Category Archives: County

County, Highways, Uncategorized

Road Safety

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Road Safety is always an issue but my “Quality of Life” road improvement budget is very limited.  However this year we have surfaced Cock Lane and placed “no parking” markings to make it easier to exit the St John’s Ambulance premises in Bramford.  We will be installing “Halo” rings round the heads of the Belisha Beacons at the “Co-Op” zebra crossing in Claydon to make it more visible.

The most important work will be at Pound Lane on the B1113 where there have been several serious accidents. I hope to see road markings to make the location of the junction more obvious, the speed limit reduced to 40mph and the bus stops moved away from the junction.  Until that happens, I have asked the police, via the Chief Constable, to enforce the present limit.

If you would like to see the details click on  Pound Lane proposals to download the plan

County, Uncategorized

My “Locality Budget”

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Each year County Councillors have a “Locality Budget” to use to support local organisations.  The best support is to help them gain much larger funds from the District Council, the lottery or landfill tax and many groups in Gipping Valley do that very well. 

So far, this year I have helped: Barham Green residents, St Peters 60+ club, Crucial Crew, Bramford Loraine Victory Hall, Claydon Primary, Bramford Playing Field, 4ever young, cycle speedway and Claydon & Barham Community Centre.

The Victory Hall committee and the Playing Field committee used the money, together with funds from the parish to leavel in substantial grants from the SITA trust.  Just what we need!

Applications are in hand for Gt Blakenham Village Hall, Barham & Claydon Football Club, Bramford Football Club, Claydon Parish for Street Light improvements and Cherryfields. 

I hope you find that a good selection.  If not let me know by filling in a comment.

Barmford, Highways

Cock Alley to Gippingstone Road

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County Highways are at long last constructing a footway to link Cock Alley to Gippingstone Road to allow parents to use the path to get to the school without getting muddy. The work will start on the 23rd July and take approximately a week. 

I was asked for this by the team that look at safe travel to school some years ago but it has been an uphill struggle to get the land transferred from Mid Suffolk District Council.

The county say that noise and dust will be kept to a minimum and the work should not affect vehicles and pedestrian access. 

The footway will be constructed along the right side of the left hedge above and will be two metres wide leading to the existing footway  

 If you have any specific requirements, such as disability access, or deliveries planned for this date, please contact the contractor, Suffolk Highways Contracting 01473 588640.

If you have any queries about these works, contact (0845 606 6171) and ask to speak to Aaron Gordon

Barmford, Energy, Flowton

National Grid latest route proposals for Bramford to Twinsted

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Today Natrional Grid announced their latest position on the Bramford to Twinsted Tee connection that will be needed to take power from the North Sea windfarm East Anglia One and Sizewell C (if it is ever built) to London.

Local groups, the Libdems, the MP, County Council and District Councils have all  been fighting to get National Grid to use modern technology to underground this connection that will otherwise blight our lives, damage our tourist industry and be out of date before it comes into use.

Have they adapted their plans?  Well, two short sections through the Dedham Vale AONB and the Stour Valley will be underground but the residents closer to Bramford, particularly in Hintlesham, are still cursed with a double 400kv pylon line.

National Grid, this is just not good enough.  Minimising cost at the expense of so many is not acceptable.  Why not go for undergroiund DC connections like the windfarm companies are proposing?  There is time to re-think,  Sizewell  C will only be constructed if the French Government decide it is good business and the final three parts of East Anglia One are some time away.  The re-vamped existing line which will carry some 6,200 Mega watts will do till then.

Latest National Grid Data is at http://www.nationalgrid.com/uk/Electricity/MajorProjects/BramfordTwinstead/Documents/index.htm

Care, County, Uncategorized

Scrutiny on 1st May: Suffolk Circle and Demand Responsive Transport

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On the 1st May we shall be looking at the Suffolk Circle (a membership scheme for the elderly to provide help through a token system), and Demand Responsive Transport.  We will be assessing how successful each service is, and make recommendations about how the Council should proceed.

Our interest in demand responsive transport revolves around the great emphasis that is being placed on this as a solution to the problem of providing adequate public transport in rural areas.

