Tim Ball

 As usual this Saturday 1^st December I will be at the Twerton Ward Surgery for Twerton Residents between 10am & 11am.

The Surgery will be at the usual place The Hut Hinton Close off Newton Road, We do not sit on ceremony and no appointment is required so if you have a problem or need to Chat something over then please come along and see me or my colleague Councillor Gerry Curran.

As it is nearly Christmas it will be the last chance this year to see your councillors face to face before the February Surgery as we will not be running one in January.

Residents can of course always ring or email and details can be found on the Twerton Bath site.

I have now voted in the Party leadership race and my vote has gone as last time to Chris Huhne.

I am proud that our Party has a one member vote that makes our system truly democratic. The revolution continues and who ever wins will take our party to greater heights.

I have asked the executive member for transport at Bath & North East Somerset Council to write to the rail authorities concerning the rail chaos in the mornings at Oldfield Park Station.
 
I am concerned that the events of Tuesday 13th November when I was waiting for a train to Cardiff that was late arriving. The 7.50am train arrived at about 8.10 and by the time it arrived 200 plus people tried to cram onto the train. Clearly the train that is on this run is not big enough to take that many people, although most got on some were left behind. The train was crammed full of people and when we arrived at Keynsham even more tried to board the train but many were left behind. The matter of standing is of course a problem and this train was so full that those standing would have been crushed if there had been an emergency.

I have asked that the council's executive member uses his influence on the Rail authorities to get extra carriages put on this service. The current service is not good enough and it is only a matter of time that some one gets hurt in the crush to get on the train.

Residents in Bath and North East Somerset set new records for domestic waste recycled in August and September.

47.56% of all domestic waste was recycled in August - an all time high record - whilst residents also broke the record for domestic waste recycled in the month of September, achieving a rate of 44.67%. Recycling Centre rates reached 73.17% and 69.67% in those months.

Twerton Councillor Gerry Curran was in charge of the recycling and waste collection for 4 years from 2003-2007 and was primarily responsible for the record that has been achieved.

Tim Ball say's "This is great news that the new records have been set, it makes the whole process that the Liberal Democrats started in the early nineties when the Liberal Democrats ran Bath City Council worth while".

It has come as quite a shock to find out that important highway Schemes in Twerton have been scrapped without local residents being informed.

Money put away by the Bath South area Committee when it was run by the Liberal Democrats has been deleted by the Conservative executive member for transport.

The Conservatives Scrapped the South area Committee when they took control of the Council with labour and independent support in May 2007.

Schemes that are affected by this decision are a new Lay by at Wedgewood Road which will now not be built and a scheme to provide off road parking at Freeview Road may also not now happen.

Local Liberal Democrats are horrified that the Tories are happy to put people's lives at risk particularly at Wedgewood Road where buses have to reverse back along a heavily parked road as they are unable to pass each other. During this many parked cars have been hit by buses.

The potential loss of promised off road Parking will be a blow to local residents who currently have no where to park apart from on the grass of which becomes very bogged down in the winter, and last year cars slid dangerously down a grass bank.

Councillor Tim Ball & Councillor Gerry Curran have supported a call in of the executive member for Highways decision to take important recourses away from Twerton. This means that the decision will have to go to a council's scrutiny committee in the near future where the executive member will have to justify his decision.

Please keep checking this blog as we will publish the date of the Scrutiny panel here so residents can have their say.

Councillor Tim Ball said: "This is a very short sighted move by the Conservatives who simply have no idea of what they are doing nor do they seem to care".