Mary Reid

David Cameron did a brief walkabout in Kingston this week, but I've only just caught up with the Sky News report on the event.

It begins badly (for Dave) with this comment about Kingston:

Kingston upon Thames is the sort of Council that should be right in the Tories' sight, but it now looks like it will stay out of reach.

The interview then goes further downhill (for Dave) as he gets flustered when the reporter asks him why he wants to change the Conservative Party.  In the end he and his aides part company with the Sky News team with some acrimony.

You can watch the whole thing here.

I've been curious at the levels of activity (or rather, inactivity) by the other two parties in Chessington North & Hook.

I have so far spotted only ONE Conservative poster and ONE Labour poster anywhere in the ward. 

The Labour one is interesting because it is in the house of one of the candidates for Chessington North & Hook, as you might expect. But next door lives another of the Labour candidates for this ward - and no sign of a poster!

Today I managed to get six new Lib Dem posters up in windows within quite a short space of time - and all at houses which have not displayed one before.

To my surprise, I caught sight of two of the Conservative candidates canvassing in the ward last weekend.  Surprising because I think the last time they sent anyone out on the doorstep in a local election here was during the by-election in the old ward of Hook in 1997, when I first got elected.  It was just a few months before the General Election so all the parties were using the opportunity to find out what the electorate was thinking.  Since then nothing.

Of course, they may have been phoning around instead.  I only phone people about the election if there is no alternative.  Fortunately this year the weather has been kind and I have not had to resort to the phone at all. I think people much prefer to meet us face-to-face.

For the record the results in Chessington North & Hook in 2002 were:

72% Liberal Democrat

21% Conservative

 7% Labour

In the last two years, Kingston has received over £40 million to improve school buildings.

£23 million will be used to rebuild Chessington Community College.

Classrooms at Chessington Community College
 

Concept sketch for new school

The plans will also provide joint sixth form facilities at Southborough Boys and Tolworth Girls Schools.  This means that young people in the area will be able to choose from a wide range of local courses when they get to 16.

Liberal Democrats have always understood that schools can be the hubs of their communities, so we are encouraging them all to open their doors to all ages. Chessington will offer unparalleled opportunities to make this happen.

Plans are also afoot to set up children’s centres in primary schools across the borough.  These will put the services that parents of pre-school children need – such as child care, clinics and parenting advice – all in one place.

The Liberal Democrat vision for services for young people can be read in our Manifesto for Kingston.

Liberal Democrats are calling on Charles Clarke to resign as Home Secretary.

1023 foreign prisoners have been released without being considered for deportation. And the Home Office has been aware of this for years.

You can sign the petition on the national Liberal Democrat website.

The BBC gives the background.

I've just got back from Kingston's Youth Achievement Awards. 

This is an occasion when we celebrate the contributions that local young people have made to society. The awards particularly recognise those who have had to overcome difficulties in order to achieve, so it praises qualities like persistence, enthusiasm, thoughtfulness and social awareness.

A record 85 young people were nominated this year, and all are to be congratulated on being recognised and nominated. They were all given certificates by the Mayor.

But a special 'Well done!' to the winners...

Caring: Jonathan Antonio

Educational Achievement: Maty Tshangini

Participation and Citizenship: Bruce Read and Alex Leith

Sporting Achievement: Dina Kalonji

Courage: Kimberley Young

The Surrey Comet has sponsored the awards since they began, and takes the opportunity to write some very positive stories about young people.  Watch out for the profiles of the winners over the coming weeks.

Parents in Kingston really value education. That is one reason why, over the last four years, Kingston schools have remained near the top of all the league tables.
 
Remaining at the top is just as difficult as getting there in the first place, but there is a real buzz in our schools.  In the background the council encourages and supports schools through its team of advisors. But it is the teachers, parents, and above all, the pupils, who have created success.

In 2005 year 67% of pupils in Kingston schools gained 5 or more high grades at GCSE, placing them sixth in the country. 

