Following my complaints about work being done to resurface footpaths and then weeds growing through the following week, the whole of the top end of the footpaths in Witton Gilbert has started to be resurfaced after new weedkilling was tried out. Hopefully this will have worked. Although as the council doesn’t take away grass cuttings when cutting verges, I expect some growth to occur. Still Witton is looking much better.

I have passed on further reports for pothole repairs on the Brokside estate,specifically on Friarside. The full rebuilding of part of the road was completed a few weeks ago, but I believe that deteriation in the road surface on the whole state means that it should be considered for resurfacing next year. I have already been successful in getting all the fotpaths resurfaced.

Delays to quoting for the traffic island I have been working on on Sacriston lane in Witton Gilbert have ended. A quote for just over £8000 for the scheme has been proposed and I have asked for this to go ahead using funding from neighbourhood and highways monies.

This has long been a difficult place to cross the road, and apart from a couple of issues concerning location which have been dealt with, noone has objected to the scheme in Witton Gilbert. It was reported in both my Focus leaflet and the Parish NEwsletter.
Hopefully in a few months we can see work commence to make it safer to cross the road for local residents and to reduce speed of vehicles near the newsagents.

Following on from the resurfacing of Newton Drive and the inexplicable missing of one section, I reported various defects including five channels which were causing vibrations into bungalows when cars went past. Good to see that the Council has been and filled these in today. Will continue to push for full resurfacing of this part when the next round of works starts next year.

Durham has been awarded £7,790,000 funding from the coalition government towards improving broadband. This is clearly a huge vote of confidence in our County by the Coalition Government along with the £2m the County Council is investing we should be able to make a huge stride forward. I trust the council will be looking at getting additional funding from the private sector and that Durham can start to see the digital transformation we have been waiting so long for.

This is one area where the last Labour government failed to get a grip. This will really help to boost the County’s economy and help rural areas in particular.

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.

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