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.

 

3.9% Council tax hike, services cut money in council bank accounts heads towards quarter of a billion pounds

No that isn’t a misprint. The council has well over £200m in reserves, is spending hardly any of them, in fact it looks like they may rise further, and on top of that has agreed to  3.9% council tax rise. We tried to get this restricted to 2% for adult care costs but were voted down.

If the council had no money I could understand the council tax hike. If we were protecting services I could understand it. However to simply increase council tax and put the money in reserves whilst our roads and footpaths fall to bits, school buildings deteriorate and our museums are closed just doesn’t stack up.

We will continue to push for affordable investment, protection of services and a reasonable council tax level, whilst Labour just keeps cutting services and pocketing residents money.