That is not the end of the story.  Schools are now subjected to the much harsher, but fairer, ‘value-added’ assessment. This is based on predictions made when each child is 11, looking at their SATs scores.  A score of 1000 for a council means that, on average, when the pupils got to 16 they lived up to their predictions.
 
In 2005 Kingston scored 1005.6. Only six other councils in the country got higher value-added scores.   

In Kingston all of the 50 schools have been graded at satisfactory or above in their most recent Ofsted inspections. We believe that few, if any, other councils can match that.
 
Our truancy rate is the best (that is, lowest!) in the country. Under the Conservatives, Kingston lay at ninth position in London alone.
 
The Government has recognised just how good the education is in Kingston by awarding it the top grades in the last inspection.  In fact, Kingston was one of only four councils to achieve top 4 star ratings for all its educational and social services.

You can read Liberal Democrat plans for young people and their families in our Manifesto for Kingston.
 

Look carefully at these two photos.  When were they taken?

OK, so the first was taken this month at the Cox Land Recycling site.

The second one was taken no later than January 2005, and possibly in January 2004 or 2003  You may recognise it as the photo on the Conservative manifesto, which gives the impression that it shows the current state of things.

How do I know that it was taken at least 15 months ago?  Well, last year the Liberal Democrats hired in a new contractor for our recycling sites, who replaced all the large blue bins that you see in this photo with black ones.  The discarded Christmas tree, still green, is a further giveaway.

We now have one contractor for all the recycled materials, instead of the separate contracts for paper, bottles etc that had been set up by the Conservatives. It is the new contractor's duty to keep the sites clean and tidy.  And people have noticed how much pleasanter they now are.

Yesterday a friend phoned me from a site because he was witnessing flytipping.  He had taken down the registration number of the van.  I passed the information on, the site was cleared and the owner may now face prosecution.  If you see dumped rubbish please phone the Council on 8547 5929. Better still, if you do spot the culprit then report the registration as well.

So I challenge the Conservatives to publish an honest photo of our recycling sites - and if they do happen to catch some illegally dumped rubbish then perhaps they could tell us how soon it is cleared up after they report it.

Someone asked me the other day if I was busy with an election coming up.  Most people have little idea of what is involved....

Fortunately in Chessington North & Hook we have a strong team, not just the three councillors, who all want Liberal Democrats to hold on to the ward and to control the Council.

Between us we publish Focus leaflets regularly, all through the year. This involves writing, printing, folding, bundling, distributing and delivering over 3,500 leaflets every couple of months.  There is always extra printing to do during an election - we want to present our achievements and aspirations, and we also need calling cards, letters and other literature.

Then during the election period we do some traditional door knocking.  I do enjoy chatting on the doorstep - we're out most evenings and at weekends.  All year round people contact us with specific problems or concerns that they want to discuss with us, but at election times we do get a chance to chat with everyone about issues in general.

Out door-knocking with (L to R) Ian, Edward Davey and Sue Baker

In the process we sometimes learn about new problems, which we try to deal with promptly, like all casework.

Ahead of polling day we have to sort out the tasks people will be doing.  It's a long day. Polling starts at 7am but some people like to get out even earlier to do an early morning leaflet drop.  From 7am to 10pm we provide tellers at each of the three polling stations in the ward.  Other helpers remind people to vote or give people lifts.

Throughout the election period we have to carry on with our jobs as local councillors and in whatever positions of responsibility we hold.  In my case that means that I still have meetings with council officers, schools and the public arising from my portfolio of Children and Young People's Services.

And many of us have a day job as well.... In my case, I'm currently proof-reading two books and trying to finish writing a third one.

Postal voting papers are being sent out today from Kingston Council.

If you have applied for one and it doesn't arrive in the next couple of days contact Electoral Services.

It's too late now to apply for a postal vote, if you haven't done so already.

It's surprising how many people only vote for one person in the local elections.  In fact, you have three votes.  My name will be the third Liberal Democrat on the ballot paper for Chessington North & Hook, so I'm a bit at risk here!

And some people number their votes in order of preference. Much as I would like to have this system of voting, you should still put crosses, not numbers, in the boxes.

