The current review of community buildings by the county council is now being discussed through a working group at County Hall made up of officers and councillors from all parties. I am representing the Lib Dem councillors on this issue.

The council plans to hand over to the community or close those community buildings currently under its control.  In the area I represent these buildings are:

Beaurepaire Communal Hall,  Bearpark Community Centre  both in Bearpark

Fyndoune House, Witton Gilbert

Framwellgate Moor Community Centre, Fram Moor

Woodbine House, Pity Me.

I have made it clear at the meeting that where there are existing community associations running many of these centres they should be assisted where possible to take over the centres since the Council has said that all these buildings must transfer ownership or be closed.

Some of the centres, including Woodbine House and Fyndoune House do not have much usage when compared to other buildings and can be seen as at serious risk. However it is possible that the housing associations – eg Durham City Homes – may wish to take control of these and remove them from the review, which would certainly make the review easier, but could create other issues.

Buildings like Fram Moor Youth and Community Centre have well run committees, but expecting volunteers to take over and run a building into the future is not easy when all the relevant information isn’t available.

What is critical is that because the council hasn’t invested for many years in these centres, they require substantial work to be carried out on them. The council says this work will cost over £12m but it only has £2m to spend. While I am convinced that the costs are vastly inflated this still means that there is a shortfall of funding to bring buildings up to scratch.

I believe that centres should be looking at getting quotes so that we can prove that the overall costs proposed by the council can be refuted and more centres can get possible funding out of the £2m pot, but I also think that the council should look for efficiencies elsewhere to pull in more funding from its own budget to help with this.

What is clear is that there is external funding which can be found and I will fight to ensure that as many of the centres as possible in the area I represent are kept open where it can be shown that it is worthwhile and beneficial to the community .

The Council Finance Director did a presentation on the  Financial Plan of the County Council on Monday night at the public Durham AAP meeting.

What was interesting was that the Council is planning to continue to focus on management savings, support savings, efficiencies and increased fees and charges to meet the savings they are making.

What was most revealing however was that the Director said that part of the savings being made were still part of the ongoing Local Government Review – The merging of the districts and county council. So when The Labour leader of the council says that all the savings the Council is having to make are because of the Government, he is not telling the whole story.

If a newly formed, newly organised, newly efficient council can suddenly find millions of pounds more in savings and the finance director says a lot of this is down to merging the councils, then only a few things are possible:

Either the Council still hasn’t finished reorganising – it hasn’t – in which case a chunk of the current savings are part of this.

Or the Council did finish reorganising – but didn’t make the savings it could have.

We are told that two positions in finance costing around £150,000 have gone recently and that this will have no impact whatsoever on service levels – straight from senior officers in a public meeting. So even if these positions were not part of the original reorganisation perhaps they should have been?

I am told that as much as half of the savings being made in one department will be through efficiencies not affecting frontline services. So even if they are not part of the original reorganisation perhaps they should have been.

So to cut to the chase all this implies that at least half of the savings Durham County Council are making will be efficiency savings not affecting frontline services.

Next time Mr Henig or other Labour councillors say it is ALL because of the government, take it with a large pinch of salt. And wonder why they didn’t make a lot of these savings three years ago which would mean we now had more money in the bank.

What the public and opposition councillors, Labour backbenchers and the Labour Cabinet must now do is question what is being spent.  For example the hundreds of thousands of pounds on Labour’s publicity rag County News. So that as many frontline services as possible are protected – and indeed improved.

My recent success at getting the 50% council tax discount for properties left empty  scrapped is adding over £2m to the pot this year. Everyone needs to look for other ways of raising and saving money and also questioning if everything the council does is necessary.

I believe that this can reduce the important frontline service cuts considerably. A huge part of doing this must rest with the senior council officers which the taxpayer are paying huge amounts to do this job, and the Labour Councillors in Cabinet.

If your collection is on a Wednesday the Council will not collect tomorrow (Wed 30th Nov). There will not be an alternative collection. Residents will have to wait until their next regular day for collection.

Anyone whose collection is on another day will not be affected.

There is a recycling point for paper, cans and bottles at the Arnison Centre, and of course there is the Refuse site at Potterhouse Lane where you can take recycling and general waste.

I know some people are asking neighbours who don’t fill their bins if they can use their spare capacity just this once. Everyone is entitled to two recycling bags and two recycling boxes, so if you are regularly overfilling them and only have one at the moment, just call the council for an extra one.

Durham County Council has outlined how Wednesday’s planned industrial action is expected to affect services.

Received following update today in relation to Wednesday’s strike

The authority is taking measures to minimise the impact on services but residents are warned that disruption is inevitable.

Customer access points, libraries and day centres will be closed during the day of action but will reopen for business as normal on Thursday, 1 December.

Some schools and nurseries will also be closed. An up-to-date list of schools affected is available at www.durham.gov.uk/schoolclosures

Locomotion at Shildon, Bishop Auckland Town Hall and Durham County Record Office will be closed to the public.

The Gala Theatre and DLI Museum and Durham Art Gallery will be open. Killhope: the North of England Lead Mining Museum has already closed for the winter.

Spennymoor and Newton Aycliffe Leisure Centres will be closed and Meadowfield Leisure Centre will operate reduced hours, opening from 2.15pm to 10.15pm. All other leisure centres will open as normal.

