Category Archives: Cabinet

'Divesting' services, Cabinet, Council spending, cuts, Lollipop patrols, New Strategic direction, Pedestrians and Walkers, Roads, Schools, Suffolk County Council, Transport, Woodbridge

Save our Woodbridge Lollipop patrol!

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Seven years ago Suffolk’s lollipop men and women were being hailed by Suffolk  county council as  ‘greatly appreciated frontline staff’ as the golden anniversary of this wonderful, useful and CHEAP service was being celebrated.

School crossing patrols were formally recognised in Britain by the Schools Crossing Patrols Act of 1953.  Lollipop people are one of only four agents entitled to stop traffic by law (The others being the police, traffic wardens and some members of the Armed Forces).  Lollipop men and women have long done a fantastic job for a pittance and little thanks. But worse is to come..

Today all 98 patrols  in Suffolk are being cut by order of the Suffolk County Council’s Conservative administration to save a paltry £174,000  ( that is, a mere 79% of the Suffolk CEO’s annual salary).  At the very same time, SCC  is  adding another £2m to its roads budget which will weigh in at a truly gobsmacking £18.2 million this  next financial year. You couldn’t make it up.

Do you ever get the feeling that the people running SCC have simply got their priorities well and truly WRONG? that they haven’t the faintest idea about what really matters in the real world?

Dear Cllr Pembroke, dear  Cabinet:  Lets get this straight. School crossing patrols  – like the one run here in Woodbridge  by our invaluable St Mary’s School lollipop man Terry – are  not set up on a whim.    No, they are established at sites where children are in danger from road traffic when walking to and from school as assessed  – not by naughty bad people who just want to irritate you – but by national guidelines (establishedby the Local Authority Road Safety Officer’s Association and the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents , no less)

So they’re not what you might call a frivolity …

Ten years ago in Woodbridge the Times reports on how the (then)  Woodbridge Lollipop man, Frank Howe, was knocked to the ground by an impatient driver while on patrol on Birkett Road, directly outside St Mary’s School.

“This driver was revving his engine,” Howe recalled. “I could see by the way his mouth was going that he was cursing me for keeping him. He mounted the kerb and went to pass me. His wing mirror caught me and I went down. He didn’t stop. Luckily, an off-duty policeman saw what happened and forced him to come back.

“The parents and children were very shocked, but they had taken down his registration number. He was prosecuted, given a £350 fine and eight points on his licence, but I never got an apology.”

Cllr Pembroke, Cabinet, can I ask you: has traffic become less busy in the last ten years?

The same article quotes the (then) SCC officer in charge  of the School Crossing service as saying:

“We want our lollipop men and women to know just how much we appreciate them. We see them as frontline members of staff, very visible!”

What a difference seven years can make, folks.

So, Cllr Pembroke, Cabinet – let’s get this straight

  • School crossing patrols were instituted and enshrined  by Act of Parliament because they were needed;
  • They have been running for over sixty years because they clearly continue to be needed;
  • Over these years the roads have got busier and busier;
  • Patrols only operate where children are in danger from road traffic when walking to and from school (this danger assessed by national guidelines);
  • We want to get children out of the car and back onto their feet – to combat child obesity and encourage independence , as well as discourage the fumes and jams and road danger caused by heavy schoolrun traffic;
  • patrols are very very cheap to run – £2,500 – £3,500 a year
  • SCC also has (although in my opinion, totally self-serving, unrealistic and self-deluded) aspirations to be ‘the Greenest County.’

And you want to close  every school crossing patrol in Suffolk to save less money than you pay your Chief Executive as basic salary???

A final question, Cllr Pembroke: What is a cynic? According to Oscar Wilde,  its  “A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. ”

Cllr Pembroke, you and your Cabinet need to recognise that the  tiny cost of the Suffolk School Crossing patrols bears  little  relationship to  their extraordinary value to the people of Suffolk! Let’s hope you  recognise this before we all learn the hard way the truth of Wilde’s other famous quote from the same play: Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes.

If you wish to encourage Cllr Pembroke and his Cabinet to change their minds , you could always write directly to the Leader of Suffolk County Council at Endeavour House, Ipswich.  Closer to home, St. Mary’s School has  a paper-based petition available to sign in school.

You can also add your signature to the SCC e-petition on the subject  by clicking this link http://petitions.web-labs.co.uk/suffolkcc/public/Save-our-School-Crossing-Patrols

'Divesting' services, Buses, Cabinet, Council spending, cuts, New Strategic direction, Suffolk County Council, Transport

Give us A LAST-MINUTE REPRIEVE for our Park and Ride!

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My colleagues and I are calling on Suffolk County Council to reverse their decision to close the Bury Road Park and Ride service while there is still time.  This important Ipswich facility – used by nearly a third of a million passengers last year – is slated to disappear this weekend, a casualty of the cuts imposed by Suffolk’s New Strategic Direction.

Cllr Dave Wood, Lib Dem Deputy Leader reminds us that  the Bury Road Park and Ride “is a highly valued service, and contributes to the health of the economy of Ipswich. It also reduces the number of cars travelling into the centre.

To even consider cutting this service makes a mockery of SCC’s aspiration to be the Greenest County!”

With this mindset, it is hardly surprising that the council is failing on a number of environmental targets set by Government, including air quality and access to work by public transport (as papers to SCC’s Audit Committee show this week).

