Lib Dem success – Brackenfield Road Driveway scheme set to start

A scheme by Durham City Homes to install driveways along Brackenfield Road is set to start in the next few weeks. This should help to reduce parking problems on the street.

We helped to secure this in talks with the housing provider over the last 2 years following our successful work to get similar schemes in Pity Me at Hudspeth Crescent and The Avenue, and at Lilac Avenue in  Framwellgate Moor.

We will continue to work with DCH to get further improvements across our area, which has also included the new houses set to be built on Folly Terrace in Pity Me, thanks to many years of pressure form ourselves. It took the transfer of ownership of the housing group out of Council hands to get any action. Labour-run Durham County Council had repeatedly rejected our calls for regeneration of the area.

Avant Homes and The Council need to get this path sorted!!! Council failing to address development issues.

wp_20170211_16_21_17_proThe footpath at the front of the new Aykley View development where the old fire station used to be has been dangerous for months now. Prone to flooding and uneven.

I have asked the council to intervene repeatedly. I have even contacted someone senior at Avant Homes.

It seems that the only way to get this sorted is to publish it here so the press and public can see it.

Today it is not only dangerous for pedestrians but also for cyclists and drivers as the whole of the pavement and part of the road are flooded.

The surface is uneven, the dropped kerbs just have a bit of bitmac slapped down, and for such a prestigious development it seems crazy to leave the front of it looking so bad.

I also fail to understand why Council officers haven’t forced action.

I have emailed the Corporate Director at the Council as well as the Asset manager of the company asking for urgent action.

LABOUR RUN COUNCIL RESPONSIBLE FOR PLANNING FAILURES?

The Council is looking at further slashing the number of posts in planning and enforcement in the budget later this month. With so many concerns about planning issues across the County and an increased workload for our staff this is simply going to add to the overwhelming pressures they are under. We need sufficient quality staff at the Council with the ability to intervene.

If Labour are to continue to cut in this area things are only going to get worse. The local environment is going to deteriorate further with poor planning decisions and developers able to get away with unacceptable development. There have been so many cases in the last few years of  such occurrences that I am convinced we need more capacity for environmental, highways, building regs, planning, ecology etc related to development.

Thedept is pulling in more and more income but has seen more and more cuts. It has gone too far and with nearly a quarter of a billion pounds in reserves and millions in reserves in this dept alone, it is not necessary to cut so many posts.

COUNTY PLAN CONSULTATION SHELVED

The Council has halted the County Plan yet again. This time because the government is to release a new White Paper on housing in January which may throw the Council’s housing projections out of the window.

The delays to the plan are almost exclusively due the arrogance of the Labour Party in seeking to force through overdevelopment in Durham City, which caused the first plan to be thrown out.

Now their delays have left us caught up in government policy. Hopefully the government will tell the Council that plans to sink Durham City in mass overdevelopment are unacceptable, however nothing would surprise me with the current Tory government.

Labour council’s £12million bill to refinance £43million debt on 3 schools

Last week Lib Dem councillor Owen Temple (Consett) challenged the Council on a deal it is currently cooking up to re-finance £43 million still owing on three school buildings, here I have added some of his comments to my blog, as it is quite clear that once again we have a financial debacle at County Hall set to cost the taxpayer a fortune:

“Durham will have to pay eye-watering early redemption penalties of around £12 million to the banks to refinance the deal. That’s not a misprint. It’s not a mis-placed decimal point. It’s really £12 million. And despite that the county council still expects to save money on the new deal!

That begs the question. What sort of lousy deal was it that allowed the council (which says it is “common for this debt to be refinanced”) to be so badly stitched up that this common practice has turned out to be an ultra-expensive practice? What sort of a deal was it that allowed the county’s finance “partners” (who put the deal together) to write into the contract their share in any additional profit if they were subsequently to arrange a replacement deal?

An appalling deal in my view, and what adds insult to the injury is that now we’re paying lawyers and accountants at least another £68,000 to check out whether we should indeed hand this windfall to the banks and financiers.

I accept that this refinancing may be the right thing to do now because it may still save the council some small amount of money over the next twenty years. I’m pleased that the county’s political leadership agreed to the issue being discussed in public rather than behind closed doors. But I’m convinced that the complacency which I heard at cabinet this morning, the same complacency which allowed this deal to happen in the first place, remains a real threat to the financial well-being of County Durham.

If you want to read the report in full, you can find it here.“

Spot on Owen – once again it seems that Labour councillors may have been sleeping on the job to allow such a deal. The amount of waste at Durham County Council appears to have no upper limit!

