Election Definitely Started

OK so if you haven't noticed the election is definitely under way.

We have been busy delivering leaflets and most importantly knocking doors. We have done a complete knock across Walcot and have spoken already to hundreds of residents. We still have more to do as you could probably imagine not everyone is in when you first call.

So today I have leaflets to deliver, then I am taking some time this afternoon to cut the grass as the great weather has made it grow very quickly! Then if all goes to plan I intend to finish any outstanding deliveries for Walcot.

Don't forget if you can help us in anyway please visit http://www.bathlibdems.org.uk/pages/campaign.html every little helps.

Register to vote by 20th April 2010 and have your say

Residents across the Bath & North East Somerset Council area can find out more about voting in the May 6th 2010 General Election through the Council’s website, by email, or by telephone.
All the information needed by voters can be found on www.bathnes.gov.uk/elections or the Council can be contacted by email on elections@bathnes.gov.uk or telephone on 01225 477333. On the Council website residents can download the form to register to vote, find out where their local polling station is, and apply for a postal or proxy vote. Anybody wishing to vote in the General Election must register to do so by Tuesday 20th April 2010. If you do not register, you cannot vote. There are no Local Elections being held this year.
I am a first time voter…
Remember, your name doesn’t go on the register automatically once you have turned 18, or just because you are paying Council Tax;
First time voters must fill-in the form to register to vote and send it back to us. Once on the electoral register, the Council will send a card with details of where the polling station is.
I want to vote by post…
The deadline to request a postal vote is Tuesday 20th April 2010 by 5pm. You do not need a reason to request a postal vote;
Your ballot paper is sent to your home address ahead of Election Day.

Southbourne Gardens Planning Dismay

A hearing to decide whether homes can be built on former allotment land in Bath has ruled in favour of the development.

Developer Thomas Wheeler appealed to the Planning Inspectorate last year after Bath and North East Somerset Council refused permission to build 10 homes at the site in Fairfield Park.

And following a hearing, the government inspector decided to grant permission for the housing.

The Claremont Residents’ Association and local councillors had argued that the land at Southbourne Gardens is the area’s village green and should be returned to allotment use.

They opposed the application, which will see the building of eight four-bedroom houses and two three-bedroom flats, amid fears they would be losing an open space and would be disturbed by an increase of traffic in the area.

In her report the inspector said: “I appreciate that the proposed development would result in noise and disturbance from additional vehicles using the road and accessing the site, particularly in the area nearest the proposed turning head/parking area. However, I do not consider that the noise likely to be generated by those accessing the site would be likely to have such a significant effect in this residential urban environment as to warrant refusal. Although car headlights might be noticeable from some of the existing properties, the landscaping plan indicates that planting would be provided in this area to lessen any such effect.”

She added that she found that development reflected the character and appearance of the area.
The land had previously been used for grazing livestock but during the Second World War was turned into allotments.

The allotment holders were kicked off the site in the 1980s and has been left disused and unkept by the family who own it despite previous attempts by the local community to buy it and offer alternative uses.

Councillor Colin Darracott (Lib Dem, Walcot) who was strongly against the proposals said it was going to be a big disappointment for residents.

He said: “I’m bitterly disappointed, but not entirely surprised. The residents have been on the waiting list for an allotment for a long time and now they will be waiting even longer.”

An application for costs from Mr Wheeler was submitted as part of the appeal and has also been granted, on the grounds that the council was unable to give a valid enough reason for the refusal.

Bright ideas...

Sometimes you plan something out as well as you can and think it's all going to be fine, but it's not until it comes to implementing it that you realise just how daft something is in practice.



Take this superb example where I am sure that the lighting engineer did everything right in the way of getting the new lighting up Claremont Road and Eastbourne Avenue techically in the correct positions, but surely while the contractor is putting it in something must think that something isn't quite right...
I know that the picture isn't great as this was taken at night but what you can see is the new lighting column tucks nicely away into a large sycamore tree, meaning that the lamp which will end up on top of it will be totally ineffective.

When I get a daylight image I will put it up.

I await a response from the street lighting team as to how to solve this one... D

New Cycle Lane

Following requests from local residents, a Council officer will be looking at opening up the lane between Powlett Road and Bathwick Street to cyclist.

Initial findings are that the lane is wide enough and that it would create a good link through. Since The Council never made any dedicated cycle route around Sydney Gardens when complete farce of a traffic system went in (funny that was also unpopular and funded through a government grant - nothing changes eh?).

