Bidston & St. James Focus – Labour suggests reading it

As recommended for reading at a public meeting last week by Labour below is a link to a recent Bidston & St. James Focus. September 2010 issue with articles on free swimming, benefits advice, Birkenhead Park Festival of Transport (other editions had an article here about a carer’s event, Action on Eyesores and Wirral’s Future … Continue reading “Bidston & St. James Focus – Labour suggests reading it”

As recommended for reading at a public meeting last week by Labour below is a link to a recent Bidston & St. James Focus.

September 2010 issue with articles on free swimming, benefits advice, Birkenhead Park Festival of Transport (other editions had an article here about a carer’s event, Action on Eyesores and Wirral’s Future – Be a Part of It.

Here is a brief update. Swimming is still free (or reduced) for many of Wirral’s residents. The economic mess left by Labour have meant many residents have lost their job, sending unemployment rates up in areas like Bidston & St. James to nearly 40%. The Birkenhead Park Festival of Transport was a great success (so was the carer’s event held in Birkenhead Park).

The public consultation attracted over 5,000 responses and went on to be considered as part of Wirral Council’s budget next year. The demolished Corsair continues to be an eyesore in Bidston Village (but is now less so since its demolition).

In a special bonus to our loyal online readers, the main photo is in colour (unlike the printed version in B&W)!

We always welcome any letters from Labour councillors (and other resident’s letters) as well the many thank yous received from local residents about articles in a Focus.

The Bidston & St. James Action Team is of course busy all year round in all parts of the ward. So keep an eye on this blog for up to date news.
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Lib Dems deliver 150,000 new affordable homes – WPH’s Bramall Construction contract & Labour Party donations

Following on from the Bidston & St. James Focus article about housing I am pleased to read that the high-rise flats Vittoria Court owned by Wirral Partnership Homes are to receive investment.

There are also plans being discussed for more social housing on the Beechwood estate. In addition the Coalition government and Council have agreed the Wirral Waters scheme.

Many Wirral Partnership Homes properties in this area have also received investment following a construction contract with Brammall Construction last year. With Labour sitting on Wirral Partnership Home’s board, perhaps there could be an explanation as to whether any declaration of interest was declared in regards to a contract awarded to Bramall Construction after a £2,000 donation was made from Brammall Construction to the Birkenhead Constituency Labour Party? A spokesperson for Bramall Construction rejects any connection and explains the donation as follows:-

“In 2000 we entered into a partnering arrangement called the Tranmere Partnership with Riverside Housing Association, Maritime Housing Association & Consultants which carried out some major works in Tranmere.

As part of our commitment to working with the local community, we sponsored an event [ED – in 2004, not 2000] at Prenton Park which was organised by the local Labour Party. Like many other local firms [ED – although the Birkenhead Labour Party records no donations or sponsorship from others], we took a table of 12 and sponsored the night by putting three bottles of wine on each table. We viewed the event as putting something back into the local community. Our donation to this event was registered by the Labour Party.

In 2004/5 we put in a bid to carry our major repair works for Wirral Partnership Homes but we were unsuccessful. The work was awarded to two other contractors. In 2007 we understood that there was a contractual issue with one of the incumbent partner contractors and in line with the framework agreement were given the opportunity to express an interest in undertaking decent homes works. After following all of the required procurement procedures we were awarded a section of works. To suggest there is a link between our sponsoring of a Labour party organised event and the awarding of a contract of WPH is a very serious allegation which we strongly reject.”

The link to the Electoral Commission website doesn’t link directly to the information, however an extract from the register is below.

Received by
 
Donor
 
Address
 
Date accepted
 
Donation
 
Conservative Party
Birkenhead
Grange (Birkenhead) Property Co. Ltd
status: Company
company reg no: 00045284
17a Balls Road
Birkenhead
CH43 5RF
04/06/04 £ 500.00
Conservative Party
Birkenhead
Tranmere Conservative Club Ltd
status: Company
company reg no: 00869082
68 Argyle Street
Birkenhead
CH41 6AF
10/06/04 £ 1,250.00
Labour Party [The]
Birkenhead Clp
Bramall Construction
status: Company
company reg no: 1467161
Unit 3D
Newton Court
Faraday Road
Wavertree Technology Park
Liverpool
L13 1EJ
13/05/04 £ 2,000.00
Section total:£ 3,750.00
      

To be fair (as I always like to be) to Labour they are required by law to declare an interest when representing Wirral Council on outside bodies and withdraw from any discussions. The public must know that their representatives are acting in the public interest. With trust in politicians low, isn’t it about time WPH published any documents of meetings held about this?

Isn’t it time the public had a bit more openness and transparency when it comes to Wirral Partnership Homes, a company that receives £43 million in rent a year (some of this from the taxpayer from Housing Benefit claims)?

Seacome Labour, full Council, Cllr Harry Smith, scrutiny, gifts register

Below is a copy of an email to Adrian Jones. He is welcome to comment here as are people of any party political leaning.

Dear Cllr Adrian Jones,

Leonora told me about the comments on your blog in response to a story “Whatever happened to Scrutiny?” about the last full meeting of Council.

