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Launching National Tree Planting Week

Stoke-on-Trent Lord Mayor, Cllr Derek Capey, accompanied by the Lady Mayoress, Mrs Joyce Capey, scored a goal on Wednesday to mark the Packmoor Millennium Green's launch of National Tree Planting Week. For the 8th successive year, the Millennium Green Trust together with Packmoor Primary School, which borders the Green, has hosted the Lord Mayor, planted trees and celebrated their importance with a special Tree Assembly in the school hall. Both the headteacher, David Clarke and the chair of governors, Stephen Mansell, are Green Trustees and indeed the school has incoporated the maintenance of the Green within its school grounds maintenance budget.

It was the head's idea to plant two trees this year that would form goalposts. Two mature trees at the other end of the Green have served as goalposts for many years and so the idea emerged to establish a pair at the school end of the playing area so that parking cones could be returned for their original use!

We hope the trees are sufficiently protected from the doubtless bashings from balls not quite on target for scoring. The Lord Mayor, a handy sportsman in his younger days not only inauguarated the newly planted Norwegian Acers (same as the mature ones at the other end) by cutting the ribbon between the posts with pupils from the school and former pupils now attending neighbouring Maryhill High and James Brindley High, but he also scored the first of many hundreds of goals that will be scored there over the coming decades!

The tree assembly which followed was presented by pupils from Year 6 to a packed hall of pupils' relatives and friends, guests and some of the school's pupils. As ever, the importance of trees and recycling was exceedingly well presented by young people clearly delighted to be performing the important message. Congratulations and thanks to them and to their teachers for all the hard work they must have devoted to making the performance such a pleasure to experience.  

Would they work?

One of the top ten ward issues is invariably speeding. Speed cameras are only available after several deaths and speed humps or other deterrents cost a small fortune and their effectiveness with the real culprits is doubtful.

So would the apparrent opposite to bumps, er, pot-holes work?

 

 

 

 

 

          It appears seductively a much cheaper approach!

The downside, presumably, is that speeders would swerve to protect their tyres and possibly more multi-pileups would result than would otherwise be the case.

Dolly & Ted

I read Dolly & Ted last night immediately my wife brought it back from a school's Autumn fayre where the author was helping on a bookstall. In fewer than 80 pages Valerie Fleet has captured the enchanting innocence of her childhood holidays with her uncle Ted, the lock-keeper on the Weaver Navigation at its junction with the Manchester Ship Canal. While students in Paris and London and elsewhere flexed their physical as well as their ideological muscles, Valerie was growing up and her holiday diaries for 1968-69 form the narrative of this beautiful and delicately drawn picture of her activities and thoughts, joys and sadnesses. It is an incredible achievement to have encapsulated such a richness of her late pre-teen years, where purposeful messing about in and around boats on the Weaver impress so vividly and visually: this would translate into a wonderfully lyrical short film where childhood is free from television and computer games and all the inhibiting paraphernalia of health and safety regulations. But protection there was, particularly from the direct reality of death. "I wasn't allowed to go to the funeral in case it upset me." reminded me of how at about the same age I was "advised" not to see my dear, dead Granny. The protection parents perceived in fact developed an unwelcome distance: "I looked at a wreath that I had not chosen and a card I had not written." Dolly and Ted will bring joy and tears to many a reader. People around the world, wherever they grew up will surely be captivated by this wonderful little book of a childood enthralled in innocent pleasures.

By the way, I notice the book is available via Amazon. Dolly And Ted by Valerie Fleet, published by Vanguard Press, 2008. ISBN 978 1843 864 523  £7.99

Friday 21st November 2008

Slowly does it

A week and half has elapsed since the first meeting of the government appointed 13-person Transition Board and still no word about how the Board proposes to communicate with the Council coporately or with councillors. Someone might convey to Michael Clarke, the chairman, that this is not the best way to establish a good working relationships with elected members many of whom are, to say the very least, deeply suspicious of the Transition Board's objectives. An obvious priority should have been to establish mutually acceptable lines of communication. The longer the Board prevaricates the deeper the suspicions become. Clarke's Governance Commission's report and subsequently, the minister John Healy MP, suggested an urgency about responding to the Report's 14 recommendations.