All funds and projects for this financial year are agreed, however I do hope that we can open it up next year. Unfortunately there is a cost which has not previously been budgetted as a legal order and markings have to go in to reverse the cycling ban.

Thanks to the residents who raised this with me (you know who you are), I do hope that next year we might get this sorted.

Excuses to be heard in public over poor waste collections

So waste bosses are due to come in front of a scrutiny panel of Councillors to explain the thinking behind the catch up method of rubbish and recycling collections. The Bath Chronicle reports 3 week of no collection! 3 week indeed? That is business as usual for Walcot. Many street have had 6 weeks now without a collection.

Needless to say that I will be sending a statement in for that meeting which starts at 10am on Thursday 28th January. In the Guildhall.

Cleveland Pools

Hidden away in Bathwick, on the banks of the River Avon, is the country's only surviving Georgian lido. Closed over twenty years ago, the Cleveland Pleasure Pools were at one time a favourite summer destination for generations of Bathonians. Now a campaign is underway to re-open the pools for public bathing.


The Cleveland swimming pools in Bath were built at the beginning of the nineteenth century and provided open air bathing for the city's residents until they were closed during the 1970s (although they re-opened temporarily for a short period in the mid-1980s). Other than a brief and unsuccessful life as a trout farm, they have been closed ever since.


Led by The Princes Regeneration Trust, the Cleveland Pools Trust has teamed up with The Trevor Osborne Property Group to form the Cleveland Pools Alliance. The Alliance has recently agreed to acquire The Cleveland Pools site from Bath & North East Somerset Council, and heads of terms have been signed.


Together the partners of The Cleveland Pools Alliance are working to restore this unique Grade II* site. After an initial feasibility study, the Alliance has raised £64,000 with a generous grant from English Heritage and further contributions from The Osborne Group, The Duke of Cornwall's Benevolent Fund and the Cleveland Pools Trust.


Once reinstated, the Cleveland Pools will fulfil a key role in the Bath World Heritage Site while providing a focus on leisure, healthy living, ecology and education for the local community. Below is a draft plan of proposed changes.

Piles of Rubbish

Walcot seems to have been hit really badly by poor refuse and recycling services. While I appreciate that the bouts of bad weather has not helped. Many areas of the ward have not seen a single collection since before Christmas.

Despite numerous emails and calls and promises that action will take place, not a lot seems to have happened.

Surely there must be some form of prioritisation of streets which have not seen a collection for the longest period?

How are resident's supposed to take Bath and North East Somerset Council seriously on waste and recycling when we continue to let them down?

Areas of Walcot have always suffered some of the poorest waste and recycling services that I know of across the authority. Needless to say I will continue to be on the case.

Declare my interests....

A few people have commented on how I have put links to various Councillor's Declarations of Interests in order to help you find out just a little bit more. Some are long and intereting and others, such as my own is much shorter, but do feel free to have a read... here.

Someone is having a laugh...

I need not write much to explain this, but quite simply someone within the Council wants to spend £188k on a software update for a single product we buy for finances.

Click here and see page 9.

"Jog on" I say, "jog on..."

Haiti Earthquake

While we all go about our day, some of us wondering when a general election might be called or grumbling about the delays on waste collections due to bad weather (which coincidently has attracted over 350 comments on the Bath Chronicle Website), the disaster in Haiti continues.

Recent figures estimate 75000 people killed, 250000 injured and 1 million left homeless.

Today I did my bit and donated to Disaster Emergency Committee.

I know that it's January and for some of us it's been a long month, and we are probably looking forward to pay day, however if we can all help donate a little, it will help a lot.

Donating is so easy to do just visit http://www.dec.org.uk/donate_now/ to find out how.

A poor decision in my view.

When I saw a planning application for 2 large houses to be built behind Percy Place to replace one house in perfectly good condition, in the conservation area. I thought that to reject the planning application would be a no brainer.

How wrong was I?

Despite over 30 objections from local residents and Bath Preservation Trust, the planning officer was minded to approve the planning application. So I asked it be be referred to committee for decision, thinking that surely a committee of sensible Councillors (do we exist?) would at least give it a good hearing in public and come to a balanced view.

So the planning officer takes it to the Chair of the Development Control Committee, Cllr Les Kew (find out more about him here if you like) who decided in all his wisdom, and finally replied to me, "It is difficult to decide at times whether to refer apps. to the committee when a request is made and this app. was indeed one of those. However after careful consideration of your request and the history of this site I felt that it was a case for delegation."

Nuts! No justification for his thinking and how one councillor gets to decide that a fair public hearing is not worthy of an application that received so much objection has left me pretty much depressed at the state of democracy to be quite honest.

