Paul Crossley

Council Tax is unfair and unjust. It needs replacing with something that is fair and delivers. It needs to be accompanied by a reform of the way Central and Local Government interface and above all it needs Central Government to allow Local Govenment more responsibility and accountability for the services it delivers.

Council Tax was a fag-packet idea from the Conservatives when they pannicked over the hated Poll Tax. Sadly when the Labour took over they failed to sort this mess out. A decade further on and the problem gets worse and now well in advance of the next General the Conservatives have announced they have no ideas and no solutions for the problem. Well nothing new there then. The following story was in the Financial Times.

Sweeping reform of council tax rejected

Financial Times

By Jim Pickard and Jean Eaglesham

Published: August 19 2008 22:48 | Last updated: August 19 2008 22:48

A Conservative government will not undertake a big reform of council tax in its first term, despite regular criticism of what the Tories have dubbed "the ultimate stealth tax", Eric Pickles, the shadow local government secretary, has indicated.

Mr Pickles has admitted that any changes to the unpopular levy would be "incremental" at most.

Sunday was the annual open day at Chris Rich's market garden. He started this last year and found it really successfull. Chris has been one of the stalwart stalls in Bath Farmers Market since it started. Increasingly customers are wanting to know how food is produced. Chris has his market garden in Batheaston and provided fresh food to the market year round.

As oil prices go up food security is rising up the agenda. I think as a country we need to be producing more of our own food and this is certainly one of the aims for our Transition Movement here in Bath. Government should be encouraging home production and allotments. After all local food saves on food miles and our carbon footprints. I also think if more families grew their own food they would buy less junk food and so the health of the nation would also improve.

I intend to start growing far more of my own food in my garden. So brought a number of lettuces and brassicas and planted them out in the afternoon. My dilemma is how to keep the slugs at bay as I do not like to put poisonous slug pellets down. Anyhow empited out one of the compost barrels onto the soil and surrounded the plants with gravel.

Last Friday I had a visit round Milsom Place. This is a new shopping centre in the heart of Bath using an area that connects Broad St and Milsom St and includes the Octagon and opens up access to Baths two Elizabethan buildings. It is an amazing development that Colin Darracott and myself pushed to get underway four years ago and which is now nearing completion. It has also refreshed the Shires Yard complex. The whole place is looking fabulous. Jamie Oliver will be making it the HQ for his Italian chain and lots of other shops will be completing the set up to make this a great shopping area. L&R have done a really good job.

Picture shows the new patio area of Moon and Sixpence and the corner of one of the two Elizabethan buildings.

When I became Leader of Bath in 2002 Bath had a reputation in the building world as a place where you could not do business. Over the next 5 years this was turned round and the delivery of projects like Milsom Place is one such example of a difficult site, an imaginative soultion and co-operation between all concerned to deliver. Lets hope the new administration keep this changed perception up. 

I am a co-chair of B&NES Learning Difficulties Partnership Board. Reporting to the board we have three networks based in Radstock, Bath and Keynsham. The Keynsham Network has been conducting a high street survey to assess all the shops for accessibility. On Saturday they put on a presentation of their work which was open to the public. Free coffee and cakes were added to encourage visitors and it was an excellent morning and afternoon session.

People with Learning Disabilities get a raw deal from society and Partnership Boards around the country are working to improve things.