Category Archives: Locality Budget

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Gritting Woodbridge pavements: many hands..

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This last week has been a corker, weatherwise, hasn’t it?

The people who run the gritting lorries have been out day and night trying to keep as much of the thousands of miles of Suffolk roads passable as possible.

It seems to be fashionable amongst many Suffolk car-drivers to criticise  these heroes pretty well without thought or reflection.  Me: I have nothing but the utmost admiration for them. Suffolk’s  service is run via a handful of people working throughout the nights and they do a fantastic job – and all without expectation of any kind of thanks at all.  I rang a highways  officer on Friday at 11am. He sounded a bit dazed (tho very competent). It turned out he’d just got back into the office having been gritting solidly since midnight the night before.

Remember that when you’re getting through the snow in the morning, eh?

As well as remembering to be grateful that our service is so good, we MUST also make sure that any hamfisted attempts at divestment protect the efficiency and effectiveness that we are currently managing in-house. Other counties with privatised gritting services are not managing half so well.

Last yearin mind,  I approached Woodbridge Town Council and offered to fund grit bins and equipment for local volunteers to keep the pavements clear.  And due to this forward planning Woodbridge has been able to tackle the ice and snow relatively efficiently.  Ten grit bins are on site and another four on order: Turban Centre;  St Johns Hill/Castle St;  California/Ipswich Road (where I’m the volunteer); Fitzgerald Green; Mill Lane; Haughgate Close; Colletts Walk; Warren Hill Road; Market Hill; Victoria Road; Peterhouse; Portland Crescent and Farlingaye.

In the last six days I have spent 15 hours gritting around California, around the Seral and down the footpath that runs along the top of Ipswich Road.  I reckon that totalled about 15 miles of roadway walked and gritted.

Do contact the Woodbridge Town Clerk if you want to  volunteer. It helps everyone – and lets face it, it  is so much more productive than moaning that somebody else hasn’t done it.

Volunteers get to use a barrow, a snowshovel and a a hi-viz jacket; they’re covered by SCC insurance and the benefits include a slimmer figure, the warm glow of having helped –  and lots of gratitude.
Not a bad deal, really!

'Divesting' services, Council reports, Council spending, Libraries, Locality Budget, Quality of Life funding, Roads, Street lighting, Suffolk County Council, Woodbridge

Woodbridge Town Council report Oct 2010

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Suffolk County  Council’s New Strategic Direction – Update

At the September County Council meeting, the New Strategic Direction was adopted as Council policy – the conservative majority meaning that opposing Lib Dem votes had no effect.   The administration  aims to reduce the level of spending by the County Council within its administrative centre and on frontline services.  The Liberal Democrat group voted against this.

The Chief Executive’s plan which she calls the New Strategic Direction (NSD) is to expect the market and communities take over a number of services that are currently provided by the Council.  These services have been specified and the first tranche are due to be ‘divested’ in April.

The administration believes this will significantly reduce a predicted but not yet specified 30% funding gap expected to hit the County Council over the coming years. We Lib Dems believe it may more closely approximate to selling off the family silver!

  • As opposition, my party is concerned at the speed at which the council intend to carry out this policy – which is not supported by a business plan – and the way neither staff at the Council, nor other local councils nor the residents of Suffolk  have been consulted on the proposals, although we have all been told we have been!  We feel that before this policy goes ahead, the Council must gauge the view of the public, and communicate with the third sector, without which this policy would not survive.  We must ensure that by engaging with the public, Suffolk County Council will commit to a wider scale consultation with all organisations and groups across Suffolk.  I have been personally campaigning to raise awareness of this issue.

It is essential that the Council realises the level of risk associated with such a plan, as even if they are to outsource elements of the Council there is no guarantee that it will save council taxpayers money.  Each service has a required budget, whether it is inside the Council, or outside. In essence we feel that the council is moving far too quickly and without a realistic analysis of the risks involved to services.

Also the council currently has considerable overspends on those services already outsourced e.g. the Adult Care service which  has a £1m overspend this year, and almost a £1m overspend in Children’s services. In addition the contract with Customer Service Direct was meant to have saved the council £80m over 10 years. There is no evidence of any savings, and last year the annual cost of the CSD increased by 12%. So there is little evidence that the County Council is managing existing contracts within budget.

They have also failed to factor in the total cost of redundancies. If they are truly looking to downsize staff numbers by 4,000 that equates to around £110m in redundancy payments.

The council saysavings must be made at the centre of the organisation. In spite of various initiatives to reduce the size of the centre of the organisation, there was an actual increase of 100 in non frontline staff this year.