As is so often the case with the government's utterings, layers of tufty rhetoric have to be peeled away to discern a kernel of reality. In this case, the earlier huffing and puffing of hurry and purpose has slid behind a haze of secrecy and silence.

Someone might also remind the minister and his board we councillors are real people elected to real power...with of course, as ever, abject apologies to Hazel Blears MP and her favourite bedtime story, the Bumper White Paper Annual: Real People, Real Power.   

Thursday 20th November 2008

Plans to extend SERCO's stay

The latest issue of the Council's Forward Plan includes a report to be presented at the Elected Mayor's Board on 3rd December 2008 to extend SERCO's contract running the Children & Young People's Directorate. SERCO has been responsible for considerable disquiet, unrest and damage amongst communities in the City outraged by key aspects of their plans for the restructure the City's High schools. Hazel Blears MP, minister for communities and local government called her recent White Paper concerned with local democracy: REAL PEOPLE, REAL POWER. Every time real people attempt to speak with the real power holders in the City about the schools' issue they are, at best, treated with condecension and at worst, contempt.

There seems to be an enormous chasm between what the government pretends to advocate (real people having real power in the communty) and their actual practice of sending in dicatorial agents!  

Whoever is responsible for putting forward the proposal to extend SERCO's stay would do well to reflect upon the enormous political controversy any such proposal will generate. It would be more than insensitive to pursue such a policy initiative during this unfortunately lengthy interregnum; it would be shere folly. Between the 23rd October referendum decision to end the dictatorship of the unelected Council Manager and the advent of a democratic executive system on 8th Jne 2009 is far too long a period to remain as things are. However cloaked with a pretended veneer of democratic legitimacy, the de jure position remains absolutely clear; it is the unelected Council Manager/Chief Executive that makes the decisions, not the pretenders draped with the august titles of portfolio holders. 

The only possible way to ameliorate the situation and stave off either widespread political outrage or political impotence would be for the Council Manager to offer to establish a politically proportionate advisory working group. That would permit the presentation of a cross-section of political views and render redundant the divisive coalition cobbled together by the elected mayor in a desperate but vain attempt to hang on to power.

We are constantly being told that we need vision and leadership. Well, there is a vision and a lead so over to you Council Manager.      

Tuesday 18th November 2008

Demolish and be damned

The Council Executive have published in their latest Fordward Plan the intention to demolish a landmark C19th building which has figured in the lives of thousands of people, past and present, residents, relatives and staff. Westcliffe Hospital, latterly a residential home for the elderly, has been closed now for a number of months. Its brick and mortar structure has changed its purpose in line with shifting social views and political solutions. Originally it may well have presented a daunting facade to those trudging towards it to be swallowed within as paupers in the work-house. Opposite, amidst a patch of grassland amongst the '70s housing estate remain still some of the graves of residents of that work-house. It would seem that the Executive wish to spend £1.2m of the Housing Capital Programme budget to demolish the historic building. What I need to find out is if our officers have considered alternatives to wholesale demolition vis a vis preserving historic fabric, reducing our carbon footprint, eliciting challenging new-build design to sit alongside the historic fabric and so on. None of this is to declare a positon: simply to explore some obvious questions. It is to be hoped that the officers' report will set out in some detail these various options.

Monday 17th November 2008

End failed experiment at end of year

The 23rd October referendum result clearly showed the people of Stoke-on-Trent want to be rid of the elected mayor and council manager system. Had they been given the choice they would also have said they want to be rid of the elected mayor sooner rather than later.

To combat the political inertia, the organisational break-up and the increasingly frustrated residents labouring under the "take it or leave it" attitude of the ruling coalition action, urgent action, is required.

If Labour's elected mayor Mark Meredith really cares one iota about the development of our City he will end the coalition's crippling crises of confidence inflicted on thousands of innocent residents who deserve far better from their City Council. We know, unfortunately, that we are stuck with the present system and the present elected mayor until June next year. The effects of the regrettably long wait could be eased if the elected mayor facilitated a transitional administration, drawing on experience and expertise from across the Council Chamber, regardless of party affiliations or none.

