brennon

This edited version is compliments of the LGNET website (thank you!) 

Pensioners and disabled people already benefit from concessions in their local council areas, but from April the scheme is being extended to allow them to travel free anywhere in England . The LGA says that while that will benefit millions of people it will leave a number of councils footing most of the bill.

The LGA is calling on the Treasury to look again at its figures for how much money is going to individual councils to pay for the scheme. Without this, it says, authorities threatened with the biggest funding gaps could face tough choices between spending cuts and above inflation council tax rises.

David Sparks, Chairman of the LGA Regeneration and Transport Board, said the free travel scheme would give many people the freedom to visit the country's popular seaside and historic areas. "Authorities along the coastline or in places popular with visitors could be forced to cut meals on wheels to pay for visiting pensioners' free bus travel. Councils want free bus travel for the elderly and disabled but the Treasury must make sure it is not at the cost of vital services or an increase in council tax."  This 'overuse' issue is not a general problem for us in South Holland, although we have lost at least one very popular bus off of the timetable because it was used too much by concessionary travellers, so . 

However, my main concern are based on the whole privatised 'public' transport system's vulnerability to market forces.  Local providers in Lincolnshire are already at logger-heads with most, if not all local authorites, over the rebates they receive.  If the companies get a real munk on they can drop out of the scheme and just keep running the services, but charging everybody full price.  Worse still, as mentioned above, they could just scrap some of the timetable or even the whole thing!

This is no way to provide transport for the masses in rural areas and until somebody decides to guarantee the provision of bus services, we are going to continue to have to rely on the motor car.  Of course, thanks to Mr Prescott, its become a lot harder to make room for these essential cars in new developments - an especially infruriating 'Catch 22' if there ever was one!  

Literally that is!  Lying in bed at sometime after midnight, watching a film after a hard day's blogging, the bed suddenly began to move about all on its own!  I then realised it wasn't just the bed but the whole house that was being shaken - it was an earth quake in South Holland! 

It lasted no more than a few seconds and if I hadn't jumped out of bed and looked out of the window to see my neighbour doing the same thing (looking out of the window that is, he might not have been in bed!) I could have mistakenly thought I'd fallen asleep and had a dream, although it's more likely to be a nightmare if it involves an earthquake I suppose!

I felt these things several times before as they seemed to be fairly common in Cyprus (that's another island, smaller hotter. good steaks, terrible drivers, full of foreigners - sounds a bit like here really) .  Anyway I digress as usual.  The ones in Cyprus did feel as violent as this one but lasted longer; we obviously go for quality not quantity!

I don't think it could have done any damage even though it felt like the epicentre was under my house! Nothing wrong with a bit of exaggeration when you've been through a traumatic time (especially when most people would have been asleep so can't prove you wrong!).  Seriously though, it wasn't a nice feeling and I'm glad it only lasted a few seconds.  I can only guess what it must be like to be in quakes that last much longer and actually damage things and kill people - brings new meaning to that song lyric 'no where to run'!

No, I'm not being rude about somebody called Cutting! 

I attended the ceremony to mark the successful co-operation between lots of areas of local and central government, that will eventually see the new A1073 (A16 eventually) become a reality.  The Minister for Transport, Rosie Winterton, came to join in and she came across as a very nice lady (even if she does play for the wrong team!). 

Despite my semi-serious cynicism before the event, the Minister did actually get out of the car, rather than just zooming up to the spot on the boarder between the two counties, poking the ceremonial spade out of the window to have a minion put some Lincolnshire soil on it, and then zooming off again back to civilisation! (London to those of you who don't realise it is the centre of the known civilised world) 

Although the sun was shining (it always is in South Holland by the way!) it was cold and very windy, she stuck with it, smiled a lot, joined in with the chit chat.  She then came back to the pub (all in the line of duty by the way) with us after the event and stayed chatting for quite a while.

