Why are Merseyrail staff striking on the 8th April?

Why are Merseyrail staff striking on the 8th April?

Why are Merseyrail staff striking on the 8th April?

                                            

Cllr Steve Foulkes (middle) answers a question about the Merseyrail strike (L to R Cllr Chris Meaden, Cllr Steve Foulkes, Cllr Moira McLaughlin and Cllr Ann McLachlan) Birkenhead Constituency Committee 30th March 2017
Cllr Steve Foulkes (middle) answers a question about the Merseyrail strike (L to R Cllr Chris Meaden, Cllr Steve Foulkes, Cllr Moira McLaughlin and Cllr Ann McLachlan) Birkenhead Constituency Committee 30th March 2017

The end of the Birkenhead Constituency Committee had the air of an Agatha Christie’s Poirot, as I asked a question about Merseytravel, Merseyrail and the upcoming strike.

Indeed in Cllr Foulkes’ answer he mentioned the death of Georgia Varley as one of the reasons behind the new trains which will only need a driver.

However perhaps with those with long memories will know that a long time ago I asked a question to Cllr Foulkes about Wirral Council’s treatment of disabled people (which led to Bill Norman advising councillors not to publish the draft Anna Klonowski Associates report).

Although there is a strike timetable for Saturday and some timetable alterations for the two days before, as Merseyrail staff wouldn’t cross the picket lines last time, Merseyrail had to stop all trains during the last strike on the network from running at all.

My question (in two parts) is below:

Q. Wirral Council pays millions to Merseytravel each year for concessionary travel passes for free travel on the buses, trains and ferries.

One of the train stations nearest to where I live Bidston is only accessible by going up a flight of stairs, over a footbridge and down another flight of stairs.

Other train stations in Birkenhead such as Birkenhead Park and Upton have stepped ramps which can also cause problems.

A link is included in this question to a legal case from 2004 in the Court of Appeal which decided that providing taxis is not a reasonable adjustment and that train stations that were not accessible for wheelchair users were therefore discriminating against disabled people.

Who therefore for the stations listed above (Birkenhead Park, Upton and Bidston) is the body that should make these stations more accessible (for example Merseytravel, Merseyrail, Network Rail, Arriva Trains Wales)?

Would you also like to comment on the reasons that have led Merseyrail to go on strike recently, with a further planned strike on 8th April (timed to coincide with the Grand National)?

Thank you.


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Birkenhead Constituency Committee 30th March 2017 Public Questions

Both Cllr George Davies and Cllr Steve Foulkes are Labour councillors in Claughton ward where there is a contested byelection due to the death of Cllr Denise Roberts. There is also an election for Metro Mayor across Merseyside who will be directly accountable to the people for these sorts of decisions as ultimately the decision to purchase new trains was made by the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority.

If people would like to comment on the candidates’ policy positions on this (or other matters) in either election, please feel free to leave a comment.

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Merseytravel councillors agree to push for ½ hourly service on Bidston Wrexham “Borderlands” line

Merseytravel councillors agree to push for ½ hourly service on Bidston Wrexham “Borderlands” line

Merseytravel councillors agree to push for ½ hourly service on Bidston Wrexham “Borderlands” line

                                     

Bidston Train Station (Borderlands Line) 13th August 2016 (John Brace)
Bidston Train Station (Borderlands Line) 13th August 2016 (John Brace) Photo taken by Leonora Brace

A public meeting of councillors on the Merseytravel Committee (part of the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority) last month considered a report on enhancing services on the Borderlands Line between Bidston and Wrexham, as well as an Executive Summary of the Borderlands Line Service Enhancements Economic Appraisal Report.

Three councillors from the Wirral (Cllr Steve Foulkes, Cllr Jerry Williams and Cllr Les Rowlands) each spoke on the item, which you can watch starting at the 24 minutes 20 second point in the video below.

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Merseytravel Committee (Liverpool City Region Combined Authority) 28th July 2016 Part 2 of 2 (Enhancing Services on the ‘Borderlands’ Rail Line starts at 24:20)

The Merseytravel Committee agreed to work with the Welsh Assembly Government to push for a twice hourly service, to set up a joint steering group with the Welsh Assembly Government and to develop a realistic project plan to:

a) improve the line,
b) introduce a bus-rail interchange in the Hawarden Bridge area,
c) enhance intermediate stations (such as Heswall and Upton) to make them more convenient, attractive and accessible and
d) to look into a potential new station at Woodchurch.