The City desperately needs fresh, insightful and decisive leadership; the global financial crisis has already affected the local housing market and it is increasingly affecting the local employment market. This is not the time for following government diktats to hive of our council employees into some privatised adventure to stimulate an office building spree for the private sector.

The private sector has demonstrated most markedly how quickly it races to the public sector, the government, you and me, for cover and support when its own grasping folly leads to the collapse of its unsustainable system. Even Peter Mandelson, friend of the rich oligarchs, realises the privatising folly of the government and has saved the Post Office system from certain collapse by insisting that the Post Office retains the card system.

To avoid escalating crises of confidence in the City Council, top level changes must be introduced early in the New Year. The planning for those changes should start now.

Saturday 15th November 2008

The burdens and blunders of bureaucratic power

I went to the New Vic theatre last night to see Halifax based Northern Broadsides' production of Dario Fo's 1970 comic, satirical, and poignantly timeless Accidental Death of an Anarchist at the New Vic Theatre. Deborah McAndrew has brilliantly translated and transposed the play to England from Italy. Fo had been inspired by an actual death of an anarchist in police custody. His characters attempt various webs of deceit to conceal and deny their terrible involvement but this is no ‘70s raw, crude, in-your-face agi-prop political drama. Like Lear's Fool, the Maniac exposes and expresses extremes, stretching reality to imaginative limits, then letting go, dropping "his" characters back into their awkward, awful predicament, only to embark on yet another creative cover up!  As long as we tolerate the burdens and blunders of bureaucratic power, Fo's witty and incisive expose will both entertain and evoke reflection on the inequalities and iniquities of power.

The tour ended this evening in Stoke-on-Trent but it moves on to the Mart Theatre, Skipton (20-22 Nov), Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough (25 Nov - 20 Dec), The Stables, Milton Keynes (23 Dec - 11 Jan) and then the Greenwich Theatre, London (13-18 Jan). If you can reach any of those venues you will be guaranteed a 5* experience.

Friday 14th November 2008

Community care for the elderly

The maze that is the menu of community care for elderly people is complex enough for many to find their way around, but searching for appropriate help is often blocked by piles of criteria which for far too many people blocks any hope of help they may have entertained. Too many of this government's changes in the name of increased choice are little more than a veil for privatising our valued public services and cutting the level of provision in the process. Nowhere is this more evident than the provision for elderly care in the community. How on earth can someone unable to do their own shopping, surviving on a state pension, afford to pay £11 per hour for someone from Age Concern to do their shopping? Congratulations to the North Staffs Pensioners' Convention which has just published their excellent report, The Long and Winding Road. In just ten pages they provide a crystal clear picture of the pitfalls elderly people must navigate to attempt to access the help they need. It is the result of a careful, detailed two-year research project undertaken by a specially established group. I am sure it will make people stop and re-think the present system of service. The report's 8 key findings underline the urgency for action:  
• That people find Health and Social Care systems is very complicated and hard to understand-particularly by isolated older people in need of care who are often in no fit state to negotiate their way through the system.
• The whole system of care seems to be constantly changing, and we consider there is a need for an ongoing and regularly updated ‘Ethel and George Diary' to make it clear to people what services are available.
• There is a need for a simpler and more user friendly system of care that is accessible to all people.
• The NHS complaints system is very confusing to most people and needs to be made clearer.
• There is an unmet need for advocacy services.
• The value of groups such as this to aid development of policies and procedures for Health and Social Care, which allows people who the services are deigned for to have a meaningful input.
• Yawning gaps between health and local authority professionals rhetoric and reality, leaving people without the care they need.
• Need for this work to be ongoing to allow continuing engagement and involvement.

Thursday 13th November 2008

Consultation City

Full Council approved two things today. First, we accepted the result of the 23^rd October city-wide referendum, the result of which was to end the elected mayor system in the City in favour of a Leader and Cabinet model, the leader to be elected by the 60 councillors at the Annual Council meeting. That will be held next year on 8^th June - month later than the usual May local elections since the government wants local elections and the Euro elections to be held at the same time. Until then, the current elected mayor, Labour's Mark Meredith remains in office, making for an unfortunately long lead-in period to the new system.