I will make the following response which I am making public and copying on my blog, feel free to write about this email as you wish as I don’t class it as confidential. I would welcome any debate on the issues in it and if you wish to feel comments please do so.

Leonora and I both welcome the opportunity that public question time brings to involve members of the public (whoever they may support) in the political process. The public have no right of audience at any other meeting of Wirral Council and it is the public are who Wirral Council (and its councillors) are answerable to.

Our local Labour councillors (check Wirral Council’s constitution) are there to represent all their residents’ views, whether they voted for them, didn’t vote for them or didn’t vote at all. Any party political affiliations of residents should be irrelevant.

Whereas a commenter on our blog (and your councillors) brought up I was a member of the Liberal Democrat Party, one of the other members of the public asking questions was a former Labour councillor. However we don’t make a “song and dance” about it like some Labour councillors do. It seems to only matter to the Labour Party as to which political party a person may be associated with if it’s not Labour. Quite why your party is so tribal I haven’t quite figured out yet.

You know as well as I Cllr Jones that majority decisions can only be made by Wirral councillors with the support of two or more political parties.

Labour were offered the chance in May after the elections to carry on a joint administration with the Liberal Democrats and have a role in decisions. Your party (and Labour councillors) chose to go into opposition and get out of any difficult decisions to be made in the interests of Wirral residents.

We welcome the opportunity for our local councillor to tell councillors and members of the public present that Lib Dem Focuses have recently been delivered to an area they haven’t. Our deliverers after about 10,000 were delivered that they ran out just before getting to Beechwood.

It provides us with great amusement in Cllr Harry Smith making party political points and getting things wrong. It also increases our standing with some Lib Dem councillors.

This however is part of the nature of democracy that elected representatives come in for criticism. I would however be as critical of Cllr. Smith if he were a Tory, Lib Dem, Green or member of another political party as I believe the public deserve the truth.

We are sure the Borough Solicitor Bill Norman will enjoy reading the latest Focus and if Cllr Harry Smith know needs any extra copies to hand out any of his friends in Beechwood (who haven’t received them yet contrary to what he said) we are happy to give him any spares we have.

There’s no “favouritism” involved.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but hasn’t Cllr Harry Smith been selected by the Bidston & St. James branch of the Labour Party as the official Labour Party candidate for Bidston & St. James ward in the May 2011 elections? If he isn’t I apologise.

My question was originally tabled, not to a councillor but to Brian Cummings, the independent (although he’s a former Tory councillor) Chair of the Standards Committee. Then it got changed (not by me) first to Cllr. Blakeley, Cllr Rowlands finally Cllr Ian Lewis.

Your fellow Labour councillors (hence why all the interruptions and heckling?) must have a problem with the public knowing who gives gifts (of £25) or more to local councillors and the gifts register being public. Do some Labour councillors have deep, dark secrets they wish to hide? As Cllr. Blakeley pointed out the heckling and interruptions have already brought Wirral Council into disrepute.

I however believe in openness and transparency. This is a personal belief, not a political one as sometime Lib Dem councillors have taken a view the other way.

I believe also in freedom of speech and with the greatest respect point out that any councillor can also table a question (and supplementary) as your fellow Labour councillors did.

You (along with your fellow councillors) if you five or more of you felt so passionately about tuition fees could’ve called for a special meeting of the full council but chose not to. We had one last year about library provision on the Wirral if you remember? Your councillors chose not to ask questions on the subject (other than why were the question/s disallowed).

Instead nearly the whole meeting was spent debating a Labour objection. The fact a 5-minute adjournment becomes twenty minute is the kind of thing to irk the public too.

The truth of the matter is that it was a Labour government in 2003 that introduced tuition fees. It was a Labour government that came up with the target of 50% of school leavers going to university (which naturally increased costs and university places). It was also a Labour government that came up with the toothless OFFA (the Office for Fair Access) which did next to nothing to force universities to make bursaries available to students from less well-off backgrounds.

Members of the public whose questions are censored can quite easily seek judicial review of the decision or ask the Mayor/Borough solicitor to state reasons why and if overturned ask them at a future meetiing. There is a whole complaints process that they can go through. They could even ask a Labour councillor to take up the case!

Leonora and the other member of the public would’ve quite happily asked a supplementary, however decisions regarding tuition fees are not made by Wirral Council so had we done so it would’ve not been answered anyway!

Your leader, Cllr Steve Foulkes mentioned an agreement a year ago that no candidates use public question time. I asked for a copy of such an agreement, but none was provided.

However in order to make this abundantly clear, I am still not a candidate. I have not been chosen by any party body to be a candidate. I have not publically declared myself to be a candidate. Your councillors have incorrectly in the past described me as such and I corrected them.

In fact by the time the May elections (or by the time the Lib Dems will pick a candidate) short of making a decision in the future to be a candidate, I’m not even on the list of candidates that the Lib Dem party can currently chose from for the Wirral Council election!

