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.

This link will take you to the full report being provided at the councils public events relating to the County Durham Plan. it includes a number of extra pages over and above those I have already provided on the County Plan Page, including details of the Councils reasoning for the various parts of the land and some extra information on the contraints of particular site developments:

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

This is about 9mb in size if you would like a paper copy please  get in touch. I will be asking the Council to provide a full display of the maps in the Abbey Leisure Centre entrance hall and other locations, and will update on here when this has been done.

The County Durham Plan consultation / viewing event this evening was attended by over 140 people, a decent turn out but not enough, and substantially less that last time.  I am increasing ly concerned about the level of the proposed development on greenbelt, and an apparent lack of consideration of brownfield and infill sites. It is as if the council wants to build on the greenbelt and on every bit of infill as well. I am continuing to urge the council to give much more consideration to where housing can be built on non-greenbelt land.

I am also trying to get more clarification on the process of how residents will be able to put forward views as to what they want to see in their area as part of the whole County Durham Plan proposals as there hasn’t been any consideration of this to date.

If you didn’t make the event tonight or can’t make one of the others in the next few days in the Town hall, St Johns Church or Belmont, click on the COUNTY PLAN link on the left of this page and you can see the same plans the council had on display as links.

Spoke with local streetsene team yesterday about seriously overgrown weeds, leaves litter etc on FrontSt. Pity Me. Today, whole stretch has had weeds leaves and litter removed. Looks great. Very quick turnaround. Well done Streetscene team.

If there is an area which looks a mess let me know and I will do my best to get it cleaned up. Also asked for Potterhouse Lane to be cleared of litter yesterday following the grass cutting which always shows up litter.

Based on requests last year for grit bins and road clearance I have put in a number of requests for bins. Also pushed for changes to the way in which bin allocation is scored, which appears to have been successful. Hopefully more areas will get grit bins this year. Let me know if there is a specific area where you had big problems last year, but also normally have problems as the Council still has limited resources on this. I am working with Framwellgate Moor parish council who are looking at assisting with some work this coming winter.

As part of our drive to improve youth provision at Abbey, some positions have been advertised for youth workers. This is part of a wider recruitment across Durham City and Chester-le-Street.  Newton Hall councillors along with myself are working with youth and leisure services to bring better provision to the Leisure Centre and hope to be able to announce improvements in the coming months following consultation with young people. This is something we have been pushing for for over 2 years and it is good the Council is finally putting into action our recommendations and working with us. TheRe are other jobs also available on the Council website.

www.durham.gov.uk/jobs