The other highlight for me was good ol' Francis Biggadike, our 'imposing' South Holland District Council Chairman, getting himself noticed by the minister because of his very striking hat!  Multi-coloured band around it for those who know it!  The old smoothy then made his mark further, by offering the Minister a drink when we were in the pub!  What an operator!  - Francis Biggadike for President I say!

Starting next month and finishing in the winter of 2010 (weather permitting) this road is long overdue and we can only guess at the longer term benefits to our district.  However, what I hope we don't have to guess at, is that a significant reduction in the deaths and injuries that currently occur on the existing road, will be an immediate benefit and make the £80m build costs worth every penny!

The results of the government ‘independent' enquiry in to the recent flooding has decided that local councils can play a "star role" planning and managing future flooding crises! 

Somewhat naively (in my opinion) it goes on to state that "councils had a vital role in holding organisations such as utility companies, to account........".

Why only the utility companies? 

Is it that picking on private companies is a safer bet politically, than highlighting the one organisation that has overall control of much of the infrastructure that should be preventing the facilities that the utility companies operate, from becoming flooded in the first place?

South Holland has been treating the updating of its Strategic Flood Risk Assessment (SFRA) as a priority and allocated £50k (of our council tax) to getting this done.  Unfortunately, due to the demands of the EA this figure has now risen to £75k!  Just to add insult to injury, having made new demands on us, the EA then dragged its feet in providing the technical information the flood risk consultants required to produce the SFRA. 

South Holland and many other areas of the Fens enjoy the security of having highly experienced drainage boards to manage much of the water that flows through (and under) the district.  This is not done for free and costs the local taxpayers (that's you and me!) millions of pounds each year. 

Frustratingly, the government are reducing grant to our drainage boards, which means that the local taxpayer will have to make up the shortfall in years to come. To be fair to the EA, I understand that the government are playing the same game with them, so is it any wonder they struggle to do the job?  

Based on their performance in other areas, we can only thank our lucky stars that the EA is not solely in charge of water management in South Holland!  

LincUp - what's that then? I hear you cry! or is it am I bovvered??  Sorry, this is a serious subject really, but I thought it acknowledging that most people haven't got a clue about all the activites that their council get up to and which is often made even more obscure by jargon or local government speak. 

Anyway - LincUp is, or rather was, an ICT project involving all Lincolnshire local authorities, county and distict/borough, plus the police and the PCT.  The plan was to link us altogeather in a way that allowed the customer - you - to get at information about and access to the services we all deliver.  

As of the end of March that project has run its course and although it didn't bring about quite the universal and seamless access initally intended, it still did a lot of good work and achieved an excellent level of co-operation between the various public sector areas in Lincolnshire (apart from the PCT that is, which for various reasons seems to have found it almost impossible to co-operate with anybody - including themselves!).

The replacement for LincUp will now be run by the county council on behalf of all partners and will continue to offer a much more straightforward way to get at all things local government.  If what we saw today comes to pass, then whilst looking very simple on the page, the potential for what lies behind it, is pretty exciting - and not just to IT nerds!      

Today I have been forwarded an email about a ‘must attend' (or is it must be seen at?) conference in guess where? Yes, you've got it, London - where else; it is the centre of the world as we know it after all!  I'm a Londoner - so I'm allowed to be rude about the place! 

In fact they're so keen to see the likes of me there - this strange beast known as the elected member - that they are waving the fee and throwing in breakfast, dinner and tea!  There's even some sort of evening do where everybody can dress up.

The subject of the conference appears to be about the use of technology to reach the masses.  Apparently, there's all sorts of people attending the conference from near and far; so near that our own chief executive will be on the platform for one session!  Another speaker appears to flying in from Brazil or some other far away place - we get upset about food miles these days - I wonder when somebody is going to start getting upset about conference miles!!!!!!!

Point is, all this talk is intended to promote the use of technology as a way to get the democratic message across, encourage participation and also, hopefully reach the hard to reach people. 

