Following on from some complaints yesterday about the commencement of piling for the foundations of the houses at miller Homes, I have arranged with the County Council and Miller homes for a meeting on site (In Miller’s meeting cabin), for residents to raise their concerns about the vibrations and noise and any additional issues including concerns about the tree line.

This is just for residents of Cross Row, Old Pit, The Carrs Caravan Site and anyone on the new estate. If there are other residents from further afield who have particular issues please let me know before Thursday so I can bring them up.

Meeting – Miller Homes Cabin, Hutton Way, 5pm Thursday 16 th August.

For the last two years or more I have been pushing the Labour Run Durham County Council to do what most other authorities do and allow advertising on the public highway.

Not American style twenty foot high boards, just small scale adverts on roundabouts paid for by for example local garden centres, with nice flower displays. Instead, they have spent two years arguing amongst themselves about the legalities of it all.

I could have had the flower displays in Pity Me paid for completely by a local nursery in return for a small advert on the roundabouts but DCC said no. In the end Pity Me Nurseries did the work for below cost – big thanks, stirling job – and hopefully, this week at the fifth time of asking DCC will honour its agreement to weed the displays.

Anyway, the point here is not about flowers, rather about the huge amount of money the council could be saving through allowing this advertising. By now they could have saved tens if not hundreds of thousands of pounds. Yet another example of a go slow council wasting our money.

Last year I was told a report would be forthcoming on this. Today I get told it is on its way. Why with 20,000 employees does it take DCC so long to do sensible things recommended by the public or Councillors, or even by its own officers, perhaps it is because it is incompetently run by the Labour Party.

For a strange reason there doesn’t appear to have been much published about Durham County Councillors expenses claims this year.

Mine are detailed in a permanent page on this blog. (see left)

I can’t for the life of me understand why some councillors see fit to have to go to County Hall every day and claim travel expenses. We have telephones and email which most councillors can use and some councillors just seem to turn up to get the travel money. To see claims of several thousand pounds for travel when very few residents can claim travel expenses leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

All the claims for the last financial year can be found here http://content.durham.gov.uk/PDFRepository/CouncillorsAllowances1011.pdf

The lowest claims were £0, the highest £4498. Clearly in such a big county some councillors will have higher claims, having to travel much farther than others, but some live just a few miles from County Hall, are not on Planning Committees which requrie travelling farther and still claim thousands.

In total, councillors travel expenses totalled £113,792,  enough money to resurface over 30 kilometres of footpath. That’s rather a lot of footpath! The rules need changing. Perhaps the Echo could do a map of Councillor locations and expenses claims.

ps. My travel claims for the last few years :

2009/10 £65

2010/11 £0

2011/12 (so far) £0

I spent several hours with Council officers, fellow councillor Mamie Simmons and Steering group Chair Peter Hall discussing the future of the centre on Friday afternoon.

A whole range of issues were discussed ranging from opening hours through to investment. We have some clear commitments from the Council to improving the centre but also the recognition that this must be done whilst making the centre cost neutral.

I am hopeful that the centre will not need to close for as many hours as some have talked of, however the council is still looking at proposals following our input, to try and reduce the effects on the centre.

The meeting at Abbey for users and members of the local community on Aug 31st is still set to go ahead, when a full proposal is due to be explained.

Whilst the Council needs to same £100,000 a year and clearly this will impact on opening hours, I am certain that this can be done without seriously damaging the offer for off-peak users – as has previously been implied in the press.

If you are not a member and want to see the current facilities and try them out, you can join for six weeks for just £28, any time upto the 4th September.

So in brief we are pushing for maximum number of possible opening hours, improved facilities including for young people, commitment to cutting overheads and ensuring any investment from Councillors local budgets gets value for money, and a long term commitment to the centre.

I am also still seeking to ensure that the covenant is honoured and looking at finding out what has been discussed by the council so far.

Comments below taken entirely from Nigel Martin (Neville’s Cross Councillor) blog. regarding possibilities regarding future of town and parish councils in Durham area. These are therefore not my personal views, though I may agree with some of Nigel’s views. Once I have gauged opinion in Fram area, and seen the result of the first round of consultation i will report back on this.