It's a crazy proposal and a crazy decision to approve it. To round it off despite me speaking personally to The Chair of the Committee who said he would look again at this, and didn't, and despite me chasing the planning officer for information as to progress on this application before he approved, he still did so with no reconsideration. Needless to say I have now lodged a formal complaint. Something that after 7 years as a councillor I thought I'd never have to do.

Buy or Sell Locally

Local Walcot residents have set up a local auction website aimed at residents in and around Bath.

Worth checking out is www.bathbay.co.uk!

Conservative Cuts Leading to Dirty Streets

Liberal Democrat councillors on the Council's Safer Stronger Communities Overview and Scrutiny Panel have warned that the improvements in street cleansing promised for Bath may be impossible if the job cuts which have been threatened in the Council’s Environmental services section actually happen.

Bath City Liaison Forum delivered a very detailed report on improvements to cleansing services in the City of Bath, and these recommendations were accepted by the Cabinet member for customer services.

The services are already being delivered with very limited resources and any reduction in services would not be looked on very favourably by local residents.
Liberal Democrat members will be scrutinising forthcoming budget papers very carefully and ensuring that the Conservative administration does not cut services by the back door.

Cllr David Dixon said, "As if our streets aren't filthy enough we might now expect to see things get worse." If the Lib Dem Budget was accepted last year we would still some cuts, but at least last year would would have increased the based budget and woud now at least be in a better situation. We have gone from a bad situation to a dire situation."

Ther Liberal Democrats have been campaigning for extra money on street cleansing, in last year's budget we put forward costed plans to double the amount spent on street cleansing but the ruling Conservative's did not want to know.

The Weather and Council Services Update

Weather Forecast
It appears as if the worst of the weather is now behind us, although temperatures will remain very cold, with possible snow fall in some areas on Tuesday evening and it still is snowing! The long-term weather forecast indicates the extremely cold weather is likely come to an end towards the weekend where there is likely to be a thaw.

Although the vast majority of Council services are back to normal, contingency plans are being developed in case of further bad weather or the anticipated thaw does not materialise.

The Week in Numbers

To understand the scale of the operations since last Wednesday some statistics from across Council services can be found below:
· 550 tonnes of grit spread on over 253 miles of the highways network; (KP)
· 730 hot community meals served;
· 377 grit bins filled in response to customer contacts;
· 98,694 visits to the www.bathnes.gov.uk website;
· 90 schools, nurseries, and special schools giving closure information for our website to our Human Resources staff;
· 76 staff redeployed from their day jobs to snow clearance, gritting, and supporting essential frontline services; (JC)
· 6,439 customer contacts dealt with by Council Connect staff between 4th – 8th January, more than double last year;
· 11 Big Freeze updates issued to the media, parish councils, and councillors.

Roads

Central Government is now influencing the salt supply chain and has instructed all local Councils to reduce the use of salt. The Council must continue to ration the available supplies for priority routes because of this decision.

The Council gritting fleet will treat prioritised routes during Wednesday, and prepare snow ploughs if required. An emergency gritting vehicle will be available around the clock to tackle any specific problems on the main network. We will continue to put grit in bins where essential.

The Council relies upon the public to tell us when grit bins are empty and we can be contacted 24 hours a day on the Council Connect line.

Highways officers have worked extremely hard to secure salt deliveries and we now have enough salt for our state-of-the-art gritting fleet to comfortably take us into next week and spread grit normal treatment rates across 253 miles. That is 37% of the road network – a figure considerably above the national average of 30%.

Because of the prioritisation of our grit stocks key transport routes have remained passable with care every day, services to vulnerable people – like vital home care - have been maintained every day, the emergency services have continued serving the public, the vast majority of schools were able to open or partly open from last Friday, and we have been able to re-start collecting waste.

Waste

Council waste collection services are starting to return normal. Limited waste collections on treated highways routes took place on Monday and Tuesday. These arrangements remain in place on Wednesday.

Households where roads have been treated are asked to leave their waste out for collection. Our drivers will be using their discretion to determine where it is safe to collect waste.

In short the message to residents is to look at the conditions of the roads near to you, and your own and question whether or not it would be safe for a collection lorry to make it down and whether or not the pavements are free from snow and ice. Then make a judgment as to whether or not the collection crews will collecting your waste. If in doubt DON'T put it out!

Other Services

Most other Council services are operating as normal. Schools are generally opening as normal with very limited partial closures due to issues like burst water mains. Head Teachers are being asked to develop contingency plans to open, particularly in light of the A-Level exam period.