Future reports on progress are expected to be made to the councillors on the Merseytravel Committee.

Attending the public meeting was the Chairman of the Wrexham Bidston Rail Users Association John Allcock. When asked for a quote for WBRUA’s views on the decision by the Merseytravel Committee he wrote, “The WBRUA welcomes the Merseytravel Committee’s decision to support the enhancement of the Borderlands Line. This railway has been a Cinderella line for many years but has the potential to be a significant part of the transport network in our area and benefit the communities and businesses it connects.”

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VIDEO: A round-up of local Wirral and Merseyside politics by John Brace (part 1)

VIDEO: A round-up of local Wirral and Merseyside politics by John Brace (part 1)

VIDEO: A round-up of local Wirral and Merseyside politics by John Brace (part 1)

                                                            

Screenshot from Youtube video of John Brace
Screenshot from Youtube video of John Brace

Below is a transcript of a video I’ve recorded about a range of local political matters. I’ve added some extra detail which I don’t say on the video in [] brackets and of course links to more detailed stories. I realised when I finished recording that I’d been talking for nearly eighteen minutes. It’s about a variety of local political issues.

At the time of publishing this blog post the video has been uploaded to Youtube, but is still processing at Youtube’s end.

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John Brace on local Wirral and Merseyside politics (part 1)


JOHN BRACE: Hello, I hope you can hear me clearly. I’m John Brace and I’m going to be filming a series of videos as due to the half term holidays next week, there’s a shortage of public meetings.

So, I thought I’d start off by looking at one of the bigger stories on my blog this week.

That was about what I said at a meeting of the Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority to the Chair Cllr Dave Hanratty and his response about councillors’ expenses.

I suppose I’d better briefly explain what the situation is regarding councillors’ expenses and allowances.

Councillors on the Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority are entitled to claim expenses for instance for travel to public meetings and each year they’re supposed to publish a table detailing each councillors’ name and how much has been spent over the year in expenses for that particular councillor in various categories.

In fact that’s a legal requirement, a very basic level of transparency.

However unfortunately what Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service was doing was, where they received invoices directly rather than councillors claiming back expenses they’d incurred themselves, where trips were booked through Capita, train travel that kind of thing, Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service were invoiced directly but this wasn’t appearing on the actual annual lists so that about £6,000 or so of expenses were being left off. So I have been pointing this out over the past few months.

There’s also the issue that councillors get paid allowances and on this National Insurance and presumably things like income tax were paid. Now those amounts weren’t included in the annually published lists either.

I did ask Councillor Hanratty earlier, I think it was the day before yesterday whether these amounts would be included in future, didn’t get an answer.

Asked a question about this at the Birkenhead Constituency Committee, told it was a matter for Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service/Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority.

I think they don’t want to give me answers on this, I think they hope I’ll just stop writing about it and move on to other things. After all I think there are far less councillors getting a taxi from home to the public meetings now since I started publishing what these expenses were for.

Anyway, another news story that’s seems to be popular on the blog is that Merseytravel’s Chief Executive David Brown is leaving. I think he’s leaving from some time next month to become Chief Executive of Transport for the North. Obviously that’ll be news for people that work at Merseytravel and I suppose you’re wondering what Transport for the North is!

Well it’s a new kind of regional body that’s been set up regarding transport matters and eventually it’ll become like Merseytravel is and the Combined Authority a statutory body. So I wish him luck in his new job and I think the Deputy Chief Executive Frank Rogers will be Acting Chief Executive until councillors decide on who the permanent Chief Executive should be, which should come to a future meeting in the future.

Anyway, another thing I’ve written about on the blog recently is to do with the whole Lyndale School closure matter. Now for those who have been following this story this is probably going to repeat what you already know, but Wirral Council officers said the reason the school had to close was that from 2016/17 which is the next academic year, that funding that they’d get for education from the government would be based on pupil numbers rather than place numbers.

Now at the moment I think there are about forty places at Lyndale School and about must be a dozen or so pupils. So basically they were saying that from next year, there would be a shortfall in Lyndale School’s budget.

