Paul Crossley

Our local PCT is looking to change its specialist cancer care provision away from the RUH to Bristol. We are very concerned by this and are promoting a campaign to raise awareness of the threat and pursuade the PCT to decide to keep this specialist gynaecological cancer care at the RUH.

Don Foster MP has recently been getting a large health survey around Bath and our team of Councillors on the O&S panel are leading the push to keep this service in Bath. We had a press launch with some users at the weekend and the local BBC Points West covered the story as well. Our press release:- RUH_Gynae_Care.doc
Photo of some of the users with Don Foster and Councillors Brinkhurst, Beath, Sandry and me.

What a weekend of rugby - Bath 25 - Quins 10. Bath played some phases of electrifying backplay with the guys running and passing at speed and simply opened up the Quins defence for three tries.

AND then - England won again. What a match - what a performance. Scarcely believable from the opening drubbing by South Africa. The final will be a different matter but again Habana showed today against Argentina what a player he is. I think it is about time world rugby showed the Pumas some more respect. They should either join the southern hemishere Tri-Nations tournament or perhaps in view of the number of players here our six nations could be expanded to 7. The rugby authorities need to use the development of several nations as shown in this tournament to build up more national teams. All the Pacific Islands were a joy to watch.

Bath v Quins at the Rec

And Finally - I am coming out on my addiction to Strictly Come Dancing. I love the show and this year after watching the first two I will be supporting Alesha. The boys are going to struggle this year unless they show rapid improvement. The girls are exhilerating already. However considering the news today of the obesity epidemic hitting the nation then I think the government needs to seriously consider giving real food to kids at school and making it FREE so that they all have healthy school meals. It will surely save millions in the long run and leave a lot of youngsters feeling fitter and leaner than the government projections. And perhaps in addition to more sport at school lets also have more dancing. It certainly keeps the contestants fit and you can see the pounds falling of John Barnes.

The SouthGate project started its next phase this week with the official groundbreaking ceremony. Since Multi came on board the project has really been progressing well. All the old buildings have been demolished. Now the underground part can be dug out and the new buildings started. Image from the SouthGate picture gallery shows the scheme well.

It is replacing a really poor 1970s concrete mess of a shopping arcade with a modern shopping centre with leisure facilities, open spaces and 100 housing units, 25% affordable and or social rent. In addition we are upgrading the rail station and building a new bus terminus (the controversial part of the scheme). It is worth following the Southgate link above and going to the Gallery section and clicking on the flythrough to get a real feel for what it is going to look like.

The Groundbreaking ceremony was officiated by our deputy Chair who gave the speech, followed by groundbreaking and the burying of a time capsule prepared by the children of Widcombe. Pictures on my photoblog. I am confident that this scheme will be seen as being great for Bath when it is completed and running. In the meantime we have to get through the problems of traffic and construction issues as it is built over the next 3 years.

What an amazing weekend of Rugby - starting with a Bath win but of more national note the boys from England finally stepped up to the plate and delivered some rugby to be proud off. A great game with committment, passion and enjoyment from every player on the field. In fact I enjoyed all four quarter finals.

Contrast that with the faltering effort from Gordon. It was his Labour henchmen that whipped up the election frenzy. It was Gordon that bottled it. That coupled with his too early easing on foot and mouth restrictions and a cynical visit to Iraq has turned what was a sure footed start into a poor Autumn. It is of course absolute nonsense allowing the Prime Minister to call an election at his whim. Only 2 years ago the Country elected to be run by a Labour Government with a large working majority. We are not a presedential system and so GB does not need a personal mandate to run GB. This parliament should see out its full term.

And a little humour never hurt anyone .

'meeting place communications' is a new consultancy to Bath and they had their launch just recently. They specialise in working with developers on regeneration and construction projects to understand the needs and aspirations of the host communities. I can recommend them to you.

Bath Race Equality Council is another of the committees I sit on outside Council. All Councillors in our authority get the opportunity to serve on a wide range of organisations. I have been on this for four years now. Equality is a very important issue for our society and there is quite simply too much intolerance and injustice around. I am also chair of the Learning Difficulties Partnership. Another group in our society that often gets a raw deal. I was saddened by the news article this week where a request is being made to give a young girl a hysterectomy so that she can be managed more easily. All people deserve respect and they should not have their bodies altered for other people's convenience. On the other hand the carers of people with profound difficulties deserve much more support and care than we currently give them. If we are to continue with the professionailising of home care support using family members then much more needs to be done with the whole family. It cannot simply be seen as a cheap solution.