Yes the way Wirral Council is run needs to be reformed and open to more scrutiny, hopefully the publication of the gifts register will be a start!

Road Safety & Cllr. Harry Smith – Facts not Labour Fiction

Harry says “The results of the traffic survey have shown that average daily flows of 791 vehicles and average 85%ile speeds of 35.6mph within Boundary Road. Speeding by individual drivers is irresponsible however, not all roads where drivers speed require the introduction of lowered speed limits. Indeed, the very few irresponsible drivers choosing to grossly ignore the current 30mph speed limit by travelling in excess of 40 and 50mph are unlikely to adhere to a 20mph speed limit.”

The automated traffic count can be viewed by anyone reading this article.

Let’s start with the first statistic quoted by Harry, an average 791 daily flows of traffic.

Northbound Southbound Total Daily Flow
Sat 738 630 1368
Sun 659 563 1222
Mon 876 710 1586
Tue 867 788 1655
Wed 905 831 1736
Thu 884 776 1660
Fri 973 874 1847
Average 843 739 1582




Amazingly Harry’s average of 791 is half of what it should be. Harry has taken the real figure 1,582 and amazingly halved it! This means the average traffic flows are double what he stated in front of about 60 councillors and members of the public!

Now we’ve learnt there were double the cars Harry thought there were, let’s move his claims about speed.

Once again Harry tries incorrectly to take an average of two figures (from the Northbound and Southbound counts) to make it sound better.

One figure is for the slowest 5 out of every 6 cars going Northbound. The other figure is for the slowest 5 out of every 6 cars going Southbound.

As shown above in the table an extra 15% of vehicles went in the Northbound direction, so you can’t just average out the two figures by adding them together and dividing by two. 5,902 cars went Northbound, but only 5,174 went Southbound.

However Harry’s next point as he makes a prediction:-

“the very few irresponsible drivers choosing to grossly ignore the current 30mph speed limit by travelling in excess of 40 and 50mph are unlikely to adhere to a 20mph speed limit.”

Yes, Harry there are a few drivers (suprisingly) during this study that travelled between 60 and 70mph in a 30mph area.

However let’s stick to those doing above 30mph. Most of the drivers are exceeding the speed limit going Northbound. When you add together the drivers going in the other direction too exceeding the speed limit it’s nearly 5,000 speeding vehicles/week.

If you’re trying to cross the road and a driver is doing 40mph, 50mph or 60mph if you get hit your chances of survival are pretty slim.

The speeding traffic is comparable to what Harry said was the total traffic flows.

Yes, there are under a hundred vehicles doing over 45mph a week. However how does Harry know what these drivers would do even if they were reminded of the current speed limit? I live in the road this survey was done. There aren’t any signs telling drivers of the current speed limit, so how are drivers to know what it is?

Harry also said “As a concerned Ward Councillor I have asked that the Director make all available efforts to conclude his outstanding investigations as soon as possible and report his findings appropriately.”

We’re still here 14 months later. I appreciate what has been done so far, but it hasn’t addressed the issues in the petition. How fast is ASAP?

Road Safety & Cllr. Harry Smith – Facts not Fiction

I was going over a question Cllr Smith was asked on the 18th October by my wife (which follows on from a further question) the previous year.

Harry said, “I understand from the Director of Technical Services that the investigations into the concerns raised by the petitioners are still ongoing due to a number of factors.”

John says, “The petition about Brow Road/Boundary Road/Worcester Road/Hoylake Road was handed in on the 8th October 2009 at the Bidston & St. James/Claughton Area Forum (see section 5 Public Question Time). Are you seriously saying that 375 days after the petition has been handed in investigations are still “ongoing”?

This was a time when you were Labour’s spokesperson on the topic. However standing order 21 forbids you from speaking about the petition at all!

Moving swiftly on:-

Harry said, “I understand that whilst it was the intention of the Director of Technical Services to report the findings of his investigations into the petitioners concerns to a meeting of the Highways and Traffic Representation Panel prior to the formulation of the 2010/11 Road Safety Block programme.”

John says “Yes, but doesn’t this contradict the answer you gave on the 2nd November 2009 when you told a full meeting of the council that it would be considered as part of the 2010/11 Road Safety Block programme?”

Harry says “this was not in fact possible due to the fact that part of Boundary Road is included in Government’s requirement that each Highway Authority in the UK undertake a review of speed limits on all A and B class roads and implement any changes by 2011.”

Yes, a review of speed limits of all A, B and C roads was agreed by a Labour-led Cabinet many months before the petition. However this covered all roads. In fact what was agreed was that a list of petitions/public enquiries would be made available to those doing the study (which cost about £400,000). See 4.1 of this this report (which was agreed by Labour councillors).

Other factors such as fatalities on Boundary and Hoylake Road should’ve factored in too. I’ve read through the Department for Transport Circular mentioned in the report. It mentions many things, but there is no legal requirement on Wirral Council to implement changes by 2011.

The sentence in the document is “Traffic authorities are, however, asked to review the speed limits on all of their A and B roads, and implement any necessary changes, by 2011 in accordance with this guidance.”