Tag Archives: ‘out-sourcing’ services

'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.”

- Cycles and Cycling, 'Divesting' services, Buses, Cars and parking, Council spending, cuts, Lollipop patrols, New Strategic direction, Pedestrians and Walkers, Roads, Schools, Suffolk County Council, Transport, Uncategorized, young people

Suffolk’s transport cuts hit the young, the poor, and the rural!

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For those (few) of us who recognise quite how much Suffolk needs to rely on other forms of transport than the car, the view from behind the Chief Executive’s steering wheel is a particularly narrow one.

If her view of Suffolk transport has been formed by her daily commute down the A14 from Cambridgeshire, she is probably unaware that here, on Planet Real Life – sustainable transport isn’t just a phrase – its a lifeline!

Here are some of the REAL impacts of CUTs created by her ideologically driven New Strategic Direction, which she may not see from her expensive car:

*   £1,700,000 CUT by abolishing the eXplore Card – means that many, many more young people will be driven to school,  and putting more, less confident cyclists on busier roads,  because they  are forced into cycling before they are ready; 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. All this will be a particular tragedy for the rural young poor!

*   £150,000 CUT by closing the Bury Road Park & Ride – adds to rush-hour congestion, and preventing parental drop-off of rural schoolchildren at P&R. (This decision, incidentally was made without a business case).  An excess of people trying to use the London Road P&R may have tragic implications for young cyclists to SuffolkOnein particular

*   £2,260,000 CUT from – a 53% cut in – subsidised bus services – more cars (for those that can – and can afford to – drive! Transportational disenfranchisement for everyone else)
>  *   £100,000 CUT from road safety education – a cut of 24% – just at the time when so many more cars are on the roads and there are likely to be  so many new  and unpractised road users;

*   £523,000 CUT from Extended Schools (which will make it much more difficult to hold eg cycle-training classes );

*   £706,000 CUT from Home-to-school transport provision (so there will be more cars rushing to get to school gates and then on to work; while many more – specifically rural – parents without cars, living within 3 miles of the nearest school and with children of statutory education age will be between the devil and the deep blue sea. Would you like to walk 11 miles a day on rural roads come rain, come snow, come flu -maybe pushing a buggy – to ensure you are not breaking the law and your 8 year old child gets safely to their nearest school? Would Andrea Hill like to? I wouldn’t!)

*   £174,000 CUT by scrapping all 98 School Crossing Patrols across the County, including our very own Woodbbridge Lollipop man, Terry King! (Yes, this is a truly tiny sum because they are paid so little – but what a big impact on the safety and independence of young schoolchildren!);

*   £350,000 – a 27% CUT – reduction in maintenance of footways. Again, its those not in a car who will suffer;

*   and finally a £1,179,000 CUT made by abolishing the Safety Camera Partnership. So there will not only more cars, but they will be going faster too!

NB: I stole specific  figures from a summary by Cllr Sandy Martin. Thanks!