But this hasn’t happened!

The Cabinet still decided to close the School, but the funding changes haven’t happened, Wirral Council will get the same funding as they did the previous year.

However despite them getting the same funding, they have actually made cuts from the SEN budget because there is flexibility at Wirral Council in that they can move money around within the education budget. They’ve still got to spend it on education, but they can move money around from say that allocated for teaching assistants for special educational needs to something else within that education budget and one of the things that’s been causing pressures on the budget is that they have a massive contract, I think it’s about half way through thirty years or something.

I’ve read through the contract and it’d take too long to go into here, but it’s a contract with Wirral Schools Services Limited for basically to rebuild a number of schools, but as well as the payments that relate to that there are also payments of millions a year I think that the schools have to pay this private company for services to do with the schools. For instance I think school meals is part of it, possibly cleaning and maintenance.

So the situation had been that Wirral Council was getting a grant from the government for some of this, but the contract meant that the costs were rising each year for PFI.

What was happening was, this money was being funded outside the education budget by Wirral Council. But then a political decision was made [by Wirral Council councillors] not to do this, which meant that a few million had to be cut out of the education budget elsewhere.

Hence why special educational needs got a cut, but again one of the other interesting twists and turns that came out in the Lyndale School saga is that the whole issue of whether the School should be closed or not seemed to arise around the time there was a revaluation of the land and buildings.

Off the top of my head I think the valuation was about £2.4 million [it was actually £2.6 million]. I’d better make it clear at this stage this is a what they call a technical, what’s it called, depreciated replacement cost value. It’s not a they send in an estate agent and they say how much would would we get for this and how much would we get for the school playing fields and so on?

No, it’s more they have to have on their asset list, a list of how much their assets are because obviously as a Council they have liabilities, they have to offset that with their assets.

But it’s a great shame what happened regarding Lyndale School, it’s not closed yet, it’ll close at the end of the academic year, but I think it could’ve been handled a lot better.

Obviously there’ve been recent revelations come out that the person that chaired the consultation meetings on the Lyndale School closure wasn’t in fact a Wirral Council employee, but is a what do you call it, a temp, a temporary worker because they couldn’t recruit somebody to the post [for £775+VAT/day].

He’s called Phil Ward and the problem was that, there was quite a bit of criticism levelled at him for the way he chaired the consultation meetings. Now obviously you can criticise anybody for chairing high profile consultation meetings. I’m sure there were criticisms of how Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority did their consultation meetings.

But moving back to Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority, the Saughall Massie issue, it was agreed by councillors on the Fire Authority to go ahead, they’ve agreed the four or so million pounds in the capital budget and a planning application has been submitted.

Now I’ve checked on Wirral Council’s website and I can’t see a planning application there yet but obviously they have to scan it in and put it on the website for consultation so people can make their comments and so on.

The other issue is there was a vote recently on whether Wirral Council should give the land or they may get something for it I don’t know, maybe they’ll give it to them, should give this land to Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority for this new fire station in Saughall Massie.

Now, that was a five for, five against vote with one abstention so it got deferred to another meeting.

Now obviously it would be better if Wirral Council could make a decision reasonably quickly but I understand the point that councillors made at the meeting, that they felt they were only hearing one side of the argument and that they hadn’t got the information in front of them regarding the emails that had been released under Freedom of Information Act requests, they hadn’t heard the Fire and Rescue Service’s point of view because nobody had been invited along from the Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service and basically better decisions are made by politicians when they have the facts in front of them and they don’t like making decisions if they’re going to be made fools of later when it turns out there’s something they should’ve known or was in the public domain.

An example of that New Brighton car parking Fort Perch Rock fiasco. Now that went out to budget consultation, was agreed by Cabinet, was agreed by Council but what wasn’t known at the time was that Wirral Council had a lease for the Marine Point complex and that lease said that if Wirral Council introduced car parking charges at Fort Perch Rock, that they could be introduced in the car parking elsewhere there and Liverpool Echo journalist I think it was Liam Murphy got in touch with the company that runs the Marine Point complex and they said yes they’d have to introduce charges because obviously if Wirral Council had introduced charges at Fort Perch Rock car park then it would’ve displaced some parking to the free parking elsewhere, so then they’d feel they’d have to introduce charges themselves, but once these matters came out then there was a U-turn done on it and they decided they’ll make up the budget shortfall somewhere else.