Each time some ballot papers are counted as 'spoilt' even though the voters may have not meant to spoil them.  Papers are deemed spoilt if they contain anything that could identify the voter, or almost anything that is irrelevant. Stick with the crosses.....

Easter eggs are grossly overpackaged. So now we have to get rid of the card, foil and plastic packaging materials they came in - not to mention the chocolate (but that's the easy bit).

Managing our waste is a hot issue at the moment. We all know that we have to reduce the quantity of material that is being buried in landfill sites.

The problem is that although recycling has increased in the borough, so has the overall amount of waste we produce.

The mantra must be: Reduce - reuse - recycle

Reducing the amount of waste must be our first priority, but it's not always easy to buy unpackaged goods.

Kingston market is one place to start, provided we remember to take reusable bags and not accept plastic carriers. I buy cosmetics from Body Shop, because they use minimal packaging which can then be reused or recycled.

Reusing goods has been widely supported for many years by charity shops. 

One initiative that Liberal Democrats have introduced is Kingston's Furniture Re-use Project. It will take your unwanted furniture and pass it on to families who need it.

Recycling is the last step.  I've already mentioned the Council's free compost bins offer - 3000 have already been distributed. 

The Liberal Democrats have recently introduced the street recycling bins (right).

We have also added glass to the green box collections.

Plastic bottles, cans, newspapers and textiles can all be placed in the green boxes whilst cardboard can be recycled at one of the 30 recycling sites.

The recycling site in Cox Lane

So what about Liberal Democrat policies for reducing waste in the future?

We are currently tied into an existing waste disposal contract, but it comes up for renewal in a couple of years. We have been preparing for this opportunity by rethinking the whole way in which waste is managed.  There are several options, but we will gain greatest flexibility if we work in partnership with a contractor over a period of time. 

We are committed to including cardboard again in the door-to-door collections, after the Conservatives removed it.

We will also include bio-degradable materials, eg garden waste, in the recycling collections.

One thing we want to do as soon as possible is to change to weekly recycling collections.

We will also embark on a major awareness programme to encourage people to reduce, reuse and recycle more.

You can read our policies in detail in our Manifesto for Kingston: Cleaner, Greener, Safer.

Anyone living near Hook Youth Centre in Devon Way knows that for the last couple of months building work has been going on there.  That is why it will not be a polling station on May 4th, the Parish Hall being used instead.

In September, Hook Youth Centre will reopen as the Devon Way Centre with facilities for two groups of residents.

One end of the building will serve the needs of older active people, with classes, advice sessions and social activities.  The other end, with its own entrance, will be a vastly improved youth centre.

So it is rather surprising to read in a Conservative leaflet that they want to pull it all down and replace it with a 'small hospital'.

They are talking about the replacement for the Amy Woodgate Centre, which is a residential home for 40 people with Alzheimer's, and daycare facilities for others living at home.

For some time we have been discussing the location of two badly needed resources - a replacement Amy Woodgate Centre, and a local activity centre for older people.  The Hook Youth Centre was never considered as a possible site for Amy Woodgate, because it would mean tearing down an existing building and losing a Youth Centre. It is not possible to build anywhere else 'behind Devon Way' because the land all lies within the Green Belt.

The entrance to the Hook Youth Centre is via a single alleyway that is shared with Lovelace School.  When it is reopened as the Devon Way Centre activities will be planned so that they do not coincide with school arrivals and departures.  The Conservatives seem to think that this 'isolated site' and narrow access road could cope, as they say with 'the motor cars of people visiting the patients, by the buses taking daycare patients to and from the centre and by the transport of the staff running the centre'.

The Conservatives also think that the Hook Youth Centre is a poor location for an activity centre because it is 'a long way from public transport'. They clearly don't know that there is a K4 bus-stop just 100 yards away in Stormont Way.

It makes me wonder whether they have actually visited Devon Way!

The site that has been identified for Amy Woodgate is next to the Merritt Medical Centre, which is an ideal location. This has good transport links for visiting relatives, with rail as well as buses nearby. It also has the real benefit of a medical centre on the doorstep should that be needed.

