Category Archives: Quality of Life funding

Cabinet, Care homes, Council reports, eXplore card, Just 42, Locality Budget, Quality of Life funding, Social care, Suffolk County Council, young people, Your councillor

Town Council Report June 11

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My most recent report to Woodbridge Town Council, on 14th June, heralds the chance of a new era at SCC, with a change of leader and the possibility of other changes. However it becomes clear that SCC having a legal obligation to  e-petitions had developed or considered no strategy to deal with these petitions  once presented.
An extraordinary Cabinet grants £10m for broadband from reserves, although the very same people had been deeply snitty only a month or two back, when the Lib Dems  suggested the interim funding of vital frontline services via a much smaller sum from reserves ( full details here).  One rule for them, and another for the rest of  us – same old, same old.
Locally I’m interested in suggestions for spending Quality of Life money and Locality budget money

Full Council AGM

At the Full Council AGM on the 26th of May Cllr Mark Bee was elected leader of the Council, with Jane Storey continuing as deputy.  In addition,Patricia O’Brien became SCC Chairman for 2011, with ex-leader Jeremy Pembroke named as Vice-Chair , and thus Chair in the next (Olympic) year..

The Council discussed the Third Suffolk Local Transport Plan, which outlines the County’s top transport infrastructure priorities.  This is a statutory duty and covers the period from 2011 to 2031.  The plan refers to possible  short term schemes such as the Beccles rail loop, the A14 Copdock improvements and the Ipswich Chord.  As the plan lasts for twenty years, the Council has also included more medium and long term aspirations, which include  the perennial  A12 Four Villages improvement.

I spoke  here of the extraordinary lack of SMART targets in this Plan’s set-up – relying as it does so completely on both privatised rail and privatised bus services (over which SCC has absolutely no control) and the fact that demand responsive transport which is what SCC has replaced its subsidised services with does not solve the problems of the car-less at the very times they might need it most.
However, the plan was passed with 46 votes for the plan, 7 against, and 8 abstentions.

Another item on the agenda was the decision to reinstate the County Council’s Health Scrutiny Committee, abolished in December.  This decisionwas fully supported by the Liberal Democrat opposition, as we feel it is necessary to have a committee that looks solely at health to give it the attention it deserves.  All too often the agenda of the new scrutiny committee is filled with health related items, limiting the ability to fully scrutinise County Council decisions.

Petitions

The AGM also heard three petitions which had achieved sufficient signatures to be returned to the Council for further discussion: calls to save the EXplore Card, Country Parks, and Household Waste Recycling Centres from the recent cuts imposed at the Councils February budget meeting.

The author of the petitions each spoke for five minutes, appealing for their petitions to be acted upon.   There was much support in the public gallery for the eXplore card petition, with members of youth clubs, schools and colleges attending to watch the discussion and subsequent decisionmaking, despite this petition being heard in the middle of GCSE, A.A/S and college exams. Woodbridge should be very proud of its Just 42 Off the Streets representatives, who put some very cogent questions directly to Cllr McGregor, the portfolioholder.

After the petitioners had spoken, Councillors from all parties had the opportunity to input into a very brief discussion prior to the portfolio holder speaking on the subject. I spoke on the subject of the Explore card as one of the petitioners was from Woodbridge, and the Woodbridge and district Just 42 youth club have been very supportive of the petition –  and I had received a lot of emails and calls on the subject from worried parents and students. In each case discussion was followed by a port-folio holder speech in which the cut was asserted.

At this point it became clear that no-one  within the council  at all had any very clear idea as what was to happen next. Clearly ending the process undemocratically by means of a response from the very person who had organised, agreed and implemented the cut –in the case of the Explore card, without any public consultation – reduced the concept of the epetition to no more than a figleaf. SO what whas to happen next? During a short recess,  Explore card petitioners were promised by Mark Bee and Guy McGregor   that the problems of their particular cut would go  before scrutiny. This has yet to happen. (note : subsequently, of course it did, see here )

The opposition is particularly concerned that all three sets of petitioners need to be told now, exactly what is to happen next, and that the procedure for dealing with e-petitions MUST be sorted out before the next council meeting to prevent this ridiculous state of affairs happening in the future and allow these petitions to perform the constitutional function for which they were created.

