A blog about Wirral Council, Wirral Council's councillors & officers
A blog about Wirral Council's public meetings, Wirral Council's councillors, Bidston & St. James ward and other public bodies on Merseyside
Hundreds protest about climate change and greenspaces before, during and after Liverpool City Region Combined Authority meeting
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How did Wirral Council councillors vote at a public meeting about the Hoylake Golf Resort/Celtic Manor Resort?
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Extraordinary Council (Wirral Council) 25th February 2019 Hoylake Golf Resort Part 1 of 5
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Mayor Anderson rejects plan for NHS cuts at packed meeting of protestors
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protest before Liverpool Health and Wellbeing Board (Liverpool City Council) 1st December 2016 (Cunard Building)
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Liverpool Health and Wellbeing Board (Liverpool City Council) 1st December 2016 Part 1 of 3
Last week I witnessed a large protest of local people angry at proposed changes to their National Health Service.
Despite a very large number of people with banners and a megaphone who came into the Cunard Building, unlike previous protests in Liverpool neither the local police (or even Liverpool City Council’s own City Watch) nor local newspapers appeared to be present.
In fact the protest was so large, there was not enough space for all of them in the Banquet Suite on the 6th floor where the public meeting was held.
Mayor Joe Anderson (of Liverpool City Council), Chair of the Health and Wellbeing Board and the Board rejected the NHS STP (Sustainability and Transformation Plan) emphatically and let some of the protesters address the meeting with their questions.
Clearly, the protests about this issue are getting bigger and the protesters louder.
Some are openly predicting an early General Election. At this point in time I see an early General Election as unlikely but the political outlook is very fluid.
It remains to be seen what happens next, Liverpool certainly has a long history of protest politics and of calling for political reforms.
The rise in racist abuse following the Brexit referendum is concerning and political uncertainty coupled with economic uncertainty mean that these are ideal conditions for civil unrest to happen.
The recent 2011 riots (at a time of anti-austerity protests) were sparked by the police shooting dead a black man in London. There is a concern that the rise in racism following the Brexit referendum could lead to history repeating itself.
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It is hard to know where to begin when writing about last night’s Council meeting of Wirral Council at Wallasey Town Hall to decide on the budget. Above is a photo of the demonstration outside the main entrance to Wallasey Town Hall protesting about Girtrell Court being closed.
Realising that councillors were bypassing this entrance and using the door by Committee Room 3, there was another protest outside that way in too.
The meeting started and within the first few minutes the petition item was reached. The Mayor asked Bernard Halley (pictured below with his son David) to present his petitions opposing the closure of Girtrell Court. His e-petition had 1,200 signatures (of those nearly a thousand were Wirral residents). There was also a linked paper petition with over six hundred signatories opposed too.
Bernard Halley said, “Both petitions begged this Council to keep Girtrell Court running until proper alternatives are established, costed, evaluated, consulted upon and proven to be adequate.”
There was a larger petition opposing the closure of Girtrell Court of 3,054 signatures. As this petition was of over 3,000 signatures, it gave the lead petitioner Paddy Cleary of UNISON five minutes to speak.
He gave a similar speech to the one he had made at the Cabinet meeting. Mr Cleary felt closing Girtrell Court was contrary to one of the 2020 pledges to protect the vulnerable and his opinion was that the proposed saving through closure would not save Wirral Council money but cost more money. Reference was also made by him to a proposal in 2011 proposed by Cllr Steve Foulkes and seconded by Cllr Phil Davies to stop the closure of Council-run care homes.
He expressed concern about the quality of care in the private sector and added, “At a time when users, their families, the public and staff see press stories of the frivolous use of taxpayers’ money, we implore you to look in the mirror, look into the eyes of those people in the balcony upstairs and tell them hand on heart how there is better provision out there.
We know you can’t do that and as such we urge you to fully drop this proposal. Thank you for your time.”
Although petitions of over 3,000 signatures can be debated for fifteen minutes, a decision was made to debate Girtrell Court during the budget debate instead.
Each of the political parties on Wirral Council with more than one councillor had a slightly different policy in their budget about Girtrell Court.
The Labour budget proposed closing it, subject to a later decision of the Cabinet Member Cllr Chris Jones and Director of Adult Social Services Graham Hodkinson.
The Conservative budget removed the need to close Girtrell Court by finding savings elsewhere instead. Three of the proposed areas for savings (amongst others) the Conservatives proposed were removing the free taxi service for councillors to and from the Town Hall, deleting the Executive Support Officer post held by Martin Liptrot and reducing the Council’s press, marketing and destination management team from fourteen posts to eleven and a half.