Can anyone else see the irony in the whole thing? 

A conference promoting the use of technology to communicate with people, organised at one end of the country and inviting people from half way across the world to come and talk face to face - so we'll try the video conferencing next year shall we!!!

Returning to an earlier entry, Lincolnshire Police are continuing their campaign to pre-warn us all of their intention to either cut services or, increase their share of the council tax by over 80%.

Nobody wants to see either a cut in services or a huge increase in their council tax, but one scenario will potentially have a more immediate impact than the other.  If the police do submit a council tax precept of 80% and this is included in the council tax bills that are about to land on all our doormats, there is a chance that central government will invoke their capping powers.

If capping happens and the police are told to revise their level of precept, then all council tax bills will have to be reprinted and then re-issued to every single household in the district.  This will be done at the expense of the council taxpayers of South Holland, I don't know the exact figure at this time, but I suspect amending, re-printing, handling and then posting approx 38,000 bills wouldn't leave much change from £30 or £40k.   Although we as a council may do our best to demand that the police authority pick up the bill for getting it so badly wrong, I wouldn't hold my breath!!

See my previous entry for a link to the police authority web page giving the background to this crisis.

We are webcasting a debate, or is it a presentation? (it certainly isn't a consultation in any real sense of the word) about how the council tax is set and spent.  I watched one bit, where one of those attending mentioned that they didn't realise that some of the money collected as council tax went to the internal drainage boards.  For those of you who don't know what these are, I won't bore you with a long winded explanation, but suffice it to say, that most of the area that includes South Holland, would be under water without drainage boards.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, but the questioner was a prominent member of the local community and the fact that he didn't realise this about the drainage boards begs the question, 'what about the rest of the taxpayers in South Holland?'.

In respect of the council tax, today's local newspaper carried public notices from two of our drainage boards, detailing the amount of money each will levy on SHDC this year.  The Welland and Deepings Internal Drainange Board requires nearly £742k for the coming year and the South Holland Internal Drainage Board require over £1million from South Holland taxpayers for the year. 

Nobody resents paying these levies, the drainage boards do a critically important job for us, they do it very well and we want them to keep doing it.  This is something we have to keep telling central government on a regular basis.  Their pre-occupation with centralised control, means that they have been actively considering handing over control of the drainage boards to the Environment Agency! 

The EA has its own problems, not least an apparently fragmented and disorganised management structure that means you never seem to speak to the same person twice.  Their own demands also seem be something they struggle to address, as despite several requests, the flood risk consultants working for SHDC, are still waiting for the technical information (that the EA have insisted they need) in order to complete the South Holland Strategic Flood Risk Assessment.              

Tonight (Weds) the Development Control committee of SHDC will be receiving reports that raise the issue of achieving good design.  One report from the Performance Monitoring Panel give the results of their review (an enjoyable but hectic coach trip around the district I'm told) of implemented planning permissions.  The other report, from our development control officers, gives a brief rundown of recent planning appeals, won and lost.

The common theme for both these reports is the issue of achieving good design.  The panel report contains comments on various developments, from whole estates to single extensions, with many of them referring to the poor design of the finished articles. 

The officer's report, details several appeals where the Planning Inspector has not agreed with a refusal based on poor design.  So, on the one hand we have the officers being criticised for allowing poorly designed developments to be built, whilst on the other, we have planning inspectors rejecting their attempts to apply better design standards to proposed developments!   

This is not the first time the Planning Inspectorate has seemed to be working against the community benefit, witness the slavish compliance with the government's command to increase housing density, by allowing developers to grab large gardens.  They stitched up all planning departments up in the early days of PPG now PPS3, by ruling that a large garden counted as a brown field site!!!! 

They did exactly the same when we argued that our Local Plan should contain a residential parking standard suitable for a rural area with little or no public transport system.  No, Mr Two Jags John Prescott (WHO???) wanted 1.5 parking spaces maximum and that's what we got stuck with!  Just one of his many crimes against the English countryside.