Neither of us is much of a gardener, so it took us a while to get round to composting our food waste.  What finally got us going was the Council's compost campaign last year, when they gave away free compost bins to local residents.  Apparently over 3000 people took advantage of this.

They are repeating the offer during April. Bins will be given free to the first 500 callers. So if you'd like to do your bit for recycling, and benefit your garden at the same time, you can register by calling the Customer Care line on 020 8547 5567.

I'll be blogging more about the LibDem policies on recycling later.

I was out delivering our Focus leaflets in Hook Road this evening. 

It was raining, and I was pleased I had my usual Focus delivery bag with me.  It started life as one of those bags that you are given at a conference to carry all your papers. I've spoken at many e-government conferences over the last couple of years so I have built up quite a collection.  The best for delivery purposes are actually the ones made out of the cheapest materials because they are usually waterproof.  A separate pocket for mobile and keys also helps. 

I've got a few spare still if anyone wants one - but only in return for delivering some Focuses in Chessington North & Hook.

For all my commitment to electronic communications, most of my election campaigning takes place out on the street, talking to local people and delivering Lib Dem literature. This is good, old fashioned pavement pounding, and I enjoy it immensely.

It might even make me fitter.....

Kingston Liberal Democrats have published their manifesto for Kingston - Cleaner, Greener, Safer.

It's quite a long document, but we've deliberately spent time getting it right.  If the voters of the borough return us as the next administration then it will immediately form the basis for our policy programme for the next four years.

I wrote about The Bullwhips back in November. This is a small park tucked away behind Coutts Avenue, Sanger Avenue, Durbin Road and The Causeway.

Back then we met with James Ellis, the local police sergeant, and some local residents who were concerned about some anti-social behaviour, and I described in the earlier blog how he was dealing with it. His strategy had proved to be pretty successful.

Since then my fellow ward councillor, Sue Baker, has been working on some imaginative ways to make the park safe and attractive for people of all ages. 

The first signs of this are some sleepers placed as steps on the steep access from The Causeway. The areas on either side will be planted up.

Over in Coutts Avenue a kissing gate has been installed to deter riders.

We would really like to build a youth shelter in the park. That is a simple open structure with a roof where people - not just young people, as it happens - can meet and chat safely.

Do let me know of any other ideas you might have for The Bullwhips.

Anyone can have a postal vote these days - you don't need any special reason.

So if you would find it more convenient to vote by post in the local elections in Kingston Borough on 4th May then you can find information and a downloadable form on the Kingston Council website.

Your application for a postal vote must reach the Electoral Registration Office at the Guildhall by 18th April.

Yesterday David Miliband blogged about Business Improvement Districts. Being very proud of the one we have in Kingston, I tried to post a comment on his blog.  It read:

The first successful BID in the UK was in Kingston upon Thames.  You can read all about it on their website on www.kingstonfirst.co.uk.  It grew out of a well-established partnership between the Liberal Democrat run Council, the local town centre management and the local business, large and small.

Comments are moderated, and I then received an email:

Mary -

 

Thank you so much for your comment on the blog. I'm afraid that as we state on the blog, because it is hosted on a departmental website  we are not able to post any party-political comments.  If you would like to resubmit the comment without the reference to the 'Liberal Democrat run' council we'd be happy to post it - feedback is really important to the success of this project.

 

Thanks.

I checked the Terms and Condititions which state:

This is a Government website and comments used for party political purposes will be removed.

I have since posted another comment with the offending term removed, and that has now appeared.

So stating a fact - 'Liberal Democrat run Council' - is deemed to be using the comment for party political purposes.

Now Miliband is a politician for whom I have a great deal of respect.  But he too is subject to the interpretation of the regulations that appear to have been imposed on him by ODPM lawyers. In essence, he is not allowed to mention the Labour Party in his own blog!

Compare this with my blog. Here I can be proud of being a politician, and can write about my party's achievements and aspirations. I am also happy to post comments (when the comment moderation system works properly! - a bit of a technical problem at present) that put opposing political points of view.  See this as an example.