The decision on the 23rd of September means that the County Council will now go further forward in looking for pilot schemes and drawing up plans to implement this policy, which will officially begin in April 2011.  Within the paper itself, (a link can be found here http://apps2.suffolk.gov.uk/cgi-bin/committee_xml.cgi?p=detail&id=1_14720), there is a list of suggestions for the first services that could be outsourced, each of the services would be analysed to fit into a specific group; for example libraries as community initiatives, or transport planning/bus services being countywide outcome based contracts.

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Cabinet on the 12th of October

As usual members of the public are able to put questions to the administration at Cabinet, with the next opportunity having been being today, 12th of October.

The deadline for questions is four working days prior to the meeting.  More information on this can be found here; http://www.suffolk.gov.uk/CouncilAndDemocracy/CommitteesAgendasReportsandMinutes/PublicQuestionTimeatMeetingsoftheCountyCouncilandCabinet.htm

The items that will be on the agenda for this meeting, that may be of interest include;

  • SCC taking over administration of the concessionary travel  passes
  • Options for the Council’s residential homes for older people in light of the current financial situatioh.
  • The impact of blanket rising four admissions to primary school  on nursery provision
  • |the proposed closure of the Ipswich Bury Rd Park and Ride
  • Street Lighting –proposals on Part night lighting and dimming of Suffolk street lights

I will give details of any of these at the WTC meeting if required

SCC Transport and Highway Budget cuts

This years’ Suffolk County Council Quality of Life budgets have been slashed by 12.5%. (QoL budgets are the individual budgets that Suffolk County Councillors have in order to provide for local transport issues that might get overlooked with priority funding, specifically:

  • Speed limit and speed reduction schemes/anxiety relief schemes
  • Cycling schemes
  • Pedestrian schemes
  • Public transport schemes
  • Rights of way schemes
  • Traffic management schemes )

The good news is, because of efficient accounting and planning by our local engineering team and the very useful nature of the projects we’d decided on, Woodbridge will not be greatly affected by this. Two of the three projects that were contemplated are going ahead:

  • an island for helping crossing at the top of Ipswich road to assist school students, mums with prams, bus users and cyclists to cross is still going ahead in October and
  • a solar powered ’30’ sign on the steep slope down on Ipswich Road, that will hopefully help slow drivers just before the blind bend at the Sandy lane junction is being put up this autumn
  • Additionally I funded bollards to prevent inconsiderate and dangerous parking (generally, sadly, by Farlingaye parents ) at near the  Hasketon Road/Ransome Road intersection. These have just been put up

However, the bad news is on the wider highways budget.  We have just heard from Portfolio Holder Guy McGregor that all the Parking Reviews in Suffolk have been cut. This includes the one in Woodbridge on which so much time and energy has been spent. I’m sure that you will find this as irritating and upsetting as I do. However, here too all is not lost – I have been offered a choice. The third QoL scheme planned for Woodbridge  was traffic calming in Sandy Lane. I have received the following from the engineer:

“I have been looking at the details of the spending on the QoL budget. At present, you are fully committed. However, I am aware that we have not spent much on the Sandy Lane scheme (current allocation of £4500). The cycling officer has come up with a plan involving signs and lines that could slow traffic and  increase awareness of cyclists and pedestrians.

However, if you wanted to continue with the review, there may be a way forward. We estimate that the cost of completing the review will be approximately £8000. Approximately a third of the sign and line changes in the review on site works are due to maintenance. I could ask our maintenance people to pay or contribute towards this, which would see income to the scheme of up to £2000. If we removed the planned work within the review of removing all the unnecessary no waiting at any time plates and posts, we would save approximately £1500. This would then bring the total cost of completing the review down to about £4500 – the amount allocated to Sandy Lane.

In addition, we have a separate allocation to look at changing the parking along Thoroughfare, paid for the Air Quality budget. If we were able to add the advertising of the review to the advertising of this, we could  save a further £1000.”

Given

a) the stress and strife that the Parking review has generated to date

b) the need for calming in Sandy Lane

c) the relative impact of each of these options on the population of Woodbridge

I felt this was a matter for full consultation, I put the matter to the Woodbridge Highways committee, who were in favour of prioritising finishing the parking scheme which I believe will be finally agreed this evening?

NB: Woodbridge Town Council voted unanimously to finish the TRO

- Cycles and Cycling, Buses, Council reports, Council spending, Locality Budget, Pedestrians and Walkers, Quality of Life funding, Roads, Schools, Suffolk County Council, Transport, Woodbridge

Woodbridge Town Council report July 2010

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I must apologise for my delay in posting this – I got married the following week and clearly forgot to put it up online!