Secondly, we approved a consultation process to gauge public opinion, both residents and business people, on the issue of moving from councillor elections in each of three successive years with the fourth year being fallow, free of elections. Councillors are elected for a four-year term, but not all at the same time. One third of the councillors are elected in each of the three successive years. The justification for this, I was always told, was to avoid any sudden, wholesale change. Mmmm but what if the voters want a sudden, wholesale change? Tough!

With only a third of councillors being up for election in any one year, it is easy to see that the balance of power in the Council Chamber is difficult to change. It is likely therefore that little changes and so reinforces the widespread perception that there is little point in voting because nothing ever changes. Also, many people are genuinely confused. After each election in which I was not a candidate seeking re-election a goodly number of people in my ward have thought I was no longer a councillor because my name did not appear amongst the elected.

These two issues along are powerful indictments of the present election by thirds each year. These factors I am sure have been major contributors to the growing disenchantment and disengagement of people, leading to low voter turn-outs.

Opponents of the all-out election every four years claim it denies voters regular "health checks" on councillors. But if you really think this one through, it doesn't do anything of the sort. Whether I am elected in an all-out election or as one of the third as at present I am still elected for four years. In other words, the voters are stuck with me for four years!

We had no choice this afternoon: before the Council can vote on changing to all-out elections every four years we are required by law to undertake a consultation process.

 

Wednesday 12th November 2008

Residents unanimously want Green Belt preserved

Some 90 residents attended the first public meeting called by the recently rejuvenated Packmoor Residents' Association - the biggest residents' meeting held in my Ward for many a year. Congratulations to the newly formed, committed and hardworking committee members who made sure every house in their RA area received a flyer for the meeting. Police Community Support Officer Andy Wootton was a huge success. He has an excellent public speaking skills and it was good to join in the enthusiastic applause he received for the tremendoulsy energetic and conscientious work he puts into the area. It has produced some really positive outcomes. there was no shortage of volunteers be trained for the new community speed detection project which will be introduced along four of the area's streets early next year. Where the project has been launched in the City, speeding motorists, although not an extinct breed, have been drastically culled. Residents are hoping that will be the effect in our area too.

Not one person present wished to see any development on the last piece of area of Green Belt within the RA area. I reported that the developer who held a consultation event at Packmoor Community Centre on 8th October had told me that they realised their proposals had not met with a great deal of suppport and would hold a further consultation in the near future with revised proposals. The chair asked the meeting to indicae their views and after a question and answer session they unanimously opposed to any develoment.

I took the opportunity to appeal to all present to encourage dog-walkers on the Green Belt land to clean up after their dogs. Additional care and attention to the mowing of the area has markedly transformed are area into an increasingly attractive undulating grassy open space. There are three public footpaths across the area and it is even more crucial now that people clean up for their dogs and refrain from dropping litter. I asked the land owner several years ago to sell the area to a village charity. It could be further enhanced, with trees, benches and improved path surfaces but so far the owner has not agreed.   

Tuesday 11th November 2008

Remembrance Day at Megalith Memorial for V.C.

At 11am for the eighth successive year, former Grenadier Guardsman, Robert Bostock of Kidsgrove, laid a wreath at the Hollington stone megalith memorial which honours Grenadier Guardsman John Rhodes who was awarded the VC  posthumously in 1915. I selected the stone in the quarry at Hollington, near Cheadle, Staffordshire, in early 1999 to be the centrepiece of the Packmoor Millennium Green. Packmoor was a mining village just inside the Stoke-on-Trent city boundary but there is no longer any visible sign of the area's coal heritage. John Rhodes was a miner at the nearby Chatterley Whitfield colliery - now a major English Heritage site - prior to joining the army in the First World War. Representing all of the pupils who observed the silence in school, eleven children from Packmoor Primary school, adjacent to the Green, released red balloons symbolising the ubiquitous battle field red poppy. In the main hallway at the school is a permanent display commemorating John Rhodes' bravery and supreme sacrifice.

