Another five years of a Labour MP failing to properly challenge our terrible council is difficult to stomach. As your local councillors we will continue to fight against the worst of the Labour run council. We will seek as much investment for the area as we can, and continue to work all year round and report back to you all year round!!

Our candidate Craig put up a strong fight in the face of a national backlash against the Lib Dems. I am certain in the future it will be shown that the Lib Dems did an excellent job in government, both in helping to turn around the shattered economy, but also in reigning in the nastiness of the Conservative Party.

To what extent the Tories will govern with compassion now there is no restraining influence remains to be seen, but it is indeed a great worry. The lack of a coherent opposition in the short term will become apparent if we do not as Liberal Democrats get back on our feet, dust ourselves down and take the fight to Labour locally and the Conservatives nationally, which is just what I and others will do.

A big thank you to everyone who supported us in Durham at the general election!

Last autumn, the draft County Durham Plan (CDP) had its examination-in-public. There were a huge number of objections over development in the green belt and challenges on so many other issues.

Today the government inspector, Harold Stephens, delivered his DURHAM-COUNTY-COUNCIL-INSPECTORS-INTERIM-VIEWS-Stage-1-County-Durham-Plan-Examination-published-18.2.2015

The report essentially rips the plan to shreds. Mr Stephens says that he does not accept the Council’s population estimates. That the Council has not made a case for “exceptional circumstances” to justify building in the green belt. That the western and northern relief roads cannot be justified on traffic and environmental grounds. And that the council’s revised policy on student accommodation will not work.

It is clear that the current plan is unsound and needs major rewriting, something that cannot be done in a few months. Indeed in my view the County Plan is in so many areas not worth the paper it is written on and so many people have been vindicated.

The Council is probably going to have to start over on many key aspects.

I shadow Councillor Neil Foster on the council. He is the Regeneration and Economic development cabinet member. he was responsible for this plan. He and his colleagues completely ignored every submission we made. Their arrogance was nauseating. I fail to see how he can possibly hold on to his position.

As a travelled from Sacriston to Pity Me in the car today there was a beautiful rainbow over the greenbelt.

Perhaps a celestial nod to the people of Durham that for now at least our greenfields and world heritage City are protected from the evil machinations of the dictatorship which is County Hall.

Today, following about 20 hours of work investigating the councils new policy on 20mph limits around schools, I had to challenge the Labour-run Cabinet on the policy, in the interests not just of young people in the area I represent, but for all children across County Durham. Only 33 schools were to be included in the initial roll out of this policy.

I personally believe that wherever possible all appropriate residential areas should have 20mph limits, as should all schools in the County and will continue to push for this.

This is what I said in the meeting and below that, is my interpretation of what they plan to do about my concerns. I hope that at the end of this process Fram Primary Schools and the Comp, as well as New College will have 20mph limits around them.

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Chairman, I did not want to be here today in these circumstances. I wanted to come here and applaud you after six years of this new council for finally listening to our concerns and starting to implement 20mph limits.

Unfortunately I spent most of last night not sleeping over this report – because of the way in which the data has be used and interpreted, which are in my view fundamentally flawed.

Just think for a second if you know anyone whose children or grandchildren go to East Durham College, New College Durham, Bishop Auckland college or Derwentside College.

These colleges offer education to varying ages of 14-19. yet because of a statistical error in the way they are defined on our own Council computer systems they have not been included in the data. All other six form schools have been. At least one, New College would have met the criteria to be included in the 33 schools in this phase. (I showed them a map with the casualty data). Further errors mean that some schools have had their data incorrectly calculated because they are based at more than one site.

In addition every single accident outside any school in the County where it is the parent or grandparent who is injured was excluded when calculating the data. How can this be right.

And critically, it is not the location of the school entry and exit points on which the statistics have been calculated but where on our computer system a schools’ postcode comes up on the map.

In the case of Framwellgate School Durham the postcode point for the calculation is 250 metres from the nearest road. (Everyone had been given a map to show this). Had this been taken into account, this school would have been included as well, along possibly with the Primary School.

I understand the constraints you find yourselves in, but it is clearly unacceptable for at least three of the educational establishments in the area I represent to be discriminated against in this manner.

There are serious errors in this report. It took me a whole week to get the information I needed to analyse it. I have discussed it with three directors, made my concerns known to the portfolio holder and the deputy leader.

So one final time I plead with you to withdraw this report due to its serious flaws and after further work and review has been carried out, bring it back so that roll out of 20mph limits is done fairly.

I do not want accidents on my conscience and I am certain you do not want accidents on your conscience either.

——

I believe that what followed was as a direct result of my having told directors and politicians of my concerns in the last few days.

The head of Scrutiny said that a working group would be set up to look at how the 20mph limits are implemented based around this report.

What I now need to see is the terms of reference and whether those schools which have been discriminated against will be included in the review and whether all the issues I have raised will be looked at in  a proper manner.

If it is shown that some schools have been omitted by error or should be included in the initial roll out for other reasons it is essential that the working group is able to get Cabinet to include them with the 33 already included.  Anything less than this cannot be fair.

Next week Durham County Council’s cabinet will discuss introducing 20 mph zones outside 33 schools in the County. We have over 200 schools in County Durham, and what they are proposing is woefully inadequate.

We have been calling for 20mph zones on residential streets and outside schools for years, and I am quite frankly disgusted with Labour’s plans. They are implementing an apartheid system of safety for school children in County Durham.

Their proposals are going to take at least 3 years to implement because they are not putting in enough resource even for the 33 schools they propose. Indeed even if they amended their policy to do all schools, it would take 20 years to complete the job just for schools.

I find the whole approach distasteful. In the Durham City area, only one school out of dozens will see the 20mph introduced. This is simply unacceptable and as Lib Dem councillors we will be campaigning for equality for all children in County Durham.

One way or another we will get safer streets in our area.

Every now and then I go and check out the jobs advertised at the Council, which also advertises school jobs in the County. Right now there appear to be 68 positions. Finding the link is not so easy so I have asked for us to promote it better on the website – in the meantime here is the link:

http://www.durham.gov.uk/article/4428/Current-job-vacancies-and-apprenticeships

The youth worker job dated 08/05/2014 is no longer available.

Update: The council has responded saying that on checking how people visit the site it doesn’t matter that its difficult to find the page as most people bookmark the page or find it in other ways. That’s me told then!

I am delighted to be able to confirm that 2500 staff in our schools and council offices will now get paid a minimum of £7.43 an hour. A LOCAL LIVING WAGE.

We have been challenging the Council on this for two years and in July I tried to force this through the Council but Labour refused. Now they have caved in and many staff who were earning the minimum wage will now be paid a local living wage – a fantastic success which we hope will open the floodgates to other employers in the county paying their staff more.

I am convinced that this will more than pay for itself in higher moral and productivity as well as better living standards.

Just goes to show that as councillors now and then we really do make a profound difference to our local residents. Here’s the Northern Echo report on this:

http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/11612563.Thousands_to_benefit_from_Durham_s__local_living_wage_/?ref=rss

Now we carry on the battle to make sure that this increases each year, and seek to challenge other employers to do the same.