Just to alert regulars that my Saturday surgeries will now start at 9am on the third Saturday of every month, instead of 10am as previously. At the Woodbridge Library, as ever.
Category Archives: County Council Surgery
What happened in Suffolk December 2015
Happy New Year!
Lets hope that 2016 is a pleasant and prosperous one
I must apologise for a break in blog entries – my elderly mother became ill and was hospitalised in early December – and this had an impact on the time I was able to spend blogging.
Below is the report I gave to Woodbridge town council in early December, but updated in some particulars to the beginning of 2016
Political balance on SCC Following the resignation of former deputy leader Cllr Lisa Chambers from Suffolk County Council at the end of the November, the ruling Conservatives no longer had an overall majority. (This was compounded by the sad death of former St Edmondsbury Mayor, Tim Marks, Councillor for Haverhill Cangle on 5 January.)
The current County Council balance is Conservatives 36, Other parties 37 (Labour 15, UKIP 9, Liberal Democrat 7, Independent 4, Green 2) plus 2 vacancies .
Woodbridge Thoroughfare TRO Enforcement After years of complaints and problems about parking, pedestrian safety, and damage to the fabric and character of the Thoroughfare, the trial full enforcement (of restrictions that have been law since 1995) will be going ahead in the New Year. The aims are:
- To Improve things for retailers and shoppers by producing a pleasant and attractive environment, while at the same time supporting the Thoroughfare’s residents;
- To ensure the Thoroughfare is safer and pleasanter for the thousands of pedestrians who delight to shop and visit each week, ( whether families with children, older people, disabled people or the town’s many tourists)
- To prevent unauthorised traffic using the Thoroughfare;
- To limit the damage being done to the fabric by heavy vehicles
- To help the police by reducing the number of vehicles parking illegally in the Thoroughfare;
- To collect hard evidence of the requirements of all users of the Thoroughfare
Outcome: The scheme is planned to run for three months. It will provide solid information on traffic flow and footfall patterns for the first time. This will allow Woodbridge to find a permanent solution that everyone in Woodbridge can agree .
New Ipswich Road Bus Stop. After months of delay the new Ipswich road bus stops were finally been put in – above the Notcutts roundabout -so that people wanting to get to Framfield surgery and Clarkson Court will find it easier to use the bus services. These are additional to, and do not replace, other bus stops.
County Councillor’s Surgeries My surgeries at Woodbridge Library) have been held by tradition from 10-12 on the 3rd Saturday of every month.December’s will be the last at this time.
Devolution Cambridgeshire has now been included to the Norfolk/Suffolk bid- making an overarching East Anglia partnership
From January my surgeries will move to the new time of 9-11 am, same place.
The first surgery dates for 2016 will be 16 January, 20 February and 19 March.
What’s Been Happening: June – July 2015
Hot topics this month are: post-16 transport, a subscription scheme to replace free garden waste disposal, further cuts to the Fire service budget, the new SCC Leader’s ‘Listening Days’ – and the fact that we underspend on our concessionary fares budget and have done so year after year , indeed apparently ever since we took over administration of the scheme from the district councils – despite the fact that successive SCC Cabinet members have told us that disabled people can’t possibly take the bus earlier ‘because it’s too expensive.’
Seems to me that that ‘too expensive’ is the kneejerk mantra of our administration – without any investigation of whether this is the case or not (except when it comes to certain things like Suffolk Circle..) What’s that quote about knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing? This lot don’t even know the price!
Post-16 Education transport Farlingaye High School has contacted me with concerns raised by individual parents concerning SCC’s new post-16 transport policy. Although the statutory school leaving age is 16, Raising the Participation age (RPA) has created a de facto statutory school leaving age of 18.This sits uneasily with SCC’s new post-16 transport policy, which, far from taking this into account offers less provision for post-16s than previously.
The county council has received no additional funding to support RPA. However, RPA is causing real issues for some families, particularly those on low income in rural communities and where there are no public services available that are timed to work with the school day.
