A lone voice against the Iraq War. A lovely man. A truly principled politician. He will be missed by so many.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-32970337
Clowns to the left of us jokers to the right
So first we hear about the Tories intending to scrap the Human Rights Act, and now we find that Teresa May is trying to censor TV programs. Didn’t take long for them to revert to their old ways and surely this shows just how hard the Lib Dems had to work to stop the rightwingers in the Tory party.
And locally, we have a Labour-run council with over £150m in reserves, setting a budget based on 1.5% inflation when inflation is zero, over estimating borrowing costs by £5m a year, and cooking up ways to stop work being tendered at a competitive price.
Proof if ever we needed it of the statement “Clowns to the left of us jokers to the right”.
Hardly surprising that over 13,000 people have already joined the Lib Dems since the General Election.
Being run locally by Labour and nationally by the Tories is more and more going to illustrate why we need a strong liberal voice in our country and our county.
Windlestone Hall back in the news – Remember Labour selling the million pound stately home sale for £241,000?
A few years back it was uncovered that our Labour-run council had sold off a stately home with acres of land for just £241,000 despite some estimates putting the value at £2.4m! Well its back in the news today:
Always worth a reminder of how our council wastes money.
Labour councillors in insider contract scandal
At yesterday’s full council meeting Labour councillors voted to give priority to its internal Direct Services works department, even if it could be shown that getting the work done by a local business would be half the price.
It is seldom realised but every council department buys things from other departments. These departments apply a profit – 15-20% is not uncommon – and in some but not all cases may be significantly more expensive than the cheapest of three quotes from local companies outside the Council.
A number of weeks ago at a constitutional working group meeting, our group leader Cllr Amanda Hopgood challenged plans to force all council departments use the council’s own contractor for any project Direct Services were capable of doing. Labour refused to budge on this, so today I called for a vote on it. And all Labour councillors backed their Cabinet – only for some of them in private afterwards to say that I was right!!!!!
So if a council department needs some work doing, knows it would cost £10,000 to go to an outside contractor but is now forced to use Service Direct, they will end up paying more, perhaps double and have £10,000 less to spend on other important services such as highways repairs, adult care, children’s services, youth services or any other important work.
This is not a fit and proper way to run a public service.
What makes this a double disgrace is that by removing any element of competition from the millions of pounds of contracts which will apply, the Council is seriously undermining the ability of our small businesses to grow, damaging the entrepreneurial spirit and growth potential of the County, and creating an inefficiency charter inside the Authority. This will mean less can be done, and Labour will seek to blame the government if they can’t afford to do something.
Please spread this story far and wide so everyone in County Durham knows about these underhand and wasteful practices. In the meantime, we are going to keep looking for a way to stop these practices.
Wolsingham Drive Drain – Can you spot another in a worse state?
UPDATE!! Reported one day, repaired the next! Job well done. As your local councillors we should not have to keep reporting these things, but until the council gets its act together we will continue to do so, which is why we are continually going around the area reporting pavement and road defects. please let us know of any.
If you find any gulley/drain in a worse state of repair around Newton Hall, Framwellgate Moor, Brasside or Pity Me, please email us a photo and we will do our best to get the council to repair it. This one has sunk down and driving over it is pretty dangerous now, so we are hoping our reporting of it will see it fixed pretty quickly.
County Plan – Henig to waste even more money
Councillor Simon Henig has decided that having already wasted a lot of our money on fighting various challenges to the County Plan, that it is time to throw a few hundred thousand pounds more at it.
The Council has refused to accept that the Plan is flawed and is now seeking a judicial review. Your Lib Dem councillors are extremely concerned about the complete lack of any acceptance by the Council that they may simply be wrong. We will be meeting with officers soon to voice our serious concerns once again.