Monday 10th November 2008

Postal voting abuses

Three cheers for the three Birmingham City Council leaders, Tory, Lib Dem and Labour,  who have backed their fellow member, Respect Party's Cllr Salma Yaqoob, in calling upon the government to end postal voting on demand. Cllr Yaqoob argues that postal voting has compromised the principle of the secret ballot, failed to boost voter turnout, led to widespread fraud and has actually disenfranchised some people, usually Asian women. Earlier this year, a report for the BBC Midlands TV Politics Show  revealed how Asian women were effectively robbed of their vote by being told how to vote by their male Asian elders. Cllr Salma Yaqoob believes the corruption of the on-demand postal vote is not confined to Birmingham.

I would add another factor to those serious problems: the issuing of postal ballot papers more than a week before polling day seriously shortens the campaign period by that amount of time. We have plenty of evidence that postal ballots are completed and returned almost immediately. The consequence, particularly for independent candidates and those of small parties (even those of the "mainstream" parties now that their foot-soldiers are so thin on the ground) is that it is practically impossible to distribute election literature in the time allowed.

I have never believed making it possible to vote while lying in bed enhances the democratic process one iota. Postal voting should be strictly reserved for those with a genuine and relevant disability that would prevent them reaching their polling station. Low turn-outs have nothing to do with idleness to get out and vote but everything to do with being politically disengaged. That's the politicians' fault; we should not seek easy procedural solutions but on the contrary address the causes of the disengagement. 

Remembrance Sunday 9th November 2008

War Memorial Remembrance Day Service

As usual I attended the Remembrance Sunday service in my Ward at the Brindley Ford Methodist Church this morning. After the initial hymn inside we walked out into Outclough Road, the main A523 which passes through the old mining village. Each year, the police kindly provide officers to divert traffic so that we can mark the poignant act of remembrance with the traditional two minutes silence, the layingof wreaths and prayer, standing in a semi-circle across the road. This granite war memorial, unveiled and dedicated on April 13th 1923, stands only inches away from the edge of the busy main road. Slightly protected by its elevated position, three steps up from the road, it is practically inaccessible for school visits but a suggestion some years ago that it might be removed to a safer site generated considerable opposition. And so, its original pre-war quiet location is now all but cordoned by heavy traffic, although admittedly, since the introduction of speed cameras at either end of the village, traffic generally does not exceed 30MPH. 

Saturday 8th November 2008

Minister approves flawed schools' restructure

In the Commons on Tuesday afternoon, schools' minister, Jim Knight, signalled his approval for the exceedingly flawed proposals for the City's high schools' restructure. No surprise there. I'm afraid people have come to expect their widespread views being ignored by a government that constantly claims to listen to the people. What a farce!

The silver lining in this cloud however, was the robust editorial in Thursday's local daily newspaper, The Sentinel. "There's still time for our local elected representatives to accept that the reorganisation is not wanted in its present form. They should insist that Serco starts again." The editor ought to have added what he well knows to be the case: I along with other councillors HAVE tried various ways to persuade the Labour elected mayor and his Labour/Tory/Lib Dem coalition to think again. The last Full Council lasted 6 hours, in no small part due to the unremitting but failed attempts some of us mounted to win a vote to get a rethink. I "called-in" the decision months ago but after several hours of presentations and deliberations, the Children & Young People's Overview & Scrutiny Committee, predictably, lined up in their coalition formation to vote down my call for a rethink and supported the elected mayor's ill-conceived plan produced by his private company, SERCO, running our Children & Young People's Department.

There are councillors within the Labour group who are to say the least uneasy about the proposals. There are some who are as opposed to school academies as I am. (Incidentally, The Sentinel could have reported on the one-day conference on academies some of us organised in the City on 13th October.) And, it may be that given the opportunity to debate and vote again in Full Council, they will excercise their consciences. After all, their leader, elected mayor Meredith was well and truly rejected in the 23rd October referendum and will be gone by law at the beginning of next June. Some of us will be generating such an opportunity quite soon. Let's hope we see some principled political action. Thousands of parents, pupils and teachers across the city are waiting anxiously.