There will be no refuse, recycling or bulky waste collections. No replacement collections will be arranged following the strike. However, all household waste recycling centres will be open during the industrial action.

All Durham County Council adult learning courses will be cancelled.

The Park and Ride service will operate as normal.

The Lib Dems in Government are taking real action to tackle youth unemployment. Every young person who wants it will be guaranteed a job, training or work placement.
The Youth Contract will create over 400,000 new jobs and 250,000 new work experience placements to help young people across Britain to get into work.
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg MP said, “If people are out of work when they’re young they bear the scars for decades. If they have a false start, they might not ever fully catch up.
“This £1 billion investment will make sure our young people are earning and learning again, before long-term damage is done.”

The Liberal Democrats are determined to tackle youth unemployment – an issue that has been ignored for too long.
During Labour’s 13 years in power, youth unemployment rose by nearly 40%. There was a shocking 86% increase in the number of 18-24 year olds claiming Job Seekers Allowance.
Local Lib Dem councillor Mark Wilkes added, “Our new plans will make sure every young person has a fair chance. Thanks to the Lib Dems in Government, thousands of new apprenticeships are helping young people gain key skills, and now the huge number of young people in our area on Job Seekers Allowance will get extra support to help them into work too.”
The £1 billion new investment to tackle youth unemployment includes:
• Over 400,000 new work places for 18 – 24 year olds over the next three years
• 250,000 extra work experience places for every 18 – 24 year old who wants one (after 3 months on Job Seekers Allowance) and 160,000 wage subsidies
• All 18 – 24 year olds to receive extra careers support from Job Seekers Plus (after 3 months on Job Seekers Allowance)
• More funding to support apprenticeships, including 20,000 more incentive payments to encourage employers to take on young apprentices
• A new programme to help the most disengaged 16 – 17 year olds get learning again or into a job with training

The following link provides details of all schools currently listed as closing for industrial action on 30th November:

http://www.durham.gov.uk/Pages/schoolclosures.aspx

These include Framwellgate Moor Primary School, Bearpark Primary School, Witton Gilbert Primary School, Durham Johnson, Durham Trinity, Newton Hall Infants, Sacriston Junior (Open only for Class 3), Sacriston Nursery/Infant

All due to reopen 1st December.

The County Council is currently consulting internally with staff and unions on changes to the Neighbourhood Wardens, Education and Enforcement teams. They deal with a huge range of issues from going into schools to educate about crime and anti-social behaviour to dealing with littering, flytipping and dog fouling problems on our streets. At present the service is still not balanced across County Durham with some areas having more wardens than others and different staff having different hours.

To give an indication of just how much work they have to do, flytipping alone cost Durham County Council £1.28M to deal with over the last two years. The work of the neighbourhood wardens and education team in Framwellgate Moor has been a major part of the reduction in littering problems I have been working on in recent years, but it is an ongoing problem and along with the Police and police community support officers could not have been achieved without this part of the council. Officers recently spent a week in Fram School on education lessons, one of which I attended, and it was clear that it was invaluable and successful. We have also spent a lot of time at New College on recycling and education projects.

I am pushing to make sure that proper consultation with all partners takes place to ensure that if changes do take place, which is probable, that the best solution possible is put in place as there are clear concerns that the service could be reduced. Equally some changes could actually improve the service particularly in the evening in some areas where working with the police, wardens can help to tackle anti-social behaviour.

I have asked that Parish/Town councils and the Area Action Partnerships are consulted as soon as possible as they only meet once a month. I have also asked that County Councillors are updated and do not see the final proposals in a report to Cabinet when it is too late to make any changes.

Daft question some may say but after last years horrendous winter, we need to make sure that everyone knows how to get in touch with the Council if there are problems with gritting this year.

I have managed to get some extra grit bins in some areas this year and continue to push for more. If you find a grit bin empty or there are real problems in an area then you can contact the Council by email at hal@durham.gov.uk or 0191 370 6000.

Bear in mind that if the weather is really bad it could take time for a response. If you think that the service isn’t good enough call me or email me and let me know where the specific problem area is. The Council has over 2000 grit bins and it can take a bit of time to refill them in bad weather. Framwellgate Moor Parish Council  is also looking at how it can help this coming winter to keep pavements clear.

The Council is asking letting agents in Durham city to agree a voluntary code to cut the number of to let boards being placed around the City.

We discussed this recently on the Housing Panel of the Durham Area Action Partnership (see here for more info on AAPs).

I personally believe that the number of  To Let boards in the City really make the place look a mess. Some letting companies do a great job and don’t even put up boards. I don’t see why all can’t do the same and work with the Council, University and other organisations to keep our City tidy.

The County Council has failed to notify a telecoms company that their application for a mobile phone mast in the middle of Newton Hall had been turned down, meaning the company can go ahead with its plans.

The Labour – run County Council has made a right mess of this one. Once the applcation was turned down they had 56 days to notify the company but failed to do so. Dozens of residents and the local Lib Dem councillors objected to the plan and were successful but then the Council kicked everyone in the teeth by failing to deal with this properly.
Lib Dem County Councillors Mamie Simmons and Amanda Hopgood are meeting this week with the company to try and get a compromise on this issue and sort out the Councils failure. Good luck.