Cabinet: Care homes and Home to School Transport

In Cabinet on 24 May , decisions of note included:

Care Homes: the Cabinet agreed to note the recommendations put forward by the current business agent: sale of all homes as going concerns.  The Cabinet agreed to receive a further report in February will details of those who have expressed an interest in the Care Homes, prior to awarding any contracts. How this will be affected by  recent news of the collapse of Southern Cross remains to be seen.

The Cabinet also agreed revisions to the home to school transport policy, which include removing the subsidised transport for those students who will be admitted to a Roman Catholic aided School, other than for those who are entitled by law.  Those students, who already receive the transport, and those who will join the schools in September 2011, will continue to receive the subsidised transport until they leave.  The Cabinet also agreed that the parental charges for  discretionary transport provided by the County Council will be £150 per term; this will increase by £10 each year over the next two years.

Extraordinary Cabinet: Broadband

A further emergency Cabinet on 10 June reflected on Broadband provision in Suffolk after Suffolk lost out on national grants although The Government had made available a fund of £530m to support the provision of fast broadband across the country. We were told that this was because Suffolk County Council  under the previous leader had not wished to contribute more than a few hundred thousand pounds to the project – which the national grant-makers  BDUK considered inadequate.  Suffolk currently has one of the poorest broadband networks in England. The average broadband speed currently experienced by Suffolk’s consumers and small businesses is under 5Mbps.

Cabinet therefore considered an increased Suffolk County Council contribution to the project up to a maximum of £10million over the 4 years of the project to match the contribution from BDUK; and authorised the Director for Economy Skills and Environment in consultation with the Portfolio Holders for Greenest County, Economy and Skills and for Resource Management to determine the final level of Suffolk County Council contribution in conjunction with other public sector partners in Suffolk.

The total cost of implementation is estimated at £41.7 million, of which approximately half is expected to come from the private sector. Suffolk County Council has committed up to £10m in the expectation that BDUK will at least match that amount.

Local issues

My Quality of life budget: Sandy lane traffic calming. I have left the current plans for this with the clerk, if anyone wishes to comment. I had assumed there might be a need for haste because repair work is being undertaken in Sandy Lane for the next few weeks, but having consulted with the engineer there will be no resultant economies in scale. We are hoping to get some air quality grant money to assist in the calming measures.

I am interested in other possible small schemes and would be grateful for suggestions from councillors.

My Locality budget: I am always keen for new suggestions. Several people have mentioned Woodbridge’s lack of bicycle racks to me. Specific areas have been: on the Market Hill, down at Cross Corner and by Kingston Fields. There need to  be more racks down by Café Nero as this is clearly a popular place for bike parking.

Pedestrians and Walkers, Quality of Life funding, Transport, Uncategorized, young people, Your councillor

Woodbridge: Clarkson’s Crossing opens live on air!

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There aren’t many road crossings that have their own name, but the brand new Clarkson Crossing in Ipswich Road Woodbridge is very different. For a start, it’s probably the only one in Suffolk  – maybe in the country – that local students have helped plan, design and name, in a joint project with Suffolk County Highway Engineers and their County Councillor! Today students from Farlingaye school, together with Farlingaye Deputy Head Graham Smith,  came out in force to help unveil a specially designed plaque to commemorate their collaboration, live on James Hazell’s radio show.

Caroline Page joins Farlingaye High School Students to open the Clarkson Crossing - live on Radio Suffolk!