In order to get a good picture of how these service are actually functioning we have decided to launch a brief consultation.  We want to know what you think works and what needs to be improved.  You can respond by heading to the link below and filling in the short survey, by post, or e-mail.  The deadline is the 20th of April.   http://www.surveymonkey.com/demandresponsive

County, Economy

Management Saleries at the Council

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The last Full Council on 29th March had a small agenda, but included the Pay Policy statement, which the localism act requires.  This highlights the number of people in managerial positions, what they are paid, and the ratio between the highest and lowest paid at the County.  You may find these facts interesting:

  • ·         Salary structure for Directors is set locally through the staff appointments committee and ranges from £98,393 to £126,733.
  • ·         Salary for Assistant Directors (higher) is £85,795 – £96,824
  • ·         Salary for Assistant Directors are £68,096 – £83,829
  • ·         Salary for senior manager is £55,287 – £64,399.
  • ·         Currently the Chief Executive of S.C.C. earns eight times more than the Councils median earner, and thirteen times more than the lowest paid.

Are these figures reasonable?

County, Economy

Suffolk Broadband Residents Survey

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The campaign Better Broadband for Suffolk continues with the launch of a survey for residents, aiming to gather support, information about the current level of internet provision and the desired speed. If you wish to complete the survey, and you have access to the internet, head to http://www.suffolk.gov.uk/broadband.  For those without internet access, surveys are being distributed to parishes and libraries.  In addition to the residential survey, the business survey is still up and running at  http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/SuffolkBusinessBroadbandSurveyI would encourage you to respond to the survey to ensure that areas that have poor broadband connections are identified and we can all benefit from faster internet speeds in the future.

Barmford, Waste

Bad news about Bramford Recycling Centre

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Reuben Bolton of Bolton Brothers Ltd who run the Recycling Centre in Bramford will close the site on 11 March 2012.

They are looking at expanding other operations they manage so that they can accept items from the public. This allows staff to cover all activities on the site and reduces costs.  It has been successful in Beccles. 

The site has been used a lot less after the county closed it for several weeks before the Boltons operation started.  There have been fewer than 25 visitors a day for most of January when you might have noticed that it was snowy and freezing. 

The income from charges and material sales has not been covering  costs, over the months of the trial period.   In December 2011 Boltons  introduced a charge for green waste and wood waste in an attempt to eliminate the loss but without sucess.

The type of waste has also changed.  There is less recyclable waste of value, such as metals, textiles and cardboard.  This is again not helping.

Your local councillors will work together to try to find a solution but it will at best be very difficult

Barmford, Waste

Bramford Household Waste Site Latest

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The Bramford site has closed but three companies have approached the County Council with plans to re-open it.  Two, Glazewing from Norfolk and Bloton Brothers from Gt Blakenham have extensive experience in the waste recycling business and the third is experienced in re-cycling of clothing and eager to get involved in the wider scene. 

All gave presentations tonight to local parish, district and county councillors at a meeting hosted and led by John Hooker of Bramford Parish Council.  The proposals differed in some respects and Bramford will chose next monday night which to pursue on behalf of the community that was served by the County’s HWRC.

A new service with free disposal of recyclable materials and green waste and disposal of non-recyclable materials for a pay as you throw charge of £5+vat per car appears a real possibility and could be in operation by mid September.

This will meet the needs of those who want to recycle things that can’t go in the green bin, those with garden waste who don’t want to pay for Mid Suffolk’s brown bin and those who are not prepared to sort their waste.

This looks like real progress!

Gt_Blakenham, Waste

Incinerator Granted Planning Permission

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 Yesterday Suffolk County Council Development Control Committee granted planning permission to SITA for an Incinerator (they call it an energy from waste plant).  I still believe that there are better technologies such as Anaerobic Digestion for food waste that would yield better results, be less environmentally damaging and not require commitment to a 25 year PFI contract.  However the conservative administration committed themselves to this technology in 2005 and no arguments have persuaded them to waver.

Unfortunately they would not even consider road improvements to the Lodge Lane/ Bramford Road junction to reduce traffic congestion.  Neither would they consider payments to the local community via the parish councils to allow improvements to local facilities as a small benifit to offset the harm they will suffer.

My statement to the committee was Dev Control Proposed Energy from Waste plant at Gt Blakenham

At least we will have access to the SITA Trust who like BIFF Award and the Viridor Trust feed some landfill tax back to the community for local projects.