Tag Archives: Wickham Market

62a and 62b, Buses, Cabinet, cuts, New Strategic direction, Suffolk County Council, Transport, Uncategorized, Woodbridge, Your councillor

Woodbridge’s 62a and 62b scrapped without warning!

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OK, I saw it coming – I knew the bus-unfriendly Guy McGregor, SCC portfolio-holder for Transport and Highways, was out to do it  – but it still makes me angry!

Woodbridge has now lost ALL its evening, Sunday and Bank Holiday bus services – victims to  the prejudices of a portfolio-holder who treats buses as  if they were Babes in the Wood – to be  led out into the woods and lost, their pathetic corpses buried under leaves.  He then has the brass neck to boast on his website that: ” I have driven the improvement in the provision of bus services in Suffolk.” To carry on the Panto metaphor “OH NO you haven’t!!!” You are presiding over its demise!

[Here I had to stop writing to take an urgent call from my constituent, the septuagenarian dancer John Raven who relies on the buses – particularly the 62a and b  – as he travels to and from Ipswich’s Regent theatre  daily, often in the evening. Mr Raven and I met years ago, as we travelled to Ipswich by bus. Neither he or his wife can drive, they both find it hard to walk far,   and they live a good  half an hour’s walk from the train station (which will bring him into the wrong side of Ipswich). This cut will devastate his life.  But is he devastated? NO! instead the feisty Mr Raven is LIVID  and he’s out to tell people so.  Mr Raven is not taken in by weasel words: he recognises that Cllr McGregor is figurehead for a regime that  simply diesn’t care]

It seems Mr McGregor’s desire is  to be shot of the subsidised public bus services to rural areas – a lifeline to many people in the countryside who cannot afford, or are unable (by reasons of health, age and poverty) to drive.  Not that Mr McGregor puts it so directly. Indeed he drips honeytonged appeasement. Its not that he’s cutting the services – oh no – far from it.  Mr Mcgregor merely  plans to ‘remodel’ much of   Suffolk’s  rural transport, by replacing services with a ‘demand-responsive’ alternative, one that (he fails to mention) has to be booked a day in advance and is not available outside working hours.

And he certainly doesn’t mention that the money to underpin this  Demand Responsive Solution to the death of the subsidised scheduled bus services was taken out of  his capital expenditure budget a full year before  the NSD was mentioned.

Bus users of Woodbridge,  your valued local service didn’t fall – it was pushed!

Let’s be clear here  – talking about demand responsive transport solutions  is  a load of  meretricious tosh if you referring to buses like the 62a and the 62b.  Why? Well,  if you press them, SCC  officers admit that:

“demand responsive transport operates between 0700 and 1900 Monday to Saturday and we are unable to offer any extension to these hours”.

So our 62a and 62b services will therefore not be replaced with demand responsive transport: they will be replaced with nothing at all, and 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 left sitting at home!

Last week I suggested to  Mr McGregor that he was targeting his transport cuts disproportionately at Suffolk’s sustainable transport as  I questioned his part in the SCC proposed budget for next year.  He agreed that this was the case, but added

“When they were consulted, residents in Suffolk said they were saddened that these cuts were happening, but they know the reasons why they have to occur.”

Oh yes, we DO know the reasons why our buses are being cut, Mr McGregor!  Its because you prefer to add a couple of millions to the already bloated roads budget than give a moment’s concern to those residents of Suffolk who do not drive cars. That’s what saddens us!  Decisions are being made on our behalf  by someone who doesn’t care a hoot for buses, nor for the people who use buses, and most of all, for the plight of the people who have no option but to use buses!

While I remember, it was at this very same Cabinet meeting that Jane Storey, deputy leader of the SCC administration, and arch apologist for the New Strategic Direction  really excelled herself. In bringing next year’s budget to Cabinet she had the unmitigated CRUST to say (with an ineffable blend of complacency and certainty), that this budget – yes the one that is cutting school traffic patrols, divesting libraries, abolishing the explore card and stopping the very buses that rural people most need  “will deliver first class services to the people of Suffolk. ”

Oh, and she also added that the administration have “tried to prioritise the vulnerable in our society.”

I kid you not!   I wrote her words down as she spoke them so I could make sure to pass them on in all their appalling glory!

Cllr Storey, like Cllr McGregor , you seem to have the same relationship to services for the vulnerable as the Wicked Uncle had to the Babes in the Wood. Oh yes you DO!

Oh NO you dont???

Well why not  put your money where your mouths are, and forgo your cuts to essential and irreplaceable services in favour of supporting the most vulnerable of Suffolk’s road users – those who are  dependent on your subsidised buses!