The Ipswich road has become increasingly busy over the years and I have been very keen to provide a crossing, since I was elected, two and a half years ago. Althought  I had earmarked the money from my Quality of Life budget, and gained agreement for it to go ahead, we were uncertain what would be the best  solution.  Huge congratulations are due to the public-spirited students of Farlingaye High School who kick-started the final phase when they investigated difficulties in walking/cycling to school last year. This led to Suffolk’s Highway Engineers working with the students to look together at how this problem could be solved  within the money available -to  provide a solution that was fit for purpose.

Working together, the Engineers and the students established that a refuge island would best fit the problem and the bill. The students helped work out where it would have to be sited, and – as a last idea – they christened it. Today they helped unveil a specially designed commemorative plaque to officially open the Clarkson Crossing  live on Radio Suffolk.

The road is not only a school route  crossing point, but it is also a crossing point for bus users (many of them elderly), other pedestrians, and for National Cycle Route 1.

“For years children and their parents have crossed the Ipswich Road on the way to and from school but each year, this has got more difficult with more and more traffic going  faster and faster. It was becoming a daily battle . The worst thing was you could never find a gap in both streams of traffic at the same time. With the new crossing, you don’t have to! And having that island in the middle of the road is also slowing the traffic down.”  Ipswich Road Resident

Here, the young people  of Woodbridge have shown their elders something important: that if you think ‘something should be done’, the answer is often in your hands!

The plinth was designed by SCC's Sam Harvey - and didn't she make a lovely job of it !

This project started a long time before people started talking about the ‘Big Society’ To my mind it’s what we people in Suffolk just call ‘society’ – and society working as it ought to!

'Divesting' services, 62a and 62b, Buses, Cabinet, Council reports, Council spending, cuts, eXplore card, Locality Budget, Lollipop patrols, New Strategic direction, Quality of Life funding, Schools, Suffolk County Council, Transport, Uncategorized, young people, Your councillor

Woodbridge Town Council report Feb 2011

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This month’s report is largely about various – very worrying –  cuts and ‘divestments’ that the forthcoming SCC 2010-11 budget intends to legitimise. Specific reference to Libraries, Road Crossing Patrols, Bus Services (especially the 62a/b evening, Sunday and bank holiday service) and the young persons’ eXplore card, together with links to petitions to try and help save these.

SCC Budget 2011-12 – Update

The County Council is finally setting the budget at Full Council on the 17th of February.  The total level of cuts for next year will be approximately £43m from across the authority; this is combined – as  SCC is keen to point out – with a 0% increase in Council tax .

SCC does not mention that by electing not to raise council tax the council is eligible for a government grant of £7,200,000 – equivalent to them imposing a 2.5% rise!  SCC would therefore have to raise its council tax by more than 2.5% to get any benefit from doing so.

As you will have seen in the news, the County is wishing to cut back a wide number of frontline services, including Libraries, Buses,  the eXplore card.and School crossing patrols, all of which which I will discuss later.

Other areas that the Council intends to make savings include;

  • selling off Country Parks and recreation areas
  • The closure of seven Household Waste recycling centres – which are  supposedly as yet to be decided (although I have been told that already some redundancy notices have been issued)
  • Divestment or closure of Youth Clubs
  • Stopping the subsidy for community meals
  • Divesting the Fire Control Function to another service
  • Ending the Healthy Schools programme
  • Cease checking lorries to see if they are overloaded, and cease enforcement of environmental weight restrictions on County’s roads and bridges.
  • Ceasing offering advice to Suffolk residents on consumer disputes where the law is complex..

The interesting point about this is that there are plenty of neighbouring county councils with a Conservative majority who have not needed to do this, preferring to salami-slice cuts equally across the whole council and consulting their population as to their preferences . Norfolk is a good example.

For more information, and to view the papers which highlight the level of capital spending planned by the authority for the upcoming year, please head to: http://apps2.suffolk.gov.uk/cgi-bin/committee_xml.cgi?p=detail&id=1_15073

Suffolk Libraries ‘Consultation’

As you have probably heard, the County Council is intending to divest, or close a significant  number of the 44 Libraries around the County. They have divided these into ‘County’ and ‘Community’ libraries.

