Labour’s Council tax hike comes into force

So from today we are all paying more council tax. The near 4% rise in council tax was conveniently split into two elements.

2% for adult social care – the Tory part of the rise. The council wasn’t forced to make this increase but given the pressures on the care budget and the increases in carers wages due to the living wage, I’m supportive of this element of the rise. Care workers are obscenely underpaid for such an important job. Of course that does not mean the council should not continue to look at ways to make things more efficient in the Adult and Children’s Services department.

The second part of the council tax hike – the 100% Labour-run council responsibility is the bit I have a real issue with.

If this money, being taken out of residents pockets, and therefore out of the economy, were being spent to protect frontline services which would otherwise be lost, I could be convinced to support it. However, it is simply not being spent on that.

Rather, the following is happening:

  1. WASTE: The council is still wasting millions on over management and which had it fixed years ago when we made recommendations would have saved many millions. It is still delaying further merging of departments, which would have allowed a delay at least in this tax rise.
  2. MISMANAGEMENT: Some departments still have crazy working practices. I know of one, where the checking and rechecking of forms for spending money on schemes is costing more than the schemes themselves – utter lunacy. In other areas the Council is letting everyone down – staff, residents, taxpayers. We are still not referring staff with mental health issues to occupational health immediately. One staff member wasn’t referred for 303 days! The average is around 50 days. This is appalling and it has been and is costing an absolute fortune in lost work hours. We have managed to get the Council to agree to change this, but half a year on since we put the proposals, we are still looking at many months before anything concrete on the ground. Sickness absence levels are running at crazyly high levels, which even Labour councillors lament. Any organisation which treats its staff in such an atrocious way will always have a pile of other problems lurking under the surface.
  3. RESERVES: The council has over £200 million in over 50 different reserves, and whilst some of this money is prudent to hold, most of it never gets spent from one year to the next, and with every year that passes we find we have even more in the bank. So no need for the Council tax hike this year.
  4. FLAWED PRIORITIES: Because of the reserves hikes and a flawed investment strategy some services really do suffer – such as the state of our roads and footpaths – when they simply do not have to. The Council can borrow at ridiculously low rates at the moment, and could then spend millions of pounds on improving our roads and footpaths with no risk to the balance sheet or simply use its reserves directly to put more into properly fixing this infrastructure. By getting the worst areas fixed properly, we would save money on short term useless slap and stick repairs. Equally, the Council could have delayed action on some savings. The closure of the DLI museum is a shocking indictment of the Labour Party’s desire to eliminate the history of the County. Had it held a consultation to listen to all alternative views, perhaps a solution which actually made money and protected this asset could have been found.
  5.  INACCURATE BUDGETTING: Having looked at the budget plans for the financial year starting this week, there is so much slack, over-estimating of costs and the like, that the whole council tax hike may end up sat in reserves rather than being productive in the County. One more or all of the following have occurred each year since the new authority was formed: Overestimates on energy, price or borrowing costs, underestimates on income or internal efficiency savings. When reserves go from the tens of millions to over £200 million, there isn’t a single Labour councillor can deny this fact and keep a straight face.

What is very clear is that with the Labour Party in charge at Durham County Council, waste, mismanagement, manipulation of the truth, and flawed priorities are only going to continue to let down the people of County Durham.

 

Be aware – possible opportunistic burglar in area

A number of people are reporting that someone tried their door in our area. I would suggest that all residents in Newton Hall, Framwellgate Moor, Pity and Brasside make sure their doors are on a catch or better still locked when they are in.

We have notified the police and they are looking at carrying out patrols where this has been reported. We have also asked the press to do something on this and asked some residents to spread this around Facebook and other sites as well as notifying Durham City Homes.

If this happens to you or any neighbour make sure it is reported immediately to the police. If you have any elderly neighbours who perhaps are not on the internet, a friendly remainder to them to be careful would be appreciated.

County Plan Withdrawn – 3 years down the drain

The Council has just announced that the draft County Plan that was rubbished by a government inspector has at last been withdrawn and that the Council is effectively going back to square one.

The Council is expecting to get its new draft plan to its Inspection-in-Public in February/March 2018 more than 3 years after the abortive one held in autumn 2014.

While a lot of technical stuff that was done for it first attempt will still be relevant, we can only hope that the criticisms of residents across our area about the building on the greenbelt will now be listened to.

The damning report by the government inspector on the first plan backs up the view of many that Labour-run Durham County Council simply failed to listen to us.

And has wasted hundreds of thousands of taxpayers money as well. We will be keeping an eye on this and doing all we can to ensure that a proper consultation process now follows, unlike the previous sham of a consultation.

Oxley Terrace and Dryburn Road BT repair work

For many many months I have been trying to get the council to get BT Openreach to repair the damage to the grass verge on Dryburn Road where their vans regularly park. I even provided contact details to the council of senior management but still no reinstatement. This doesn’t appear to be a problem with the council, but perhaps mentioning it on his blog will stir BT into action. The council continue to chase it.