The big worry now, is that the government will shift their focus from improving planning performance, where all councils are currently 'encouraged' to meet the minimum national targets for determining each particular type of planning application, over to how many planning appeals are won or lost.

If this change of emphasis does happen, it could easily encourage council managers to put pressure on their planning departments to avoid loosing appeals at all costs, even where the proposal is sub-standard in design terms.  I am now going to renew my efforts to get a comprehensive design guide put in place before any changes happen.  It's not rocket science - plenty of other councils have managed it and are probably winning appeals because of it.

Money is available for the provision of a community centre at Wygate Park.  however, community interest is uncertain at the moment and we need to think about how to move things forward. 

To help me guage community interest in this issue, please take part in a very short survey by clicking on the link below.  Thank you very much for taking the time to participate.  Also, if you are interested in being involved please contact by sending me a comment to this blog entry. 

Click Here to take survey

Sorry for the entry title, but I was beside myself with anger this morning having read the story about multiple (legal)wives attracting multiple benefits!  This has been decided after a 12 month study by a group made up from no less than four government depts.  No doubt those responsible for initiating this study, made sure it was populated by all the 'right people' (the ones that did all the right courses) so that they could get the politically correct result they wanted (needed?).

How much longer are the powers that be going to keep tip toeing around the unrealistic and unobtainable dream of creating a multicultural society?  I don't mind them trying, just don't do it by trampling on our British traditions, heritage and way of life and by changing the rules to suit everybody else but us.  Just for clarity, my comments are based on a hatred of unfairness, bias or favouritism - wherever these may occur.

Changing the rules that apply to your own citizens in order to placate those who intimidate and threaten you, is cowardice and a recipe for more intimidation and further threats.  I have no doubt that having read the Sunday Telegraph story today, some smart alec somewhere is already working out how he can prove that having multiple 'partners' should been recognised by the state and therefore also become the recipient of multiple benefits.

The Sunday Telegraph's editorial comment also points to the government's cowardice when it comes to standing up to a certain breed of fanatical bully now present in our Society.  The Bishop of Rochester, Michael Nazir-Ali went on the record in the Telegraph to raise his concerns about the way some Muslim communities are failing to integrate in to British society, thereby encouraging suspicion and hostility.  This brave individual has now received death threats from fanatics who accuse him of insulting the religion of Islam (a charge he refutes).  I suppose I should be glad nobody actually reads this blog, or I could be next!

So these fanatics will truck no challenging, questioning or dissent - their way is the only way! 

Are any members of our government laying down the law to these fanatics?  No chance, they're too busy being PC (and filling out their expense claims of course).

Following on from my previous entry, which was one of my more positive entries (can't be grumpy old man if you not moaning about something most of the time!) it would seem that having the Audit Commission visit the district council will be an even more expensive exercise in the future. 

I knew this government's inspection regime cost us (the council tax payer) money, they inspect, criticise, tell us to do better and then charge us for the privilage, but I hadn't realised that the cost had gone through the roof.  It would seem that the bill for South Holland in 2008/09 is to be nearly £126,000, based on a 14% hike in their fees.  This will then be followed by two further hikes of 8% a year (total 30%).  See the LGA response at http://www.lga.gov.uk/lga/aio/132302 - this suggests that the total hike over 3 years will be 33%.

The reason for these way above inflation increases is - and this is the really good bit - the government is reducing their grant!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Well I'm sorry, but I find it difficult to have any sympathy with such claims from these agents of central government control freakism. 

The commission's management need to receive the same response that local government does when we complain about yet another poor grant settlement - 'tough' - 'suck it up' - 'get more efficient' - 'find cashable savings' - yahda! yahda! yahda! -  and don't you dare try to raise council tax above x%, or we'll cap you and then force your council tax payers to pay the cost of rebilling them.  Well Audit Commission, welcome to my world!