Over £300 for cleaning, and £290.98 plus VAT for delivery to London –  Typical Labour council wasting yet more taxpayers money:

http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/10881002.Council_spent___600_cleaning_mayor_s_robes_at_London_s_oldest_tailors/?ref=mr

Take a look at the Tory diary…..

https://amillionjobs-libdems.nationbuilder.com/little_black_book_help_us

As those who read my blog will have noted, I have been challenging the council to take action to make sure that residents know about the Warm Homes Discount which provides a £135 cut to the energy bills of those on low incomes. The discount was brought in thanks to the Lib Dems in government, but Durham Council has failed up to now to promote it.

I have now been given assurances that in January the council will be making sure that those likely to be eligible who are in council housing will be contacted and I hope that this will also be included in a future issue of County News. The issue will also be raised at meetings with housing associations. Good that they are finally listening to us.

In addition at today’s meeting with senior officers for welfare, housing and Durham City Homes, we have been given assurances that current policies will be looked at to see what more can be done to help people. In particular it makes sense to try and get those people on low incomes living on their own, couples or those with a small family, to move onto a water meter. Astonishingly, we have as a council never done this, meaning that thousands of people living in one bedroom accommodation are not on a water meter despite it being almost certain that they would save upto £200 a year off their bills.

Also, Durham City Homes is to review its policy on contacting people in arrears. At the moment numerous letters can be sent out including notices of eviction before the council even knocks on someone’s door. The policy is all over the place across the county and we are now hopeful that our submissions to officers will mean a more human approach.

I just wish that instead of complaining all the time about the government, Labour councillors would pull up their sleeves and deal with these local issues head on.

The Lib Dems in government have also increased a number of times now the Discretionary Housing Payment fund which the council can use to help those struggling to pay their rent. It would appear that the number of people in arrears because of the unjust bedroom tax is not as high as at first feared and in fact the number of people in arrears has fallen.  Only half of the fund provided to Durham Council to help with housing costs has been spent so far this year, so if you know anyone who is struggling to pay their rent and is on a low income I would strongly recommend they contact the council to see what help is available.

To recap: Ways to save money on a low income we are pushing the council to promote:

– ask about Discretionary Housing Payments to help with rent (private sector or social/council housing)

– call your utility company to see if you are eligible for the warm homes discount.

– check with Northumbrian Water to see if you could save money moving to a water meter.

Finally, I checked online. If you are with one of the big six energy companies (British Gas, Eon, SSE, NPower,ScottishPower, EDF), it is almost certain, unless you fixed your price a while ago, that the smaller companies will be cheaper for your gas and electric – please tell everyone this. www.energyhelpline.com can help you compare.

It’s a sad state of affairs that despite repeated press releases about the Warm Homes Discount the regional press have failed to publicise the lack of action and the benefits available to people. Perhaps now we have managed to get the council to listen, the press will consider telling people about these ways to save money, even if we as Lib Dem councillors aren’t mentioned.

I have been working with NWL and the Arnison Centre to try to improve parking. Full story from Northern Echo below:

A DEAL has been reached to free up extra parking spaces for shoppers at an edge-of-town retail park.

Northumbrian Water is to let staff working at the Arnison Centre, in Pity Me, DurhamCity, use its private car park at weekends until January.

It is hoped this will free up more on-site spaces for shoppers.

County councillor Mark Wilkes, who has been working on the deal, said coupled with extra on-site parking it would free up almost 300 extra places.

“There are hundreds of members of staff in need of parking. This reduces space for customers.

“It is excellent that Northumbrian Water, one of the region’s best companies, has been willing to work with us to help shoppers.”

Sue Murray, from the firm, said: “It’s great that we can help CountyDurham residents have an easier shopping experience this Christmas.”

Shop managers are asked to encourage staff to use the Northumbrian Water car park.

Meanwhile, Workman LLP, the site’s management company, has employed car park marshals to help shoppers find empty spaces over the festive period.

Site manager Andrew Carr said the centre was seeing continuous improvement, with new stores having opened over the past year.

Coun Wilkes said: “Everyone will continue to work hard to ensure that Durham has the best and most easily accessible retail facilities around.

“In addition, by speeding up the time it takes to park and shop it should help to reduce congestion so that local residents find traffic less of an issue than it might otherwise have been in the area.”