Wednesday 5th November 2008

Cash on Delivery

Nothing seems to daunt the Newcastle Players. Many an amateur group would think twice about putting on this, the first play written by Michael Cooney, son of famous dad, Ray Cooney. As director James Freeman writes in the programme: "This plot is unusually complex for a farce. It juggles ten characters in ever-stickier coincidences, double entendres, close calls, mistaken identities and unexpected twists." It's a potential minefield for major on-stage disaster but not in the hands of the Newcastle Players. The director has an excellently cast troupe - each seems perfectly made for their part - and they duck and dive their delivery (at times literally!) with a natural professional flair. Not for these experts of the amateur boards, contrived and awkward posturing nor disjointed delivery that dents and cracks many an amateur production. The same can be said of the set; it doesn't stick out awkwardly or starkly beacuse it is so well conceived and fit for purpose. And as ever, the Newcastle Players know well how to use the whole set with a fluency that matches their delivery of the lines. Comedy, especially farce, is not particularly what I seek at the theatre; King Lear and the Duchess of Malfi are more my idea of "entertainment" - high tragedy, plenty of deaths and not a little food for thought. Mmm. Well, last night, it wasn't long before I was smiling quite frequently followed by the odd involuntary chuckle and by the interval I had actually laughed a time or two. In the second act I was laughing quite uproarously; I really most get a grip.

Hearty congratulations to everyone at Newcastle Players for such a wonderfully fun-packed production.    

Tuesday 4th November 2008

Trim the fat and cut the crap...

I was invited to speak at the monthly meeting of the North Staffs Pensioners' Convention yesterday morning. Strengthening Democracy in Stoke-on-Trent was my theme. My original sub-title was: Rhetoric or Reality but thought a recent headline for a Simon Jenkins' Guardian article: Trim the fat and cut the crap made the point more strongly.

So, what did I say? In a nutshell, so we've won the vote to get rid of the elected mayor system, now we have to show that we can develop a far better system and we haven't got m uch time for laying the foundations. The City Council's new constitution has to be ready for debate and approval on 29th January 2009. That's not many weeks for such an important task.

We are faced with three principal issues: i) establishing democratic structures and processes within the City Council; ii) building democratic engagement with residents; iii) developing a positive relationship wit the minister's Transition Board.

The Governance Commission's Report devoted 6.5 pages to its first 13 Recommendations and 2.5 pages to its 14th and final recommendation, the establishment and role of the Transition Board. That alone indicated the importance attached to the Transition Board. It can have a maximum of 15 members, appointed by the minister. 13 names were announced at the end of October. The Board's task is to receive and comment on the Council's action plans which show how the 13 recommendations are to be implemented. The Board may comment publicly and must report directly to the minister twice a year.

A negative, defeatist view might be to see the Board as having a licence for potential irresponsibility, ie to openly criticise the democratically elected representatives and to appear to be a rival to the elected council. If it goes down that road or even appears to be thinking about such a move then I imagine there will be all-out political mayhem in Stoke.

A negative, deafeatist view might also dismiss the Board as being unrepresentative of local communities, being top-heavy with faith leaders, academics, business people and executives of so-called voluntary organisations. Well, let's face it, the minister can appoint whomever he wants...and has done so.

Of course the minister missed the opportunity to demonstrate a positive response to the central point of the Governance Commission's report - the over-riding urgency of re-engaging the people in civic affairs. Not for him to appoint real people for real power!

If we don't like it, then we could facilitate the establishment of a People's Board, with people from communities from right across the City, people involved in real community action fighting for real political control. Hazel Blears, MP, minister for Communities and Local Government launched yet another government White Paper in July called REAL PEOPLE, REAL POWER. Of course, it's cheap and easy to keep spinning out the rhetoric while making sure real people don't get what they really want!

This is particularly poignant today when schools minister Jim Knight MP announced in parliament this afternoon that he had approved the City Council's plan for restructuring our High Schools...despite widespread unease, disquiet and clear opposition to key aspects of the restructure such as the closure of certain schools and the impositon of school academies.