But that goes back to my point about politicians having the information in front of them so they can make reasonably informed decisions. Now the reports that go before officers, sorry politicians whether that’s at Wirral Council, Liverpool City Council, Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service, Merseytravel and so on are written by officers. That is employees of the particular public body that the politicians are politicians for.

But there’s a question of, officers can have a particular point of view and make a recommendation and therefore ask the councillors to approve it, but officers aren’t actually going to know everything, but where do the public fit in all this?

Because of course in an ideal world, like for instance the Planning Committee yesterday where the public gets to speak for five minutes if they’ve got a qualifying petition. In an ideal world, if you were making a decision, say a major decision about a fire station being built, well that’s two decisions really, it’s a planning decision and whether Wirral Council give them the land. When you’re making a major decision like that, then not only should you have some sort of consultation with the public and by consultation I don’t mean publishing the papers for the meeting a week before, although that does give some advance warning so people can lobby the decision makers.

I’m talking about that people who are affected by the decision should have their say at a public meeting and I know there’ve been consultation meetings, that the Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service have run and that’s fine. But what I’m saying is the ball’s now in Wirral Council’s court, there has to be the usual consultation on planning applications, but it’s a very emotive issue.

And I think basically if I can sum up the positions, Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service have received a grant for some of the cost of this fire station and of course with the West Kirby and Upton fire stations being closed, they’ll receive something for the sale of those but basically they want to build it now in Saughall Massie because the site in Greasby has been withdrawn.

But the problem is that this is greenbelt land and there’s a lot of resistance from the residents regarding a fire station there.

Now in the not too distant past Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service did put in a planning application for a temporary fire station in Oxton while Birkenhead Fire Station was being rebuilt. I know that was later withdrawn but that caused a similar level of fuss and outrage and politicians saying they were against it and so on.

But the problem was that was only a temporary ~12 month arrangement, eventually they found some way round finding somewhere else. But the same issues that were brought up then, have been brought up regarding this Saughall Massie issue, you know the issues regarding sirens, traffic and so on but I think the elephant in the room really for Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service is that a number of the fire stations they’ve got are part of the PFI scheme, so they can’t close those without massive penalties.

I mean I think Birkenhead Fire Station is one example of one of the fire stations they’ve got under this PFI scheme.

So there are fire stations they can’t shut, so that leaves if they want to make any budget savings, for instance through cutting jobs and merging fire stations, they’ve only got the ones that aren’t the PFI fire stations that they can choose from.

And that’s part of the reason why Upton and West Kirby got chosen.

But I think one of the things that has currently got the public going, is that after there was pressure put regarding the Greasby site, that the offer of Greasby where there’s a library and community centre there was withdrawn and people are asking why Wirral Council isn’t doing the same thing with Saughall Massie?

Well basically these are decisions yet to be determined, it’s a party political matter because three political parties involved in the last decision on this voted three different ways, but I can see a problem because firstly Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service can’t keep Upton and West Kirby open. They just don’t have the budget for the amount of firefighters that would take.

Now one alternative is, just keep Upton open, now the downside to this according to the Chief Fire Officer is that this would increase response times to the Hoylake and West Kirby area, so that’s why they want somewhere roughly in between the two stations.

However then people raised the issue of Upton’s close to Arrowe Park Hospital, so it’ll take longer to get to there so wherever you have a fire station there’ll be people that have a quick response time and people that have a slow response time.

But the fire engines aren’t always at the fire station all the time, I mean about half the time they’ll be called out on a job, well maybe a bit more than that, they’ll be out somewhere else and that can’t really be predicted where they’d be at, whether they’d be fitting a smoke alarm or something like that.

So there are a lot of issues to do with the Saughall Massie fire station and basically I’ll be reporting on it, but at the same time I think it’s interesting seeing both the Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority meetings and the Wirral Council meetings and how this issue has been dealt with at both of them.

Of course if the government hadn’t offered Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service a large grant to build a new fire station there, then I doubt this would’ve gone ahead, admittedly they could’ve borrowed the money or found the money from somewhere but I think that what’s interesting is I did make a FOI for the grant application that they made to DCLG, was told that this information would be published in the future so I couldn’t have it now and I’d have to wait till after the consultations were finished and by that they didn’t just mean the Upton and West Kirby consultations but they meant the other consultations because this grant is not just for a fire station at Saughall Massie, there are similar consultations and mergers and closures happening elsewhere across Merseyside.

