Peter Kent-Baguley

FEGG HAYES/CHELL HEATH MASTERPLAN STEERING GROUP

To say that the RENEW housing programme has encountered problems across the City would be an understatement! Unfortunately, it seems to me that a number of officers are finding it difficult to learn from mistakes. This Masterplan Steering  Group is one of six, serving six separate peripheral estate areas in the City. To date, there is minimal evidence of a substantive, transparent, masterplan and still less evidence that this Group is actually steering anything. At yesterday's meeting, we welcomed two new co-opted members, both owner-occupiers of terrace houses in the Fegg Hayes "village", an area of four terraces, built in the nineteenth century to house miners at the Chatterley Whitfield Colliery, across the field, within sight of the houses.

They each articulated their concerns and frustrations - widespread anti-social behaviour in the form of dumping of rubbish in the gardens of vacant houses, rowdy consumption of alcohol by young people and vandalism of property; problems of damp associated with neglected, void properties; large numbers of empty, boarded-up properties undermining the streetscape and value of occupied properties. Culprit in chief? NOT the usual bevy of private absentee landlords but a major social landlord, STAFFORDSHIRE HOUSING ASSOCIATION (SHA)!

Why SHA? Because they own more than 80 of the properties and a large number are deliberately kept empty, some boarded up, others not, but all indicative of a deliberate abdication of their social landlord responsibility.

SHA admit the deliberate policy of decline and decay is not because they lack the funds. They lamely defend their stance by saying the future of the village is uncertain. Not until the condition survey is completed can they know if properties will be renovated or demolished! So this was holding them back from exercising their responsibilities five years ago before the energence of the Government's RENEW programme? Once they have the green light, their finances will be released, properties restored.

SHA deny they have a hidden agenda to have the terraces demolished. Yet their irresponsible inactivity during the past few years has been the principal contributor to the decline of the housing stock.

Not so long ago the Labour government was heralding DOUBLE DEVOLUTION - which roughly translated meant, I understand, that government would devolve more decision-making to grassroots community level. Tell that to all those hundreds of thousands of people who have lost the Post Office in their community! Tell that to the Fegg Hayes Village residents, worried sick by almost daily disorder in their environment and lack of certainty over their single, most important investment, their home!

I have initiated a walk-about in the Village, to take place within the next few days, to meet as many residents as possible and to record, property by property, calls for action. Both SHA and City Council officers said they would like to be involved. But the point is, why haven't they been doing it anyway?  

»3:06 AM    »2 comments (0 )     »Send entry    

   in: NEWS

BREAKING THE SILENCE

There has been a lack of information until now about the use of this weblog site during the run-up to the 3rd May 2007 local elections since I am a candidate in the Stoke-on-Trent City Council election. It now appears that I can continue to use the site provided the "published and promoted" tag line at the head of the site is shown and also that the link to the City Council has been cut.

This being the case I shall resume my daily postings from tomorrow.

»4:22 AM    »1 comments (0 )     »Send entry    

   in: NEWS

THE POTTERIES ALLIANCE LAUNCHED

We believe people not parties come first.

The People's Party has served its purpose in Stoke-on-Trent. We have contributed to a more challenging, more open, more constructive way of working. Last May we started the Council year with two councillors; we are concluding the year with five. I am one of the 20 councillors up for election on May 3rd. I am defending my seat in the Chell & Packmoor Ward and we are fielding candidates in other Wards too.

With seven different political groups on the Council, there has been a marked lack of political direction. I have been saying for the past twelve months that the City cannot afford such political drift.

Political parties, it seems, get in the way of councillors working together.

The largest group, the Labour Party group, do what they are told to do by Blair's government. Hence, residential homes for the elderly are to be closed (spun as people want to be cared for at home) and the secondary school new building programme stopped...until after the May 3rd election! You can bet the Labour government propose to impose school academies on the city, thus entrenching INEQUALITY OF EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITY. 

The Potteries Alliance believes in fighting for equality. We know we are not alone. As an alliance of councillors rather than a rigid party, where petty party rules and dictats from above are more important than local people's needs, we will continue to be open and honest in our analyses, evaluations and policy decisions.

The POTTERIES ALLIANCE will celebrate all that is good in the City's heritage; we are proud of the iconic image of the bottle oven  -  the logo for our Alliance  -  not only for what it represents of the past but what it symbolically indicates for the future; continued production of traditional and commercial pottery but also exciting, pioneering, contemporary ceramics as was so often the case in the past.

The POTTERIES ALLIANCE will actively seek out broadly like-minded councillors after the May 3rd elections, pioneer new dynamic ways of working which look at the issues, discuss the options - openly and honestly - and make decisions for the good of the City.

NEW NORTHERN BYPASS   -   ON-GOING RESIDENTS' CONSULTATION

Last Thursday, I met with a number of residents concerned about the possible loss of a footpath adjacent to their homes and various landscaping issues nearby as a result of the construction of the new Tunstall Northern By-Pass. This morning, I met with the City Council's Resident Engineer and the Assistant Director for Highways on site to talk through the various issues in detail.

Fortyfive minutes later we had agreed solutions to the fears and concerns of the residents. I shall include the details in my regular Leader's meeting with the Council's Chief Executive, Steve Robinson, tomorrow morning. Not only is the footpath safeguarded now, bit it will be re-surfaced in the same way as the new path to be introduced lower down the hill. I also secured full-landscaping treatment for an area not previously included in the works. As a result, the creation of a potential anti-social hotspot will have been avoided.

This is an example of the countless local issues within the Ward that I, like other Councillors, address. Conscientious Councillors have always done so. There is absolutely no need for the government's endless rhetoric and spin about how "local councillors" will be empowered by the new Local Government Bill currently going through parliament. Predictably, our Elected Mayor has jumped aboard the government spin train, trying to convince "local councillors" that they will get new powers. It's all so pathetically obvious that it is merely a smokescreen, albeit a pretty thin one, attempting to divert attention from the reality that councillors have been stripped of much of their decision making powers since the Local Government Act of 2000 - brought in by the centralising control freaks that make up Blair's Labour government. 

"Local councillors" (councillors are local!!) or increasingly "frontline councillors" and recently making their debut, councillors as "community champions"; how sickening all this PR spin really is! No wonder so many people have given up on politicians! The challenge to those of us who are sickened by such drivel is to rise above it and to expose spin and deceit whenever and wherever we find it.