I have blogged before about the political paradox :

...on the one hand political activity is seen as necessary for a healthy democracy, but on the other hand all traces of it have to be obliterated by the very institutions that it serves.

David Miliband is to be applauded as the first senior minister to write a blog.  It is concise and well written - and appears, to his credit, to be all his own work. I'm just so sorry that he has not led the way in giving a properly rounded account of his life and beliefs.

For the record, there is a discussion about this very point elsewhere in his blog. 

Interesting that David Miliband blogs approvingly about Business Improvement Districts in the US. But he doesn't mention that the first BID in the UK was in Kingston - known as Kingston First. 

I'm sure he would have been happier if BIDs had been pioneered by a Labour council!

Where the local businesses have voted to create a BID they then pay a 1% surcharge on their business rates. This extra tax is fed back into the BID for them to use, as they chose, to improve the environment and encourage trade.

Today I chaired the last Board meeting ever of the Local e-Democracy National Project.

Last night we had been presented with a trophy by Jim Fitzpatrick MP, the Local Government Minister.

Not quite the official photo ... with Jim Fitzpatrick and Isobel Harding, the National Project lead

The occasion was a dinner in the stupendous Painted Hall at the Old Royal Naval College, Greenwich, to mark the end of the whole Local e-Gov programme.

What a venue....

Presenting the 'Ships of the line' - stunning chocolate desserts

But of all the projects, ours is the only one to be given a future, by morphing into the Centre of Excellence for Local e-Democracy.

Thanks to Griff Wigley, our inspirational blog coach, for the photos.

Nominations closed yesterday for the local elections on May 4th.  This is quite a complicated business because four separate forms have to be completed for each candidate and the wording has to be absolutely accurate. 

As I wrote a while ago, Ian, Sue and I are standing again in Chessington North & Hook for the Liberal Democrats.  Our agent collected the signatures of ten local residents who proposed, seconded and nominated each of us.

It's always interesting to see who is standing against us, and who has nominated them. We have known some of them for years. I never disparage people for becoming politically active in other parties - a shared interest in the good of our communities far outweighs any differences in policies.  

You can see all the nominations on the Council website.

So Thames Water is imposing a hosepipe ban from today.  They haven't yet written to me, as a consumer, to tell me.

Now I know we have had two very dry winters, although ironically we have had quite a lot of rain in the last few days.

I am happy to do my bit to conserve water. I can clearly remember the problems in the drought year of 1976 when in parts of Wales the water supply was only turned on for 6 hours each day. It made us all realise how precious our water is and how much we take it for granted.

But what is galling is the fact that one third of the water that Thames Water stores is lost through leaks in the pipes.  The Government really must sort this out. How can we possibly believe its green credentials if it allows this appalling wastage to carry on?

OK - so they were all genuine.

But Condoleezza Rice and Jasper Carrott?

1. Not long ago the local fire brigade was called to Chessington to rescue a cat stuck high up a tree. The ladder was duly lifted and scaled but the firefighter couldn't get close enough to reach the animal.  A rescue vehicle with a long ladder was brought all the way over from Croydon.  The ladder was erected, the firefighter climbed up, only to find that the cat was, in fact, a perfectly contented squirrel. 

"They'll be asking us to rescue cows from fields next", said a spokesman for the London Fire Brigade.

2. A bus driver from Chessington was arrested for kerb crawling (in another part of London) ... in his red double decker bus.

3. The Mayor was visiting a Chessington primary school, dressed in all his finery. His macebearer, who in his spare time did a magic act at children's parties, carried the superb Kingston mace. Together they explained about the regalia and then asked if the children wanted to ask anything.

"Please," asked one child,"why does the Mayor need a magician?"

4. A ball of fire over a metre in diameter was seen floating above a road in Chessington last year.

5. Green parakeets have taken over some gardens in the area and have driven indigenous species away.

6. Someone broke into Chessington World of Adventures and stole a pair of rare Diana monkeys.  Eventually the police traced the thief and recovered the animals unharmed.  Headline in the local paper read "Primate Suspect Held" 

Spot the April Fool...