So hopefully that will sum up things and I’ll point out that tonight at the Wallasey Constituency Committee, I won’t be there but I noticed because I read through the reports and the agenda, that the Motability, they have a little place in Birkenhead that hires out wheelchairs and things like that are looking to set up a place in New Brighton, so people can hire wheelchairs and that kind of thing.

So that’s a possibly positive move for New Brighton, because I know there’s been a lot of criticism at New Brighton and a large petition over the dropped car parking plans.

Anyway I’d better finish for now, but thanks for listening.

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Why did Councillor Blakeley ask councillors to block a fire station in Saughall Massie?

Why did Councillor Blakeley ask councillors to block a fire station in Saughall Massie?

Why did Councillor Blakeley ask councillors to block a fire station in Saughall Massie?

                                          

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Wirral Council’s Regeneration and Environment Committee meeting of the 15th September 2015 (Part 1 of 4) who discussed a notice of motion about a proposed new fire station in Saughall Massie

Yesterday evening’s meeting of Wirral Council’s Regeneration and Environment Committee was well attended by members of the public.

There were also many councillors from the ruling Labour administration to see what was happening first hand.

Many members of the public were there to see what happened on a vote on whether the land at Saughall Massie (owned by Wirral Council) would be blocked from being gifted, leased or sold to Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service for a new fire station.

However let’s start at the beginning.

The sole Lib Dem councillor at the meeting was running late so the Committee started the meeting with just the Labour and Conservative councillors. The first item was declarations of interest.

Councillor Steve Nilbock (a Labour councillor) had to declare a prejudicial interest in the Saughall Massie fire station item as he’s a member of the Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority. This meant he had to leave the room during that item and not take part in the vote.

Councillor Anita Leech (a Labour councillor and Chair of the Planning Committee) also declared an interest in the Saughall Massie fire station item as although no planning application has yet been made she may have to make a decision on it in the future.

Councillor Jean Stapleton (a Labour councillor) had to declare a prejudicial interest in the Saughall Massie fire station item as she’s a member of the Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority. This meant she had to leave the room during that item and not take part in the vote.

So that was three Labour councillors that couldn’t vote (as they wouldn’t be in the room).

The Chair then announced he would be dealing with item 4 (proposal for a fire station on green belt land in Saughall Massie) first due to the large numbers of members of the public present.

Although he was reminded he had to first approve the minutes, he pointed out he hadn’t been at the last meeting so someone else would have to propose approval of the minutes.

At this point three Labour councillors (Councillors Niblock, Leech and Stapleton) had to leave the room (having each declared a prejudicial interest) and took no further part in the discussion or vote on the Saughall Massie fire station issue.

At this point the Lib Dem councillor on the Committee, Cllr Dave Mitchell arrived and apologised for being late.

Wirral Council - Regeneration and Environment Committee Policy and Performance Committee 15th September 2015 - Councillor Chris Blakeley in the foreground explains his notice of motion on the Saughall Massie fire station
Wirral Council – Regeneration and Environment Committee Policy and Performance Committee 15th September 2015 – Councillor Chris Blakeley in the foreground explains his notice of motion on the Saughall Massie fire station

The Conservative councillor for Moreton West and Saughall Massie, Cllr Chris Blakeley (in the foreground of the photo above) was then invited to introduce his notice of motion (which had been referred by the Mayor to this Committee at the Council meeting on the 6th July 2015).

At this point (and I’m trying not to take sides on what is now a party political issue) and as this issue has had many decisions and press coverage over the years, I will feel it would be better to just quote his speech (and declare an interest as he mentions me twice in it). The Chair told Cllr Chris Blakeley he would have ten minutes (although the procedural rules on notices of motion agreed by the Coordinating Committee earlier in the year (see rule 17) don’t give any time limits at all).

Councillor Chris Blakeley (a Conservative councillor for Moreton West and Saughall Massie) said,

“Thank you Chairman, Members, I’ll try not to take up ten minutes, but I have to say it’s an improvement on Council which comes to only seven minutes! So if I do use the ten please forgive me but I will try and keep it as brief as I can.

