
This was resoundingly echoed by guards and instructors. I very much enjoyed watching the presentation drill, and talking to the participants and instructors afterwards.
Most interesting of all, the training started to introduce the subject of ‘restorative justice’ and met with such success that the team was returning to the prison to run some sessions specifically on this, with the same prisoners.
Huge plaudits all round: to the Shaw Trust for funding it, Essex Fire Brigade for delivering it, and of course, Hollesley Bay for having confidence to go ahead with this pioneering training in the first place
With local government funding decreasing, the SCC’s Conservative administration has made it clear that its top priority has been to keep the council tax bill down, and thus is finding it more and more difficult to fund frontline services.
Suffolk has been facing intimations of a new way of delivering local government, with the start of the Devolution negotiations.
At the end of the year, the refusal of the administration to accept Scrutiny’s concerns about the new Community transport model, proposed cuts to Suffolk Fire and Rescue services, and the unexpected announcement of Academisation of all UK schools (followed by an equally unexpected U-turn) were top news.
Suffolk’s erstwhile strong Conservative majority administration has slowly dwindled away and the the year finished with the County Council being in no overall control.
(This is a round up of the information I report to the Woodbridge and Martlesham AGMs)
Budget 2016 -17 At SCC’s budget setting meeting in February, the SCC’s Conservative administration proposed cuts to of £34.4m to community transport funding, to Park and Ride funding, to the Fire services, to Library stock, to County Councillors’ locality budgets… – leading to a budget requirement of £445,659,553. With all these cuts, our council tax still increased by by 2% – (though in a figleaf to the administration’s electoral promise this was worded as “”The budget is based on a freeze… but includes a 2% precept to fund Adult Social Care…”) .
On the day of the final budget meeting more money did appear – apparently from nowhere– a Transitional Grant of £1.9m and an extra £1.6 million from the Rural Services Delivery Grant. This money goes specifically to Suffolk on its ‘super-sparsity indicator’ because of “additional rural costs… including the small size of rural councils, scattered and remote populations, lack of private sector providers, and poor broadband and mobile coverage”. However, SCC decided to bank this little windfall (over the last 5 years our county’s reserves have increased by £100m to c£170m) instead of ameliorating a single cut.
A rainbow coalition of the entire opposition voted against this budget in cross-party. It was a tight vote but the administration squeezed their budget through.
Leadership and constitution of SCC’s administration After the putsch of right-wing Conservative Colin Noble for leadership of the Conservative party and Suffolk County Council from moderate Mark Bee, the County Council’s Conservative majority has lurched along on a knife edge.
At May 15 2016 , after the resignation of Cllr Alan Murray (the day after tipping the vote at the March full council meeting), and the death of Cllr Peter Bellfield in April, SCC’s political make-up is:
Conservative 36; Labour 15; LibDem 7; UKIP 10; Green 2; Independent 4, plus 1 vacancy.
This gives SCC’s opposition a majority whenever it votes in unison. One of the Independents is, however, notorious North Carolina resident and Hadleigh councillor, Brian Riley. He is often absent, and on the occasions when he crosses the Atlantic to attend Council he votes with the Conservatives.
Local Bus Services After more than two years of stability, major changes have been made to the services to Woodbridge and beyond. From September First bus halved the frequency of the 64 and 65 buses (that is the Rendlesham and Saxmundham buses) adding the additional short-route 63 bus to fill this gap locally to Woodbridge and Melton – but not helping passengers going on to Saxmundham, Rendlesham, Leiston etc.
The Sunday service to Woodbridge and Melton continues – so far without threat.
A new cost-saving model of Community Transport was proposed and has been imposed by by the administration (see my blog for full details). Although SCC scrutiny objected, and sent the decision back to Cabinet, Cabinet overturned this objection without further comment.
Devolution Much of this year has been taken up with an off-stage ‘will we, won’t we’ devolution debate. A devolution deal for East Anglia was announced by the Chancellor in mid-March and now needs to be ratified by all County and District and borough councils and the (unelected) LEP boards involved. (This may not be plain sailing – Cambridge City and Cambridge County have already shown themselves to be against this).
Although it is very difficult to get the person in the street in Suffolk interested in devolution, it is vital that they do because it is about a fundamentally different relationship between Government and local public services and it affects all of us.
The East Anglia Deal would see decisions currently made by Government on things such as infrastructure, growth, employment and skills being made by the Board of a new Combined Authority, consisting of all the Leaders of County and District Councils – and a directly elected Mayor. In other words it would be pretty much like the Cabinet system that currently operates in Suffolk County Council – with the potential for the same democratic deficit.
It is proposed that the first mayoral elections would be in May 2017 alongside county elections.
