Following my question at today’s Corporate Issues Scrutiny the Labour-run County Council has had to admit to an “embarassing” miscalculation of the costs of Local Government review and its pension liabilities.

The Council under-estimated the pension liabilities following the merging of the district and country councils meaning it now has to find £1.85 million pounds extra every year into the future. To put it into perspective last year the Council scrapped free transport for all over 16’s to get to school and college. (£2.3m). This would have gone a long long way towards paying for that. But it does beg the question – is there anything else out there they are not telling us.

Well we then found out that senior management positions in finance are being cut as part of cost savings and that there will be no impact on delivery of the service. These positions costing over £500,000 over the last 3 years are apparently not now needed – begs the question why did we reorganise a department to save money three years ago and include positions which were not needed!

Answer – perhaps Labour failed to properly manage local government reorganisation.

We also found out that the Council has to find an additional £180,000 for additional energy costs for community buildings.  I thought that this was because of the delays they have had in their closure program, but it turns out its because they didn’t know about the bills, or the buildings, or what they were being charged or which department was paying the bills or something like that – didn’t really get to the bottom of that one, but I do know that that money would more than pay for the costs of repairs and maintenance to get Fram Community Centre into a great condition.

Fram parish council on Wed just gone. Long discussions about the work at King George’s Field. The new play facilities are nearly completed but there are still issues to iron out regarding project management, grass, tarmac and fencing. Hopefully will be fully open soon. Agreed that the carpark should be reopened and this has now happened.

Can confirm that the Parish precept (part of Council tax) will see no rise this year, better to keep cash in residents pockets.

Reported back on confirmation of new boundary changes for teh next lcoal elections in 2013. At the moment Fram, Pity Me and Brasside elect two councillors in the same area as Bearpark and Witton Gilbert. In 2013, the parish will be with Newton Hall and elect 3 councillors. There are more electors but the area is more compact with closer links. Unfortunately Bearpark will be in a much more spread out area with Esh Winnig and Ushaw Moor (3 Councillors), whilst Witton Gilbert will be with Langley Park and have two councillors.

Also reported back on survey of the area regarding the County Plan.

Attended Witton Gilbert Parish Council on Tuesday night and discussed various issues including council proposals to close Fyndoune House. Communal Hall not well used but only building at the top end of the village, so will be discussing with users and local community about what should happen at meeting in near future.

Reported back that the field has been cut back for this weekends bonfire night.

Also commented on planning application to convert the old shop bunglows behind the Club in to house and takeaway. Concerns about parking have been passed to planning officers as 4 parking spaces may not be sufficient if they are for house and takeaway.

Old bus shelters have been taken down and the pavement areas and new shelters are currently being installed. Should tidy up Front St and will be much better outside the Primary School.

Spent an eventful hour and a half walking around Bearpark earlier this week with Council Housing officer, neighbourhood warden and police. Large number of untidy gardens/dumped items, potholes and other issues noted down for action to be taken by housing dept. Also spoke to some residents at Beaurepaire about local issues and the council proposals on closing community buildings.

The recent information events on the County Plan arranged by the Council were not well attended. It is clear that the council did not advertise these events sufficiently well. For this reason I have asked the Council to put up the displays in the foyer of Abbey Leisure Centre.

Because of the lack of proper consultation I have created an online survey to find out the views of local residents on the key aspects of the Councils proposals. We are also delivering paper surveys around the area.

Take the survey by clicking here: http://www.surveymonkey.net/s/durhamplan

View the latest council consultation document here:

http://content.durham.gov.uk/PDFRepository/CountyDurhamPlanUpdateForDurhamCityResidentsOctober2011.pdf

The government recently announced that the big energy companies are to offer a £120 discount to residents on low incomes.

I found this on the Daily Mail website which has more details for each supplier:

WILL YOUR PROVIDER OFFER YOU A WARM HOME DISCOUNT?

– BRITISH GAS will pay the Warm Home Discount to those with a long-term
illness or disability who are in receipt of meanstested benefits or have a household income of less than £16,190. Customers are also eligible if they spend more than ten per cent of their income on keeping their home at 21C (70F) if that income is less than £16,190. Phone 0800 048 0202.

– Customers of EDF are eligible if they are on either income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance, Income Support, or income-related Employment and Support Allowance (ESA). However, they also need to be in receipt of either Long-Term Incapacity Benefit, Severe Disablement Allowance, Disability Living Allowance or DLA for a child living with them, or have a child under the age of five on April 1, 2011, living with them. Phone 0800 096 9000.

– EON’s customers are eligible if they are on Income Support, income-related ESA or income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance and have a child under the age of five, or are in receipt of the disability child tax credit or a disability premium. Households with an income of £16,190 or less that receive child tax credit are also eligible. Phone 0800 051 1480.

– NPOWER, SCOTTISH POWER and SCOTTISH & SOUTHERN say their
customers are eligible if they are on Income Support, income-related ESA or income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance and have a child under five, or getting disability child tax credit or a disability premium. Phone 0808 172 6999 (npower), 0845 2700 700 (ScottishPower) or 0800 980 8093 (Scottish & Southern).

A debate is to be had in the House of Commons on whether a referendum should be called on Britain’s future relationship in Europe.

This is only happening because of the Lib Dem policy change which brought about the petition system. When 100,000 people sign a petition it must now be considered for debate in parliament. This is a good step in the right direction and keeps our MPs on their toes and makes the country a little more democratic.

As a Lib Dem, most people might assume that I would be scared stiff of such a debate. Far from it. It is about time this was debated. There are a whole raft of things wrong with the EU in its current form. There are also a whole raft of good things about it.

A proper debate on this issue is long overdue. I only hope that all the main parties allow their MPs a free vote on this! Or is that allowing democracy to go just a bit too far?

The council is carrying out the final phase of consultation on a bus lane up Dryburn Road to the Sniperley Roundabout. It will be displaying notices shortly. Whilst there have been some objections to the proposals because of the loss of the parking area in front of Dryburn Hill, the Council believes that this proposal has more benefits than negatives. The money for the scheme is part of the T15 program paid for by the government to improve bus routes.

When the initial proposal was put forward I was adamant that the pavement along this side of the road between both roundabouts was rebuilt as part of the scheme if it went ahead and this has been confirmed.

I am continuing to push for the replacement of the pavement in front of Dryburn Road houses which is not in a good state of repair at all, though so far have not been successful in securing funding.

if anyone does have objections to the proposal please let me know.

The County Council is currently consulting on Community Buildings. The report they put through cabinet a few weeks ago included details of plans to close dozens of community centres where the local community was unwilling or unable to take them over permanently. The Council has included Framwellgate Moor Community Centre in this group. As part of a proactive attempt to make sure that Framwellgate Moor Community Centre is not shut down by the Labour-run Council, I have been pushing for more involvement from the Council in helping it to save money. The Labour run Council has refused me permission to invest to improve the centre using local budgets until the consultation has concluded. This means that the Community Centre has to spend more money – for example on heating bills, which could have been cut by investment in the Centre.

My persistence has paid off in the sense that the Council is carrying out a full energy survey of the building for free, using Fram as a testbed for the other buildings. This will hopefully help to reduce bills. It is also clear to me from the sterling work of the Chair and committee at the Centre, that it goes from strength to strength and is being used more than for many years.

There are still some days when rooms are available, just call in to the Centre if you are interested in hiring a room or attending an existing class. Most importantly at the moment, if you have a few hours of free time, please consider joining the Committee to help with the future of the Centre, you can contribute as much or a little time as you like helping with a whole raft of things, or just attending the monthly meetings to have your say on how the Centre is run.

Contact me if you are interested.