Thank you Chairman and Members, first of all can I put on record my admiration for the work Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service do and make it clear that this Notice of Motion is not an attack on them. This is simply saying that while the Chief Fire Officer may believe the closure of Upton and West Kirby and building a new fire station on green belt land in Saughall Massie is his only option, the residents of Saughall Massie have made it very clear that they do not want their green belt developed with this or any other development.

As you will see on the Notice of Motion it states that there has been massive public opposition to this proposal which now has risen to over twelve hundred signatures and is growing daily. Also there’s opposition from Saughall Massie Village Area Conservation Society and the Wirral Society and the Chairman of the Saughall Massie Village Area Conservation Society is here tonight.

Sadly however, the proposal for a fire station at this location on our precious green belt appears to have the support of the Labour Party on the Wirral or at least its candidate in this year’s local election who made it very clear in his paperwork and his election address when he said in a leaflet, "I’ll be calling on the Fire Service to guarantee any design for the new fire station is sympathetic to the neighbourhood and will minimise disturbance to the residents of Saughall Massie."

Sadly this begs the question, has Wirral made up or already made up its mind and that’s very difficult to see?

Chairman and Members, the Chief Fire Officer says he has to have a site that is near to the midpoint of West Kirby and Upton as possible in order to give him the best response times.

On response times there’s a little bit of confusion there because at all the public meetings I went to the Chief Fire Officer said about response times and at other public meetings he said let’s not get hung up on response times. So I’m very concerned that the message that’s going from the Chief Fire Officer were to say the least mixed and confused and I don’t think anybody at any public meeting got the same words other than we need this fire station.

So it’s to give him what he says the best response times for West Wirral residents, the protection he believes is necessary.

Yet Chairman, for the last two years, West Kirby he says because these are his words has only been operational for 50% of the time and so he’s covering West Wirral from Upton without any problems and has been for the last two years!

In fact firefighters I talk to on the doorstep told me for all intents and purposes West Kirby Fire Station is not operational at all and of course what about the most at risk site if he moves from Upton which is Arrowe Park Hospital?

The response times to that vulnerable site will be extended, so why the need to move a mile at a cost of over £4 million?

Assuming the Chief Fire Officer is right and they need a new fire station for whatever reason, why does it have to be on our precious green belt? A green belt that has, kept by this Council, has historically defended to the hilt, green belt that according to the very eminent Doctor Hilary Ash, Honorary Conservation Officer for Wirral Wildlife and the Wirral ??? and Cheshire Trust who says the proposed site is used as foraging for barn owls who are nesting on the north side of Saughall Massie Road, who says that bats are feeding here, who says that kingfishers were reported here, who says that if some of the green belt is lost here it would affect these species of protected wildlife along the corridor along there.

Surely this Committee and Council do not want to be responsible for neglecting its biodiversity duties?

Moving on, it’s come to light there’s been an ongoing string of emails. I’d like to thank Mr. Brace for this, because he got all these emails and I will say a long string of emails as you can see. These are them here so thank you Mr. Brace for your tenacity in getting those emails.

The emails are between senior fire officers and senior council officers, including senior planning officers. Therefore it’s no wonder that local people perceive that this is a done deal!

Look Chairman, Members for the avoidance of doubt I’m not saying that there has been any deal at all, I’m simply expressing views said to me by many residents who I represent and given the evidence who can blame them?

One of those emails was from Kieran Timmins. He was Deputy Chief Executive, I hear he’s retiring, I don’t know whether he’s quite gone so I’ll refer to him as the current Deputy Chief Executive of Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service and Council.

Officers talked about sites that had been discounted and sites considered in more detail. According to Mr. Timmins’ email, six sites were considered in more detail, however according to him there were only two runners left. Saughall Massie bypass, which is not the green belt site currently proposed and the library community hub site in Greasby.

Now having had the Greasby site withdrawn by the Leader of the Council, one has to ask why the other frontrunner, their second choice of Saughall Massie bypass described by Mr. Timmins as owned by Wirral Council and looks quite positive based on recent correspondence, was not then turned to. Instead a brand new green belt site, that has never been in the mix previously.

This site which we’re talking about tonight, has never been in the mix until Greasby was withdrawn. Where and how did Council officers suddenly identify a brand new site?