Woodbridge library is ’safe’:  that is, it will remain one of the 15  ‘County Libraries‘  free from divestment – that is, unless someone really really wants to take it over.  In which case it will be ‘divested.’. It will not, however, close.

The  other 29  (now designated Community) libraries  -including Wickham Market,  Framlingham, Debenham, Kesgrave, Leiston, Oulton Broad and Southwold – are up for divestment – that is, being taken over by community groups. However SCC says: “If the response to this consultation is disappointing, and the county council does not receive viable proposals and ideas from people, groups, businesses and other interested parties for ways to run community libraries, we propose that funding will stop from 2012”.

As is becoming standard in these SCC consultations,  ‘having your say’ on the future of Suffolk’s libraries doesn’t mean the administration allows  you any opportunity to say their idea is bad, and you want no part of it.

This consultation only gives you a chance  to explain your idea for running your divested library.   For example, Question 4 is:  “How will your idea  or interest generate changes or significant efficiencies in the way the library operates to reduce what the county council pays by a minimum of 30%”.

The ‘consultation’ which is titled ”Have your Say on the Future of Suffolk’s Libraries”  began on the 18th of January, and finishes on the 30th of April.  You can find it on the home page of Suffolk County Council under the Consultation heading. http://www.suffolk.gov.uk.

You may feel like filling in the consultation document. You may, on the other hand feel like filling in one of the e-petitions that are proliferating on the Council’s new petition site: http://petitions.web-labs.co.uk/suffolkcc/public/. There is a petition asking that Woodbridge library remains undivested, and another one requesting that the Library Staff remain salaried.

Cuts and threats to Woodbridge Bus Services

The County Council is making very significant reductions in the passenger transport  which enables commercial services to operate in non-peak time slots.

We had a shock announcement on Wednesday that our 62a and 62b services will go on 27 February. The announcement was made a day after Cllr McGregor had assured Cabinet that no decisions on cutting services would be made until after 17 February’s full council.

I’ve been copied a letter by Melton’s Cllr Butterwick, as I believe the Town Clerk also has. He suspects that such  a cut without a 56day notification period is not even legal and has written to the Traffic Commissioner to ask his advice about it.

Suffolk County Council says it plans to ‘remodel’ much of local rural transport, by replacing services with a ‘demand-responsive’ alternative, booked a day in advance. However the council transport team (when questioned by me) admits that “demand responsive transport operates between 0700 and 1900 Monday to Saturday and we are unable to offer any extension to these hours”.

Therefore, when the 62a and 62b services close later this month, they will not be replaced with demand-responsive transport: they will be replaced with nothing at all. Residents in Woodbridge will have NO sustainable transport in the evenings, on Sundays and on Bank Holidays. Those residents who do not have, cannot afford to, or are unable to drive a car, will be stuck! This will have an impact on people from Ipswich to Wickham Market and Rendlesham.

I am deeply saddened about this cut because it represents a very retrogressive step in the history of our local bus service. It leaves those Woodbridge residents without a car with NO options for bus travel over, say, a bank holiday from about 6pm Saturday till about 7am the following Tuesday.   This is a cut that will affect car drivers not a whit but will impact very heavily on those who don’t have a car, those who can’t afford a car, and those who are prevented by age or health from driving a car..

Other threatened services are

70, 70a. 118: Ipswich – Bealings – Woodbridge – Grundisburgh – Ipswich

71, 163, 173,  IP179, IP512: Orford/Felixstowe – Woodbridge – Ipswich

We have not yet heard a word about their fate.