Council paper July 2011.

At the last meeting of the County Council (27 July 2011), a full timetable (below) was agreed for the Community Governance Review that will hopefully lead to the establishment of a Town Council for Durham City.

ACTION	TIMESPAN	DATES
Publish Terms of Reference		1 November 2011 after approval by Council
Submissions are invited	Two months	1 November to 31 December 2011
Draft proposals prepared	Two months	1 January to 28 February 2012
Draft proposals published		28 February 2012 after approval by council
Consultation on draft proposals	Two months	1 March to 30 April 2012
Final proposals prepared	Two months	1 May to 30 June 2012
Publish final proposals		31 July 2012 following approval by Council
Preparation and publication of Reorganisation Order	Two months	30 September 2012 after approval by Council
Election date		May-13

So everything should kick off formally in November. The first two months is pretty important as this is the opportunity for anyone to suggest the sort of structure for one or more parish councils to cover the City area.

There are lots of possible options:

• A single Town Council to cover the existing unparished area (equivalent to the Elvet, Gilesgate, Neville’s Cross and Newton Hall county council divisions).
• Two councils, one for Newton Hall, and one for the rest of the area.
• A greater Durham Town Council with some of the existing parish councils joining in with the unparished area to make a single locla council.
• Newton Hall joins with Framwellgate Moor parish and the other unparished divisions become the Durham Town Council.

This list is not exhaustive and there may well be other ideas that people have. The really important thing is that whatever comes out of the process has the backing of the local people of the City  and is not seen to be any sort of party political stitch up.

Also, the consultative process really has to work properly this time. We have seen too many Council ‘consultations’ recently that are not worth the name – the market square, sports centres, the tourist information centre – the list goes on. We have to get this one right so that the community in our great City can take more control of its life and and its future.

My own view is based on some simple principles:

• Any local council for Durham City needs to be large enough to make a difference. Splitting the area into several small parishes will just dilute the impact that any of them can have.
• The Durham Town Council will take over the mayoralty, so it needs to have the capacity to cope with that important job.
• Durham City is more than just the castle, cathedral and the inner areas, important as they are. Any future local council must pay equal attention to its wider area and make sure that if it decides to spend money, then everywhere gets its fair share.

If you feel as passionately as I do about the civic future of our City, please get involved in the coming process.

A number of people I know are wanting to set up a steering group to campaign independently for a Town Council. Let me know if you too can get involved and I will put you in tocuh with them.

You can read the full report to Council here: Community Governance Review Paper

Since the road was resurfaced back at the start of July after I pushed for it to be included in this years work, I have been trying to sort out the missed bit near the primary school. It seems crazy that the council would resurface such a large area and missed the small area near the school and doctors. I have passed this up the chain of command to try and get it sorted but not too confident at the moment with responses. Will keep pushing it.

I have today reported the road defect at Hudspeth Crescent for the n’th time in the last year or so. Waiting to see if this gets booked in before taking the matter to senior management.

As the last report shows, we are meeting with officers next week to kick off the serious discussions on the future of the centre.

The following is my report from after the meeting. Comments in brackets not part of meeting but rather my own actions/observations.

Present

Cllr Mamie Simmons

Cllr Amanda Hopgood

Cllr Mark Wilkes

Peter Hall – Chair – Abbey Steering group

Steve Lister – Head of Indoor Leisure

Stephen Howell – Head of Leisure

Terry Collins – Director Neighbourhood Services

Aim:

To make Abbey cost neutral.

Issues Discussed:

General:

Centre to continue to be run by Council, who will make all final decisions.

Officers provided details of next stage of process.

Steering group and councillors updated on their views.

Staffing:

Council to determine future staffing for Abbey taking into account views on service provision put forward by staff, councillors and Abbey Steering group. No public discussion on staffing to take place without Council consent.

Council to take account of  investment proposals in looking at staffing issues.

Hours:

Agreement  that changes to hours will be based on minimum impact on centre.

Consideration of Sunday closure and alteration to other hours to try to ensure both off peak and peak membership remains as little impacted as possible. Proposals to be reported to users of centre once full plan determined.