And this isn’t a case of NIMBY [Not In My Back Yard]ism, the site in Saughall Massie Road at the bypass is still in the north-west of Saughall Massie ward. The site at Saughall Massie Road/Upton bypass, like the Greasby site is not in greenbelt and while it’s wooded I checked with Council officers, there are no tree preservation orders on any of the trees. In fact one senior Council officer said the site would already have its own perimeter buffer with the trees that are already in situ.

So Chairman and Members here is a Council owned site that is not in green belt, that is described by Mr Timmins as looking positive. So the Chief Fire Officer’s assertions that there are no alternative sites is clearly is incorrect.

Now I know that the Committee raised earlier this is something that Wirral Planning Committee should a planning application be submitted, however this Committee can act before that in sending a message to Council and the Fire and Rescue Service that this Committee recommends to Council that this Committee asks Council to retain the protection of its green belt, as set by the Authority to stop inappropriate development, ask Council not to give, sell or lease the land concerned at Saughall Massie because of the value it has to the community and ask Council to continue work to work cooperatively with Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service in identifying and facilitating a more suitable site, for operational purposes and to maintain the amenity of local people.

And in closing Chair I will just say that site is available. It’s six hundred metres from this site we’re discussing tonight, it will add nothing or very little to the response times the Chief Fire Officer has been quoting, maybe fifteen or twenty seconds either way. Fifteen or twenty seconds closer to Upton, fifteen or twenty seconds further away from West Kirby and Hoylake.

And one final thing Chairman, that wasn’t in my initial thing but, given the floods we had last week and the horrendous scenes we had in Moreton, with over a hundred families displaced, that field, that green belt, was also underwater from the brook.

By building on that field, you’re taking away natural drainage, you are assisting the freak weather conditions that are becoming more and more frequent to flood that area.

So Chairman I would ask that this Committee fully supports the Notice of Motion that was put forward to Council but moved to this Committee and sends those messages back to the Council.

Thank you for your time Chairman and Members.”

Continues at Labour use casting vote to delay decision on Saughall Massie fire station land.

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Which councillor claimed £72.05 for a dinner?

Which councillor claimed £72.05 for a dinner?

Which councillor claimed £72.05 for a dinner?

                                                            

Cllr Leslie Byrom Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority meeting 30th June 2015
Cllr Leslie Byrom Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority meeting 30th June 2015

 

Above is Cllr Leslie Byrom, Vice-Chair of the Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority. He is one of the Labour representatives from Sefton Metropolitan Borough Council. Some readers may recognise him as the councillor who chaired the public meeting when councillors decided to close Upton and West Kirby fire stations.

Last year he submitted an expense claim to Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service. You can see this expense claim and the accompanying receipt below.

Cllr Leslie Byrom expense claim September 2014 page 1 of 2
Cllr Leslie Byrom expense claim September 2014 page 1 of 2
Cllr Leslie Byrom expense claim September 2014 page 2 of 2
Cllr Leslie Byrom expense claim September 2014 page 2 of 2

So, as you can see from the above the hotel receipt is for one night bed and breakfast (£100) and dinner (£72.05) which comes to a total of £172.05.

On the claim form however, despite Cllr Byrom signing a declaration that “I declare that I have actually and necessarily incurred additional expense” this £172.05 amount becomes £180. Someone has reduced the value of the claim £180 to £172.05.

Dinners costing £72.05 are of course technically within the expense claiming rules as if you read page 202 councillors can claim up to £180 for a subsistence allowance for stays in London.

However under the expenses system had Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service paid his accommodation directly, Cllr Byrom would’ve only been allowed to claim up to £47.81 for meals (a daily allowance of £56.82 minus £9.01 for the cost of breakfast).

As to whether spending £72.05 on a dinner is necessary. On an earlier stay at the same hotel, Cllr Leslie Byrom’s dinner was only £45.70 (see below).

Cllr Leslie Byrom hotel invoice February 2014
Cllr Leslie Byrom hotel invoice February 2014
Cllr Leslie Byrom expenses February 2014
Cllr Leslie Byrom expenses February 2014

As you can see he didn’t claim for the cost of the £45.70 dinner for that trip, but someone at Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service has increased the value of the claim to include it anyway!

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