The directly elected Mayor would act as Chair to the East Anglia Combined Authority and would be responsible for local transport, roads, strategic planning and housing. The new East Anglia Combined Authority, working with the Mayor, would receive the following powers:
Control of a new additional funding allocation of £900m over 30 years (£30m a year across the entire devolved region – not a great deal in the scheme of things) to boost growth
Joint responsibility with the Government to co-design the new National Work and Health Programme designed to focus on those with a health condition or disability and the very long term unemployed. (!)
There would also be commitment to continue improvements to local health and social care services, continuing to join up services and promote integration between the NHS and local government.
Looking ahead, I remain deeply concerned that any future deal involving education or NHS trusts will NOT involve the people of East Anglia shouldering the burden of PFI debt incurred by central government (not only our local debts eg the PFI debt on Elizabeth Garrett Anderson building, but also eg the mountainous ones on the Addenbrookes site). I have asked for further information on this.
Academisation of all UK schools At the end of the year, the Chancellor announced the surprise compulsory ‘academisation’ of all state schools, secondary by 2020, primary by 2022, taking them all out of local authority control . This had significant implications for all our local schools. New and existing academies were expected to become part of Multi-Academy Trusts, although a few stong ones may have been allowed to remain stand-alone.
In a subsequent U-turn, enforced Academisation will only be to those schools in special measures (as before). ‘Successful’ schools will only become Academies if they chose to do so.
Funding will go directly to Academy trusts , leaving the County Council still responsible for place planning, transport and admissions and ‘vulnerable learners.’
Very controversially, (under the heading ‘The Right resources in the Right Hands’) it appears that on academisation there will now be be a transfer of the school estates to the Secretary of State for Education. This needs unpicking – currently it looks startlingly similar to Henry VIII’s policy towards the monasteries
Suffolk Fire and Rescue Service Cuts In March’s Full Council meeting at Endeavour House I spoke on the LibDem/Labour motion to stop SCC’s proposed reduction in Fire appliances and full time crews (defeated 36-35 – all Conservatives voting for the cuts, and every single opposition councillor present: LibDem, Labour, Green, UKIP and Independent , voting against). Conservative county councillor, Alan Murray, resigned the following day.
In supporting the Suffolk Fire & Rescue Services I put the local case for Woodbridge retained fire station and its need for the continuing support of Ipswich fire crews – looking at daily staristics for the previous months, it seems clear the Woodbridge is ‘offline’ for several hours on an average of one day in two –generally in the afternoon (the very time of day when fire engines are most likely to be called out). We are therefore reliant on the fulltime crews in Ipswich.
Ultimately these cuts were slightly watered down. In particular, as regards Ipswich, Cabinet decided to remove the second full-time crewed fire engine from Ipswich (Princes Street) fire station but keep 4 of the crew of full-time firefighters . These 4 full-time firefighters will be used to support on-call fire engine availability across the county during weekday. The on-call fire engine and on-call firefighter establishment at Princes Street (scheduled to be cut ) will remain. However, the third fire engine from Ipswich (East) fire station will be cut and the number of on-call firefighters at the station from 21 to 15/
These cuts strike me as particularly concerning in light of the development which is likely to be taking place around Woodbridge, Martlesham and Melton.
Police Cuts A ‘re-design’ of the force to save £20m has lost police officer, PCSO and civilian posts. As follows:
From 1 April, the Woodbridge and District Safer Neighbourhood team was reduced to a Sergeant, two Police Officers and three PCSOs from previous staffing of a Sergeant, three Police Officers and seven PCSOs. The SNT remains in the new building so recently opened at the fire station in Theatre Street, Woodbridge. However it will no longer be a public access location! Better access for the public’ was one of the key benefits of the move – see my blog entry on the subject – June 14.
The only public access to Suffolk police will be at the three main police stations (Ipswich, Bury and Lowestoft), although there will be ‘intercoms’ to police headquarters to use at the front doors of other buildings .
Woodbridge County Councillor Locality budget 2015-16
In 2015-6 I made the following grants:
Caroline Page’s Locality Grants 2015-16
In April 2016 have made a further couple of grants to the Rural Coffee Caravan and to Headway, the head injury charity , and to provide a commemorative badge to each child in Woodbridge for the Queen’s 90th Birthday.
Woodbridge County Councillor monthly surgeries
This is the sixth year I have held regular monthly surgeries for the benefit of constituents.
I held 11 surgeries for constituents over the last year – on the third Saturday of every month except August. These were held at Woodbridge Library, and from January, at the new time of 9-11 am.
They continue to be popular and well-attended.
Caroline Page, LibDem County Councillor for Woodbridge