A few local issues I have chased up on which are in the process of being dealt with or have already been seen to.

Road Repairs: Residents complained about the state of the road to Finchale Abbey which was in bad need of patching work. After a few weeks of chasing up officers I am happy to say that a lot of patching work has been done on the road and many residents are happy with the results. Good to see the highways teams doing a good job.

Leaves and pavements: I have chased up on getting all the leaves cleared up in Pity Me and Framwellgate Moor this week. The pavement in Pity Me is watlogged and slippy in places so be careful but i am assured the teams will be out to clear them and unblock drains where necessary.

Trees: The Council Teams which work on tree surgery are working extensively across the area to remove dead and dangerous trees and branches at the moment after a number of years of perhaps not enough work being done. For any residents who have raised issues with trees with me, if there hasn’t been action yet, it isn’t that it wont be done, just that there are a number of emergency works which need doing. When you consider that there are only half a dozen tree surgeons working across the whole of the North of the County, with thousands of trees to deal with it is a wonder so much is getting done, but it may be after Christmas before some work gets dealt with. If there are trees on council land which anyone thinks are a problem by all means report them to hal@durham.gov.uk or let Mamie, Amanda or me know about them and we will ensure that they are dealt with where necessary – but allow a bit of time for the Council to get round to it.

Pity Me regeneration: The remaining section of Front Street from 52-58 is due for renewal in the coming weeks with new pavements and parking areas being regenerated. I am working with Mamie and Amanda to try to get more areas done across the whole area.

Hudspeth Streetlights: I have contacted the Head of Technical Services to ask him to find out why the new lighting on Hudspeth Crescent hasn’t been turned on since it was installed last week. I am assured this will be addressed asap.

Grit Sack update: The 20 or so locations where we are getting grit sacks for the winter will get the sacks  within a few days of the weather forcast indicating the first snow, hopefully not this week.

We went down to see Lumiere on Saturday and were pretty impressed with the Elephant. While it was really busy it was certainly well organised this year. I think it is worth mentioning those who don’t perhaps get a mention like the highways guys who had to sort out all the road signs, working late into the night and those organising the parking too.

I was particularly impressed with how clean everywhere was and on bumping into the streetscene guys who empty the bins and litter pick it was clear they had been working really hard, in fact they were still out and about at 11 at night with some back at work the following morning at 5am. Well done to all those involved.

Just noticed that the number of visits to my blog hit a record high of 13294 in September, even more than during the elections. Though most of these will be residents, I am told many senior council staff check out the site too just to make sure nothing is going wrong in their department that I know about but they don’t. I guess that’s a compliment – but not really the best way to run the council.

There is a lot in the press about how the NHS will struggle this winter. I think a quick search of Google will show the same stories every year for the past twenty years. The government has put in £500m extra to assist for the next two years. This is better than Labour plans which would have seen funding cut each year since 2010 compared to current levels.

Anyway, for the last few days I have been as rough as a ….. though the missus will no doubt say I have Manflu. I have been drinking rosehip syrup with lots of water, with some paracetamol thrown in. This got me to thinking about the alternatives to going to the doctors and A&E.

What is surprising is how much the local Chemist can help with a whole raft of problems which many people go to the doctors or the hospital for. Below are just a few things local chemists may be able to assist with. If just a few of us try this first, then if we have a more serious problem the A&E and Doctors may not have quite as big a queue this winter.

We have four local Chemists – Leaks on Front St in Fram Moor (3862193), Smiths on Carr House Drive in Newton Hall (3866837), (more…)

If you or anyone you know are in arrears or concerned that perhaps your benefits, working tax credits, childcare credits etc are not being calculated properly, you might be right.

I have been assisting one local resident and their council rent arrears have been significantly reduced, perhaps even wiped out and we are talking hundreds of pounds here. A few important messages from this: (more…)

A number of people have complained to us about the removal of dog waste bins from Aykley Heads. I can confirm that these have now been reinstated and hopefully no more plastic bags will be left lying around the area.

The bins had been removed for health and safety reasons!!

Needless to say the health and safety implications of dog poo all over the place has now thankfully been seen as more of an issue and a number of bins have been reinstalled after I raised this with the head of service.

The Council is monitoring a number of areas to try and stop unthoughtful dog owners from leaving their pooch poo around our local paths.

(I would use stronger language than unthoughtful if I didn’t think it might cause offence)