Luckily  we were sufficiently anxious about the possibility of cuts to have  set up an epetition to save Woodbridge buses a few days before the shock announcement about 62a/b… Can I continue to urge Town and District Councillors – who were so very helpful when we joined together to press for better bus services last spring –  to join together again to try and overturn this cut?   It will have huge implications for the people of Woodbridge.

http://petitions.web-labs.co.uk/suffolkcc/public/Save-Woodbridge-Buses

Abolition of the SCC Explore card

SCC has also made another  £1,700,000 cut to sustainable transport usage by abolishing the eXplore Card. Although the bus services in Suffolk have become extraordinarily expensive as well as patchy, up till now young people have had  to help with their travelling to post-16 education, to work and to find work, and for socialising.

Explore cards were available free to students 16-19, and have  enabled them to pay only half adult fares on buses and many off peak rail journeys. Poorer students have also had EMA.

As regards post-16 transport, the SCC post-16 transport policy relies on the fact that all post-16 students can have an Explore card to help with fares, and if their parents are poor, EMA too. This means that up to now transport to work and educational opportunities should be in the reach of all young people in Suffolk – and a very good thing that is too! This abolition means that there will be more cars on the road many, many more young people will be driven, or drive  to school, college, employment etc ,  and will put more, less confident cyclists on busier roads,  because they  are forced into cycling before they are ready. It will lead to less  take-up of  FE education because of difficulties of access (especially to colleges and Suffolk ONE ) and less chance of going for job interviews and training.

SCC says they hope that individual bus companies might take a paid-for version of this card up for the future, but I believe First have rejected the idea. It will, anyway be of limited use unless all buses take it on the same terms. And one of the things SCC Transport has been constantly telling us in the past is that the bus companies have no desire to work together – this is the reason we never managed to get an integrated ticketing service.

Again, there will be a petition about this on the SCC site http://petitions.web-labs.co.uk/suffolkcc/public/Save-the-eXplore-card-

The End of SCC School Crossing Patrols

You will be aware of the huge amount of anger that has been generated in Suffolk  by the Council’s decision to close all 98 School Crossing patrols to save £174,000. (In fact more like £125,000 as a number of vacancies exist which can’t be filled because of the current hiring freeze).. This includes the St Mary’s School crossing patrol.

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 and are established at sites where children are in danger from road traffic when walking to and from school as assessed  by national guidelines (established by the Local Authority Road Safety Officer’s Association and the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents). Ten years ago  the (then)  Woodbridge Lollipop man, was knocked to the ground by an impatient driver while on patrol on Birkett Road, directly outside St Mary’s School.  More recently, I had two near misses when cycling past the school at playgroup collection time last week.

I think it is fair to say that road has not got any safer in recent years.

The school, parents, PTA, and many others, including myself  are anxious that this cut  could have  dreadful repercussions. I have asked SCC if they know what the council’s legal position would be if – heaven forbid – anyone was knocked down after the patrol has been withdrawn. I have, as yet, had no reply.

Again, there is a petition against this cut: http://petitions.web-labs.co.uk/suffolkcc/public/

Your Councillor’s Quality of Life and Locality budgets

On a more positive note, we heard at Cabinet that the County Councillors’  Quality of Life budget will be retained – though with less money. This is good news for Woodbridge. I hope this will allow me to undertake the Sandy Lane road traffic calming I had to postpone last year .

Of the three projects I have funded so far

  • The Duke of York (ex-Seal) Crossing is proving immensely successful
  • the (separate) 30mph LED sign for further down Ipswich Road is ordered and being constructed
  • The final consultation for the TRO finished last month. From various communications from constituents, it would seem to be the first they had heard of it!

I do not yet know the fate of the Councillor’s Locality budget, but I hope that this will also be retained. I have recently made grants to establish a Graffiti wall up in Kyson, to buy a seat for people in Kingston Fields, to provide  two bicycles for the Town pastors and  a lawn mower for the Scouts to use to raise income and to buy Olympic-branded jute bags to advertise the Wood-Olympics  next year.