At the following link you can find the next steps the Council plans to take, although a word of caution, some of what is stated by the Council is very clearly biased.
http://www.durham.gov.uk/article/6013/County-Durham-Plan-next-steps
For many years now we have challenged as Lib Dem councillors some of the key elements of the plan: Building so many houses on the greenbelt, indeed building on greenbelt at all; population predictions; over development at Aykley Heads; issues surrounding student housing development; lack of a proper strategy for the villages around Durham City; and an over emphasis on Durham City itself to the detriment of other parts of the County.
These issues were challenged by the Inspector, and rather than making some amendments to the Plan, the Council walks blindly towards the cliff-face.
The definition of repeating the same error over and over again, ignoring local residents views, ignoring councillors views, ignoring an independent inspectors views?
Take your pick – arrogance, ignorance, stupidity……. this time one thing is absolutely certain, having refused to sack his Regeneration and Economic Development portfolio holder, having refused to be contrite in any way, having failed to listen to the people of Durham, the blame for all of this now well and truly lies with Cllr Simon Henig.
This is another Henig folly – remember the Chester-le-Street archway? Cost – hundreds of thousands, knocked down after a few years at further cost.
Remember the £12000 a year labour clothing allowance?
http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/10262731.Row_over_councillors____12k__clothing_allowance_/
Selling a multimillion pound stately home, Windlestone Hall for £240,000?
Building a bus stop where no buses stop? http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2100912/Durham-County-Council-blasted-wasting-money-5-000-bus-stop.html
Cllr Henig quite clearly likes to waste taxpayers money.
I wonder how much more he will waste on the County Plan before it dawns on Labour councillors that Henig isn’t fit to lead this great County? And the County Plan isn’t fit for purpose.
Potholelesshouse Terrace
Potholes repaired and we have confirmation that a proper patching job will be done. Will report back when this has been completed.
Labour council road failure: Is your council owned road in as bad a state as Embleton Close?
This road is not included for resurfacing work this year.
It is quite frankly unbelievable and as your local councillors we are complaining right now about this. One way or another this road is going to get properly fixed in the near future. It is not the only one in a poor state but it is a fine example of why we think that the Council is failing in our area once again to address residents concerns about the state of our roads and footpaths.
There is quite clearly a serious issue which needs addressing as a matter of urgency, which is why starting this week we are inspecting personally every single road across our area.
So many roads are having poor quality pothole repairs done over and over again. It is a waste of taxpayers money.
The council says that they inspected this road at some point in the last six months or so and it didn’t make the program. If you spot a council owned road in Framwellgate Moor, Pity Me, Brasside or Newton Hall in a worse state of disrepair please let us know.
And if the Labour Party seeks to blame the cuts for their poor management of our road system, I politely remind them that having over £150m in reserves, and failing to listen to opposition councillors for a decade about investing in our road infrastructure is my response.
The Council must make an immediate and urgent additional investment into the road repairs department. And stop once and for all this repeat patchwork quilt pothole repair policy.
Cracking – Brasside Pressure Pays off for 800m of footpath resurfacing
Two years ago your Lib Dem councillors managed to get one side of the pavement through the village resurfaced.
Last year we managed to get the road into the village resurfaced following resident’s complaints.
Then we committed to starting regeneration of parking areas which will see work start soon.
Now we have secured work to resurface the whole 800m length of footpath from the Railway Bridge to Frankland Prison through the right hand side of the village.
We have been doing a great deal of work behind the scenes and to have secured such a large amount of work is fantastic for residents.
For so long when we had Labour councillors nothing got done in the village. Brasside was simply ignored. It is great to get improvements and report on the huge amount work which is to be done this year in the village.
Potholehouse Terrace repaired – for now – Update
We have succeeded in getting confirmation that a proper job will be done of repairing this road, and will update when the patching has been done.
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I once again had to ask for repairs to potholes on Potterhouse Terrace in Pity Me. Thankfully the council have been out and filled them in. However, this is not the first time the same holes have been filled in, in fact on my reckoning it may be half a dozen.
Given the extra cost of this, I do wonder why the council’s policy of fixing potholes properly is slipping. I have therefore asked if they are coming back out to do a proper patching job in the near future so we don’t waste any more money.