Framwellgate Moor Takeaways

We are continuing to report the unacceptable practices of certain takeaways in Framwellgate Moor. Over the last few months not a week has gone by without overflowing bins or cardboard boxes lying around. We have now reported over a dozen times this problem and will continue to do so. The Council is now finally taking it seriously and some legal orders have been issued. If you notice any overflowing business waste bins or dumped commercial waste anywhere in the area please report it to us immediately.

Teaching assistants being blackmailed into taking massive pay cut by Labour politicians

You couldn’t make it up. Yesterday Labour run Durham Council insulted Teaching `assistants by offering them two years protected salary in return for slashing their pay by up to a quarter.

I hope every Labour voter in County Durham finds out about how appallingly Labour is treating its lowest paid education staff. Why should anyone be expected to take such a huge pay cut? An utter shambles of a disgrace from a Labour run council which is acting more and more like a far-right Tory one.

Durham’s Labour councillors scrap youth club funding and slash youth budget – Lib Dem councillors vow to continue to help young people

Yesterday I challenged Simon Henig to delay any further cutting of youth service budgets.

Cabinet were deciding on scrapping open access services – youth clubs in effect.

At the same Cabinet meeting the department which is in charge of Youth Services, reported that it had made additional savings of more than £850,000 – unexpected early savings.

It also has £14m in a cash limit reserve not allocated to anything.

I asked that some of these unexpected savings be used to extend open access youth provision to give voluntary groups more time to change the way they work and search for alternative funding streams.

Cabinet members refused. Shame on Labour for ending youth club funding when they have the money to keep supporting them!

In addition to the £14m cash limit reserve in Adult and Children’s dept (now being broken in two), the Council has 50 other reserves of over £150m.

In addition it has a general reserve of £30 million.

Any suggestion from Labour politicians that we need to scrap youth clubs and open access provision right now is utter nonsense.

One Labour cabinet member said that she did not see why other areas should have any youth clubs since her area did not have them and in the past others (councillors etc) had secured facilities in their areas and that was unfair.

A damning indictment on her failure to ensure facilities in her area. This sounded very much like: If I don’t have them then stuff your area you can’t have them – beggar thy neighbour or what!

Whilst Labour politicians couldn’t care less about young people in our area, as your Lib Dem councillors will do all we can to ensure that our area has good facilities.

Over the last few years we have secured funding to upgrade play facilities in Framwellgate Moor, Newton Hall and Brasside, including a new play area at Caterhouse Road and brand new equipment in Brasside.

We also provided funding for Abbey Leisure Centre to have youth gym facilities and have assisted local community centres with funding which has helped local youth groups to have sessions in better quality buildings.

We have helped all our local schools with funding or assistance to improve facilities or provide excursions, local events or projects and this year we are supporting the only major fireworks display in the area at Framwellgate School – You can get tickets from St Cuthbert’s hospice which is managing the event and raising funding for the hospice.

We continue to look for other projects which can help young people in our area, so please let us know if there is something you think we can help with.

Council slammed again over Teaching Assistants

The Guardian newspaper today tore the shreds off Labour-run Durham County Council for it appalling handling of teaching assistants.

You can read the report here: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/sep/06/teaching-assistants-durham-pay-slashed-women-lions-of-durham-grunwick

Labour councillors should be ashamed of their actions to date.

Now a new proposal is in – an offer of a wage protection package for 2 years followed by losing unto a quarter of their pay – some deal that is!! Needless to say Lib Dem councillors are once again challenging the shameful actions of the Labour-run council and its Labour councillors over this matter.

Brasside play area opens for business – Thanks to Lib Dem councillor action

Children in Brasside are celebrating as new play facilities secured by your Lib Dem councillors have been put in place. The equipment was installed just in time for school holidays.

Local children chose the equipment including a specially designed “open slide” which I tried out with a lot of trepidation! Mamie, Amanda and I checked out the site and are monitoring to make sure that any initial issues are dealt with.

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The village has waited for many years for new play equipment after the Labour run County Council refused to support a new play area.

The parish council didn’t feel it was in a position to fundraise and organise a new play area, so it was left to your Lib Dem councillors once again to take action. The Parish Council has agreed to take over the management of the site.

The site has previously a boggy mess, so waterlogged that you could;t play on it. As part of the proposals we have ensured that a full new drainage system has been installed, so that youngsters can enjoy the field and play football and other games.

We are now working on a phase two plan which will add some additional equipment and make the site look much more appealing too.