No changes to opening hours before 1^st October.

Investment:

Council agrees that County Councillors can invest Neighbourhood budget funding into the centre immediately following the finalising of new running operations and for this to include possible improvements to conference facilities/rooms for hire, and provision of improved youth facilities possibly including gym and fitness equipment.

Council to agree to ensure that existing gym equipment is retained and improved from within Council’s existing stock where possible.

Council has added Abbey onto the program for provision of solar pv panels to help reduce running costs at centre and subject to completion of suitability survey these will be installed in current financial year subject to the wider case being made with those operating the Solar PV scheme.

Membership:

Agreement promotional offers/methods of seeking new members will be informed to Councillors/Steering group with a view to implementation at earliest possible point.

Covenant:

Confirmation from leisure officers that they have not had any discussions with the company with the rights over the covenant . Council comment: Abbey LC has been retained and the focus is on operating the site at nil cost. [I have a freedom of information request in to find out if any non- leisure officers have been is discussions]

Future Meetings:

Council officer(s), councillors and Steering group members to be present at meeting to update users of centre and wider public of progress on 31^st August.

Meeting between officers, councillors and steering group members to discuss in detail proposals for centre on 5TH August. Officers to have sufficient information at this meeting to detail financial implications of options.

[Any comments given to council from users off back of posters being displayed in centre by the council i expect to be included in discussion along with steering group information.]

Additional:

In addition to the above details, Councillors also ask if the following information can be made available for the meeting on the 2^nd August.

1. Although not being part of the required savings, please can a breakdown of the support services costs for the six centres be made available to look at wider cost issues.

2. Answer to whether a proportion the Feed-in Tariff payments from any solar pv will be attributed to the running costs at the centre and if the energy savings will be considered in calculating the cost neutrality of the centre.

3. Details of what the Council will be investing in relation to repairs and maintenance in the current financial year

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So overall, all parties are doing all they can to get the best solution possible for the centre.

The following poster is being displayed around the leisure centre detailing the current position. I will shortly put an update on last weeks meeting with officers on the blog too.

Abbey Leisure Centre

The future operation

Further to the council’s decision regarding the future of Abbey Leisure Centre. We want to keep you informed of what is happening.

We are currently exploring options for how the leisure centre will be operated in the future in order to minimise costs as agreed in the Council’s Cabinet report.  At this stage, it is intended that there will be no changes to opening times or activities prior to 1 October 2011.

Council representatives will meet with the Abbey Steering Group, who have taken on a representative role for Abbey’s customers, in early August. This is to discuss initial proposals and then, during August, to develop these ideas.  If you would like to contribute to the process, or have any comments or suggestions to make, please contact the leisure centre’s management.

Meeting date

A meeting will then be arranged for 7.00pm on Wednesday 31^st August where the proposals for Abbey’s future operation will be discussed. More details of the meeting will follow but ALL customers are welcome to attend.

Once the future operation of Abbey is determined, we will start work looking at any actions needed to help lessen the impact of a reduced service. However our aim is to provide a service that balances the council’s need to significantly reduce costs whilst also satisfying customer requirements where possible.

1 Aug 2011    Update 1

Councillors have been provided with a draft of the community buildings report from the county council which looks at the long term proposals for the 126 buildings currently owned by the council.

The report details a number of properties which the council intends to invest in, and others which it currently does not have money to do work on but which it would like to or would like to transfer owndership to community organisations if they can show that they are capable of securing funding and running such centres.

There are also buildings which they intend to close, or in some cases which are already closed.

Councillors have a meeting on the 2nd August to raise issues with the report.

I am meeting with Framwellgate Moor Community Association this evening to get an idea of how they feel about certain issues and will try to contact those involved with other centres.

Over a number of months now I have been asking for the council to make reparations to the building following damage to walls caused by a failure to repair the roof, and am still waiting for an answer. Some of the work can be done cheaply other work requires council involvement.

Following the official report  being released there will be a consultation phase on all the buildings in the county and I am sure there will be some serious to follow.

I will report back on the various proposals for each centre in the Fram Division after next weeks meeting.