Also, the trench dug across the road in Pity Me by BT is still keeping residents awake and causing vibrations through their houses on Oxley Terrace. It will have been at least 2 months since this poor quality repair was carried out, so by my reckoning that’ hundreds of thousands of bangs they have had to put up with now. Why these companies can’t just do a proper job first time is beyond me. I’m sure it would save them money and bad publicity. Again I have chased up the Council to intervene.

South Terrace finally gets resurfaced

After years of continued pressure we have finally got action to sort to this long running issue. The Council had failed to get the developer to do the resurfacing required under the planning application. Thankfully the continued pressure we have been applying as Lib Dem councillors has finally paid off and earlier this week the job was done. Of course we still have to make sure that the bins and litter are permanently sorted out!

Working to make sure old Fire Station site development is done properly

We have been working to make sure that the filth on the road and pavement on Finchale Road at the new housing development is dealt with. Cllr Hopgood is dealing with the developer to make sure that action is taken and is also helping residents with a number of other related issues. We have previously had to intervene over issues affecting residents on Aykley Vale and Lilac Avenue as well.

Update on Broadband issues at Finchale Abbey and Rosemount

Last week I had a meeting with the Director of Openreach operations for the North East, and the Head of ICT on Durham County Council to try and sort out the continuing problems at these two sites.I have been working regularly on these for a ling time now and it has been a really hard slog. Across the Country thousands of communities are still missing out. Thankfully an end is in sight at least in our patch after all this chasing and pressure.

ROSEMOUNT

Early last year BT promised a new broadband box would be put in and be active for the summer. It didn’t happen. BT have apologised to me and said this promise should never had been made.

Issues of land access have now been sorted out. Issues of cost to provide electricity have been sorted out. Although BT confirmed that the Council’s contract is one of the reasons for the delay – i.e. they have put all resources into the Digital Durham contract which is separate to the Rosemount work, I have now been promised that this will not hold up the work. Our pressure in really pushing this has taken it up the agenda.

BT have confirmed that the final work required is now guaranteed to be funded in the coming financial year (April), and that their aim is to get this work done as a matter of urgency. I will be updating residents in the coming months on timescales when BT let me know but they are fully aware now that this is a PR problem for them and I am certain they will work hard to get a quick result. Certain because we will be chasing them if it doesn’t happen!

Clearly our public and private pressure has finally paid off.

FINCHALE ABBEY VILLAGE

This is part of the Digital Durham contract, but is not an easy one to fix. The location means that getting access is more difficult as potentially BT will need to provide a cross-river supply. However, I have been given a guarantee that this will be part of this year’s work program which is due to commence in June/July and run for unto 18 months. The Council, with BT will be working hard to get the program up and running and are aware of the importance that is placed on action by Finchale Abbey residents and us as local Lib Dem councillors. I have been given assurances that updates will be passed to me in the coming months so that residents can get a better indication of timescales. In the meantime we are checking to see if anything can done to improve speeds in the meantime. What is guaranteed is that at every opportunity we will be chasing this one as much as Rosemount!

CUTS? – YOU’VE NEVER HEARD ANYTHING SO UNBELIEVABLE

I sat for a while wondering how to tell this story – I wasn’t sure residents would believe me!.

We got an email today explaining that the Council has been cutting the grass of private landowners for free and will now stop doing.

It would appear that 2234 private properties have been having their lawns cut for free for years as a result of the complete incompetence of our Labour-run authority. When properties transfer under the right to buy, the garden also transfers, however unless residents tell the council to stop cutting the grass, it appears they carried on doing it! Now the housing stock has moved to separate ownership it seems all this has come to light.

Now you may think that I am making this up, but today is not 1st April its 1st March.

I did a few quick calculations. Assuming that the average gardener charges say £20 for cutting your grass, and assuming that this has been going on for at least 6 years, that works out at £4.289 million. However we all know that Durham County Council is not efficient, so it could have cost more !

It is however possible that some gardens could have been cut for longer than 6 years as the right to buy came in under the Tories under Maggie Thatcher. So just think – you might have been paying your council tax so one of your neighbours could get their grass cut for free for the last 30 years.

The incompetence of Labour and Durham County Council really does know no bounds. This is one cut I am happy to say I agree with!!

Article 4 – Student and HMO housing – Lib Dem success for our area

The council has completed its consultation on introducing new rules in the City on student/HMO housing. The aim of this is to protect areas from having too many houses of multiple occupation, to avoid the negative consequences. When we found out about this last year, we immediately asked for our area to be included as it had been ignored. An initial consultation was arranged by your Lib Dem councillors.

The council has now accepted that  the area should be considered for inclusion, and a final round of consultation will start soon, along with a couple of drop in events in our area which we have requested.

Our previous post on this can be found here:

http://markwilkes.mycouncillor.org.uk/2015/09/29/article-4-direction-framwellgate-moor-area/

Please do join in the consultation and help us ensure that our area retains a mixed community without any further increase in the problems which HMOs can cause in the wrong places. as soon as it is active we will post a link here and give details of the event dates.