The Lib Dem budget stated this on Girtrell Court, “Council believes that the closure of the Lyndale School and the anguished debate about the re-provision of services at Girtrell Court underline the need to work closely with service users and their families. Council has a duty of care to ensure their concerns are fully addressed.
In the case of Girtrell Court, Council requests that the Director of Adult Social Services and the Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care and Public Health produce regular reports to Members. These must set out how a range of sufficient quality alternative services is to be achieved. Members would be failing in their duty if they were not to seek assurance about the quality, availability and capacity of the
alternatives.”
You can read each party’s budget in the supplementary agenda (Labour’s is pages 12-24, Conservative’s is pages 25-35 and the Lib Dem budget is pages 37-40).
Around three hours after the meeting had started, despite many heartfelt pleas about reversing their proposed closure of Girtrell Court, there was a vote on Labour’s budget and the amendments proposed by the Conservatives and Lib Dems.
The amendments proposed by the Conservatives and Lib Dems were lost (due to Labour councillors voting against them). The Labour budget was agreed (due to the majority of Labour councillors on Wirral Council).
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Greenpeace protests about John West outside Merseytravel’s HQ with a giant tin of tuna
The plaza outside Mann Island in Liverpool has seen many protests. There have in the recent past been a trade union protest about worker’s rights on this £1.2 billion contract signed by councillors on the Merseyside Recycling and Waste Authority to deal with Merseyside’s rubbish (exclusively published by this blog) and more recently another trade union protest about removing guards from Merseyrail trains.
Although industrial correspondents seem to have disappeared from the media, as a political journalist reporting on political protests is part of the role. As you’d expect I’ve seen many protests (in fact nearly every Liverpool City Council meeting I went to earlier this year seemed to have a protest outside) but never have I ever seen a protest involving a massive tuna can.
Greenpeace did send me a press release, however I haven’t based this story on the press release but instead some questions posed to Greenpeace instead as there are already other stories in the media based largely on the press release.
You are probably wondering what the connection is to the Merseyside taxpayer. A long time ago, Merseytravel moved its headquarters from Hatton Gardens and signed a lease for Mann Island. For some reason (don’t ask me why) they rented the whole building at Mann Island including many floors they wouldn’t need.
I posed some original questions to Greenpeace and these are their answers. I was at Mann Island yesterday for a public meeting, but due to the protest Mann Island was in partial lockdown so it would’ve been impossible to speak to John West to report on their side. My questions are in bold.
Q. The building you were protesting outside today is leased by a body called Merseytravel. However they realised they had leased too many floors and needed tenants.
In order to encourage John West to sublease some of the building from Merseytravel they offered a cash payment and a rent free period. This amounts to either £1 million or a rent free period of 4 years and 9 months. There is more detail here http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/merseytravel-hands-1m-sweetener-john-3346198 .
Did you know about this taxpayer support that was behind John West’s HQ being based at Mann Island?
This looks interesting but it’s not something we have a position on I’m afraid – as our focus is on the sustainable and ethical fishing methods of John West and their owners – Thai Union – who are the world’s largest tuna company.
Q. You state that John West have broken their promises. Are there other brands of tuna you’d recommend consumers buy that are fished for sustainably?
Yes, we have a tuna league table which ranks the tinned tuna sold by the UKs major supermarkets and tuna brands, according to how sustainable and ethical it is. It’s here – scroll down. Overwhelmingly, the most sustainable options for consumers are supermarket own brands. Waitrose, M&S, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Aldi all perform very well. So too do Asda, Morrisons and the Coop – all of which sell 100% sustainably caught tuna in their own brand tins. At rock bottom is John West, with just 2% sustainably caught tuna in their tins. Princes and Lidl also need to do much better and change the way they source their tuna.
Q. What is John West’s response to your protest? As someone who was in the building today, it was basically put on a partial lockdown in case protestors wanted to go to the John West part. Have you had any formal response from John West?
There has been no response from John West today as a result of our activities. We tried to deliver our petition containing the names of more than 70,000 people who are demanding that John West honour its sustainability commitment and its owners – Thai Union – clean up their act globally. But Paul Reenan, the John West MD refused to come down and accept it.
John West has put out a previous statement, responding to the launch of our campaign just over 4 weeks ago. The main points they raise and our rebuttals are here.
Q. If John West made claims that turn out to be false have you taken this up with trading standards?
A Greenpeace investigation found 1000s of John West tuna products coming from Thailand and some of them had 100% traceability labels on tins that were misleading. This is because they claimed the tuna could be traced back to the vessel that caught it, using their website, but this was false. More on that investigation here. It’s an interesting angle and it’s definitely something that could be looked into.
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