To top it all, the Bury Road Park and Ride is being closed at the very same time as SCC is being given a £25m grant by the Government to improve bus and cycling facilities in Ipswich – plus a grant of £830,000 from the European Union to encourage workers in small businesses not to travel by car!  You couldn’t make it up!

It’s  a total travesty that SCC should be implementing this unnecessary closure at the same time as receiving EU and Government grants ‘to improve bus and cycling facilities’. I cannot understand why Cabinet does not recognise this fact!

Far from making a business case for the P&R closure, SCC has managed the reverse. Cabinet sums failed even to factor in the County Council’s decision to charge all concessionary pass holders a half fare to travel on P&R from this April. We’ve calculated  that this charge would remove the need to subsidise the service at all – and therefore makes the closure of the Bury Road P&R particularly pointless.

Lib Dem P&R  survey results

At the end of October, 2010 Liberal Democrats carried out an extensive survey of users at the Bury Road Park and Ride site. Four hundred forms were returned.

The service was highly valued.

Papers to Suffolk County Council’s Cabinet assumed that when the Bury Road site shut,  50% of Bury Rd users would drive on to the London Road site. Our survey found that only 29% would do this, with 43% saying they would drive into Ipswich, 12% would use another bus service and 14% would shop elsewhere instead.

Just one percent said they would use Martlesham Park and Ride instead.

The Cabinet papers also stated that passenger numbers were declining at Bury Road, whereas in fact they are increasing according to the council’s own figures:

2007/8: 192,000       2008/9: 245,000       2009/10: 306,000

One question asked concessionary pass holders if they would be prepared to pay a £1 or £1.50 return fare in order to keep the service open. Ninety percent said they would.

Based on this, Lib Dems calculated that the Park and Ride service should at least break even, instead of having to be subsidised. Ironically, the County Council are now introducing a £1.50 fare for concessionary pass holders from April 1st at the two remaining (Martlesham and London Road) Park and Ride sites.

'Divesting' services, Cabinet, Care homes, Council spending, cuts, New Strategic direction, Social care, Suffolk County Council, Uncategorized

Social care: Suffolk Tories ‘riding roughshod over democracy’

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Suffolk County Council Liberal Democrats are accusing the Conservative administration of once again running a ‘sham consultation’ – this time on the future of council-run care homes in the county. Its sham because the Tories have already made a unilateral decision either to close or to sell them all off.

On Thursday last  (13/01) representatives of Suffolks boroughs and district councils were invited to “Have Your Say on the Future of Suffolk County Council’s residential care homes” by Suffolk County Council’s Adult and Community Services portfolio-holder Colin Noble. The meeting took place at SCC’s Ipswich headquarters.

It became apparent at the start of the meeting that the decision had already been made, even though the issue was still officially out to consultation. The public had been asked to only comment on and prefer one of three preselected options for the future of the county’s care for the elderly:

  1. Gradually close the homes and use only independent care homes
  2. Sell all the homes as ‘going concerns’
  3. Close six homes and transfer the remaining homes to the independent sector.

There was no option to keep any of the homes within council control. There was also no option for individual management buy-outs.

Cllr Noble’s opening salvo was:    “We have made a decision at cabinet level that we will no longer pay for care homes. So if you have come here wanting us to continue running care homes, you’re wasting your time. The decision has already been made.”

This statement came as a surprise to elected members who were attending the meeting , including me.   

Cllr Noble seemed to be confusing a cabinet decision to ‘consult’ on options for divestment with a final decision taken by all councillors at a formal council meeting. Now,  Suffolk County Council consists of 75 members from a range of parties. The Cabinet consists of ten members of a single party: the Conservatives.

They are riding roughshod over democracy.

Whose council is this anyway? The Council’s care budget, and the care homes themselves are not in Cllr Noble’s gift  – nor in  that of any other official, elected or otherwise. The budget and the care homes belong to the people of Suffolk. The Council holds them in trust and should administer them wisely on our behalf.

My colleague,  Inga Lockington, Lib Dem Spokesperson for Older People, points out that:

“All councillors must  have a chance to vote on this important issue on behalf of their constituents.

Cllr Noble is pursuing a policy which will lead to many frail older people being evicted from their homes. When care homes close, the health of frail elderly people can be seriously affected and it can even hasten their deaths. Cllr Noble needs to acknowledge this when pursuing such a policy, in the face of so much concern within our community.

I am also concerned that taking nearly 200 care places out of the County’s care provision, in the face of the increasing incidence of dementia, will  create a waiting list and a “Market” which will result in the most needy finding themselves at the end of a lengthening queue.”

Many local residents in Suffolk continue to be alarmed at the SCC administration’s proposals to ‘divest’ themselves of their care homes – particularly in the fact that the decision came before the busniess case.    In fact we’re STILL WAITING for ANY business case. .

Bryan Hall, who is the district councillor for Wickham Market (where a specialist care-home for dementia patients is threatened with closure and sell-off for development) says:

“I am very concerned that Suffolk County Council have decided, without public mandate, to stop being social care providers. In particular, residential homes such as Wickham Market’s Lehmann House, which has a large number of residents suffering from dementia is, in my view – and that of my constituents –  irreplaceable. For a start, it is in the heart of our town – which is where we want our old people to stay. There may possibly be private homes somewhere in Suffolk able to provide a similar service, but there is no guarantee they are anywhere near the Wickham Market area. It is not right that old people who have served their community all their lives, should be excluded like this in their last years.”