Residents of Woodbridge, and beyond – if you wish to persuade Cllrs McGregor, Storey et al of the error of their ways and hope for a regular panto Transformation Scene, please sign the online petition

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

Or you can sign a paper copy in Woodbridge’s Shire Hall. We MUST keep reminding them that this is a bad thing to do – or they might carry on thinking that it’s prefectly ok.

'Divesting' services, Care homes, Council spending, cuts, Libraries, New Strategic direction, Suffolk County Council, Uncategorized, Volunteers, Woodbridge

Distribute that middle! Losing Suffolk libraries through a logical fallacy

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If you thought an ‘undistributed middle’ had something to do with eating too much Christmas pud, think again. In Suffolk its the administration’s pitiful excuse for  reducing  our our loved, valued, and needed library services.

SCC’s consultation paper : Have your say on the future of Suffolk’s libraries was launched last week.  The first page of this document sets the framework for you ‘having your say’. It is titled: Services to be delivered differently in the future‘  and the first paragraph is  a whole lot of guff about iPods, e-books and Twitter – just to reinforce the fact that we no longer really need books on bookshelves. And just as well…

Why?  The document tells us that:

“With major changes affecting the country’s economy, and government’s aim to cut the national budget deficit over the coming years, Suffolk County Council must reduce its funding to libraries by at least 30% over three years.”

Eh? Did I miss something? This is a perfect example of a logical fallacy : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_the_undistributed_middle

Another  example of this  flaw in argument can be seen in the following:

“Dollar bills are green, trees are green, so money must grow on trees.”

Yes,  Mr Pembroke, there are major changes in the country’s economy.

Yes, the government wants to  cut the national budget deficit over three years.

THIS DOES NOT MEAN THAT THERE IS ANY NEED OR REQUIREMENT FOR ‘SCC TO REDUCE ITS FUNDING TO LIBRARIES BY AT LEAST 30% OVER THREE YEARS’!

(And  did you know that The Public Libraries and Museums Act 1964 makes the provision of ‘a comprehensive and efficient’ public library service a statutory requirement?)

As usual, when justifying their divestments and cuts, SCC  points to cuts in central government grants.  Again, this document fails to mention  that the government grant which is  being cut (by 26% over 4 years, not 30% over 3)  forms only part of SCC’s income. The rest of which is staying the same, or rising. In other words, SCC  does not have to impose of cuts to the Suffolk library service  of over 30% over 3 years at all!

Rather,  it means is that SCC  sees libraries as a ‘soft’ target. In fact, SCC has taken three-quarters of a million pounds away from library funding this year to pay for a hole in care finances already. Yet there has been no proposed reduction whatsoever to Suffolk’s multi-million pound  road maintenance budget. Lorries before learning!

We all know that some cuts, some pain IS going to be unavoidable – but there are different ways of targeting them. For example, you can discover what your residents want.

Norfolk is –  like Suffolk – run by a Tory administration. It is – like Suffolk – rural, and thinly populated in many places.  So how is it managing the problems of less funding? Has  Norfolk  told people that its too expensive to run frontline services? No! Instead of insisting on a mad, undemocratic, ideologically motivated  New Strategic Direction , and deciding on outcomes before consultation with its population,  Norfolk has held a ‘Big Conversation’ – and established what  its residents’ priorities are! After all it is their council tax and their services!

Big Conversations? You might object to the terminology – you can’t fault the way their minds were working.  You can read more about Norfolk’s so much more ‘grown up’ and democratic process  here

Suffolk’s embarrassingly autocratic  library ‘consultation’ will continue  until 30 April. As ever, I urge you to have your say.  I warn you – just as in the case of Suffolk’s Care Homes – ‘having your say’ on the future of Suffolk’s libraries doesn’t mean the administration is allowing you any opportunity to say their idea is bad, and you want no part of it.

Oh no – all this consultation gives you is 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%”

Am I the only person who  thinks this is frankly ludicrous when we remember the ‘New Strategic Direction’ is the brainchild of an exceptionally highly paid Chief Executive, who only recently flatly refused to countenance the idea of a voluntary 10% pay cut for herself?  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-12232070

SCC consultation document writers may be bad with words but they really are expert at the “when did you stop beating your wife”-type question.

Woodbridge library is ‘safe’:  that is, it will remain one of the 15  ‘County Libraries‘  free from divestment – unless someone really really wants to take it over.   However 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.  At the bottom of this page is a little  notice in quiet print:

“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.

Not that your arms are being twisted!

You may – whether or not your  own library is on the list – 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  brand spanking new petition site:

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

You might also write to your local paper, councillor or MP. Or all of these. Good luck!

this does not mean that there is any need or requirement for ‘scc to reduce its funding to libraries by at least 30% over three years