I have asked SCC :Whether any scheduled public services that have been cut are being reinstated? Has SCC lobbied central government about the disparity of transport funding between for example, London (whose Oyster card provides free travel for all young people funded from a disparate governmental grant allocation that provides much more per capita for Londoners) and rural counties, and what was the outcome? Has representation been made by SCC to seek additional funding to support Raising the Participation Age? The EADT published my letter on this issue last Friday.
More cuts to Suffolk Fire Service? SCC are starting a public pre-consultation for changes to Suffolk Fire http://www.suffolk.gov.uk/council-and-democracy/consultations-petitions-and-elections/consultations/fire-service-redesign/ The ultimate intention is to cut another £1m of the already slimmed-down service.
Already Felixstowe Fire Station has ceased to have whole time Firefighters, and there has been a cut in the number of wholetime Firefighters across the county. As an example, on June 24th at 11:30 there were 10 Fire Stations off the run, including such stations as Hadleigh, Debenham, Framlingham and Aldeburgh. A further station was short-crewed meaning it could not attend property fires and a further 2 had appliances off the run.
I contacted CFO Hardingham to assess our local situation: as of the beginning of the month, there were13 firefighters at Woodbridge Fire Station, but they are in the process of interviewing for one more . The full complement is 14.
Proposals to end free garden waste collections in Suffolk Coastal (and other districts) Acting on advice from the Suffolk Waste Partnership, SCC is proposing to cut costs by moving the rest of the county to the Babergh/MidSuffolk system for collecting and treating organic (eg garden and some food ) waste. This would mean that the council reduces its subsidy to the minimum for ‘free’ collections in other districts (such as Suffolk Coastal) and supports a move to a subscription service – sharing the savings 50/50 with the relevant district councils. This would rely on an increase in individuals home composting.
This will depend on decisions of individual councils, but I gather that the subsidy will be reduced to statutory minimum whatever the outcome.
SCC underspent last financial year The financial outturn of SCC 2014-15 revealed that the revenue budget was underspent by £2.3 million (0.4% of the net budget) and at the year end, £107.1m had been spent against the capital programme of £171.4m. This leaves reserves of £202.9 m.
Worrying areas of underspend included Early Years, Passenger Transport and Highways. Passenger Transport has underspent by half a million – due to savings in the cost of concessionary travel. The Chief Accountant confirmed to me on 13th July that here has been a similar underspend in the cost of concessionary travel every year since SCC has taken it over from the district council. Yet SCC has consistently refused to provide an earlier start-time for travel for Suffolk’s 7,000 disabled bus-pass holders on the grounds of ‘cost’.
Health Scrutiny –mental health services At the beginning of July, SCC health scrutiny looked at Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust’s Service Strategy 2012-16 for mental health and what had been done to address the CQC’s findings of February 2015, when the Trust was rated as “Inadequate. The Committee was particularly concerned about the 24 hour CAMHS crisis care service, which was high priority and rated red, and asked for a progress report on this issue.
Leader’s Listening Days Between now and October, SCC’s new leader Colin Noble is scheduling ‘We are Listening’ events in Lowestoft, Haverhill, Felixstowe, Stowmarket, Ipswich, Sudbury, Beccles, and Newmarket. During these visits, he “wants to hear first-hand the issues and topics of interest for local council tax payers”
Although I have been unofficially told that he plans to be in Woodbridge on 19 September, (the date of my September surgery), I have not had this confirmed. See more at http://www.suffolk.gov.uk/wearelistening
County Councillor’s Surgery Increasingly my surgery is bringing in constituents from outside my division, who want to speak to a County Councillor face-to-face. Two people in two months have come from other parts of the country and have been incandescent about the lack of useful Tourist Information that is provided inside the Library on a Saturday despite the enormous SCDC notice outside, stating otherwise!
Surgery dates for the next few months are: Saturday 20 June, and Saturday 18 July. I will take my customary August break, before starting again on 19th September. Surgeries continue at Woodbridge Library 10-12 as ever.