Closure of Embankment footpath

The Environment Agency has closed  the  footpath along the embankment from Woodbridge to Kyson point until October  (– I have asked them to ensure it is reopened briefly for the Regatta weekend) . There will be an alternative footpath route opened for the summer.When I asked the Environment Agency their spokesman explained:

” the Kyson embankment has been suffering from erosion by the tides (as all sea walls do). Recently the original revetment, which consisted of loose concrete and rubble blocks has given way, exposing the clay of the embankment and allowing the erosion process to speed up. To repair the embankment, we will be replacing the clay which has been eroded from the front of the bank and covering this clay with a new revetment, made of open stone asphalt. This material is extremely resilient, reducing our future maintenance costs, and helps to break the wave action, rather than reflect the wave energy, which helps to maintain the level of the salt marshes. The material will soon vegetate and in time become completely hidden from view. We will, in the time available, be addressing the worst areas of erosion this year and will then, subject to funding, return next year to continue the work.”

Locality Budget funding

At the Suffolk Coastal County Councillor Locality meeting county councillors  were given the notion that our budgets might be under threat – perhaps even for the current year. I currently have about five  to six  thousand left  to spend and would like it to go on things that will have some lasting concrete benefit to the town, just in case there is little forthcoming next year. I would also like to allocate this money fairly swiftly to prevent any possible chance of claw-back so welcome all ideas. Recent proposals have included a bench for Kingston Field,  and a litter bin to prevent litter problems at Mill View Close and assistance for the Art Club. Among my thoughts is whether a glassed in notice board advertising the courses and classes available at the Fred Reynolds centre would be useful for the community. I would be grateful for any ideas.

Roads etc

As you see patching work is being undertaken up and down the county at the moment – I was impressed with the speed and efficiency with the road surface was replaced on the Ipswich Road near Notcutts last night. Speaking as a cyclist, it was quite dangerous to go downhill there because the surface was so rough.

As you know there have long been concerns about speeding along Ipswich Road, particularly in relation to those walking and cycling to Kyson and Farlingaye schools. It is particularly crucial at the top of California where many students cross.  I had reserved £12,000 from Quality of Life money to build an island in the road which is being planned at the moment. Now the Highways department at Suffolk County Councilare working with FHS students to design of this island, so as to see the project through! This ought to mean it is designed to be fit for purpose. I enclose a copy of the design that has been agreed on. Proposals to calm Sandy Lane are currently with the director  in overall charge of roads in Suffolk.

After consultation twith the Mayor and the Town Clerk I have also written to her  wondering if she would be prepared to trial the recent proposal by ministers of a 20mph speed limit on urban roads in Woodbridge..

The reduction from 30mph would apply to all town centre and residential. It would be reinforced by signs rather than extra speed cameras and humps.

The new 20mph limit  can be introduced under existing laws and has been tested in Portsmouth, Edinburgh, Newcastle upon Tyne and Hull. York, Norwich and eight London boroughs, including Islington, have announced plans to follow suit.

http://www.roadsafe.com/news/article.aspx?article=1247

I reminded her that  Town and  District Councillors  (and me as County Councillor ) are all concerned about the need for calming on all fronts of the town. Within the last month I have been fielding complaints about the speed of traffic in the 30mph areas of Ipswich Road, Sandy Lane, Hasketon Road, Bredfield/Pyches Road and the Birkitt Road – that is, five of the six roads entering Woodbridge. Although the sixth (Melton Road) is on my colleague Cllr Michael Bond’s territory, I have had complaints about the need for calming recently from Melton residents whose children travel to Farlingaye.   My QoL money this year is destined for project to calm three of these problem places.  I think  it would be appropriate to offer the £7000 set to one side for Sandy Lane and the led sign in Ipswich Road towards 20mph signs  if she were to agree. All views welcome

I will let you know whether this will bear any fruit.

Olympians to train in Suffolk

Lowestoft has been selected by both Great Britain and Canada as the training base for their Gymnastic teams who will  be using  the Waveney Gymnastics Centre.  Suffolk has been actively seeking out teams to use the facilities in the county.  A total of ten sites were selected by the London 2012 committee to hold training facilities for the athletes, the bulk of which are in or near Ipswich    http://www.visit-suffolk.org.uk/suffolktrainingcamps/facilities.cfm . I don’t know if this will result in any improvement in transport provision locally but I hope it might.