Category: Labour

Local events of interest over the holidays – Free swimming for children at leisure centres, Birkenhead Park tennis, Tam O’Shanter

Over at the Wirral Tennis & Sports Centre there is currently the 11th Annual Easter Weekend Aikido festival. Birkenhead Park visitor centre is currently showing (until the 29th April) a free photographic exhibition about Wirral’s industrial heritage (provided by the Friends of Birkenhead Park). Free swimming for children over the holidays will be provided at … Continue reading “Local events of interest over the holidays – Free swimming for children at leisure centres, Birkenhead Park tennis, Tam O’Shanter”

Over at the Wirral Tennis & Sports Centre there is currently the 11th Annual Easter Weekend Aikido festival.

Birkenhead Park visitor centre is currently showing (until the 29th April) a free photographic exhibition about Wirral’s industrial heritage (provided by the Friends of Birkenhead Park).

Free swimming for children over the holidays will be provided at the leisure centres. This is thanks to a decision by Tory and Lib Dem councillors last year to continue funding free swimming.

Labour in Liverpool scrapped the free swimming (brought in by Liberal Democrats), choosing to spend the money on a pay increase for its leader and £380,000 on a one day event in Shanghai.

The free swimming runs until the 1st May, at leisure centres such as nearby Europa Pools and Woodchurch Leisure Centre. A timetable can be downloaded from Wirral Council’s website of the opening times.

Birkenhead Park will also be offering free tennis coaching for under 8s, 9-15s and adults tomorrow (10am to 11am for under 8s and 11am to 12 noon for older kids and adults). Further information on activities in Birkenhead Park can be found here.

Popular Tam O’Shanter Farm in Boundary Road will also be open over the holidays for children and adults.

Flytipping – alleyway and shop on corner of Hoylake Road/Challis Street, Bidston

Flytipping – alleyway and shop on corner of Hoylake Road/Challis Street, Bidston

                                 

Please accept YouTube cookies to play this video. By accepting you will be accessing content from YouTube, a service provided by an external third party.

YouTube privacy policy

If you accept this notice, your choice will be saved and the page will refresh.

Leonora Brace talks about flytipping behind the shops on Hoylake Road, Bidston, Wirral

The video above is of me interviewing my wife Leonora about an issue of concern to local residents that’s been rumbling on for years. Not only is the alleyway behind the shops getting full of rubbish (the gates put there to cut down on it have been vandalised and one is lying at an angle instead of upright) but the area at the bag of the corner shop is becoming a health hazard.

Previously I had written to the owner (a director of Wrexham Signs Ltd) to get it cleared up. However it was sold onto someone in Wallasey who so far I haven’t received a response to. The owner is making money from the sign on the side of the shop and has recently been served with a notice by Wirral Council giving them 21 days to clear it up as it’s a health hazard.

Last Thursday I talked with Bill Norman (the Borough Solicitor) at the Town Hall about the issue regarding a litter control notice being served on the owner and he passed my letter about it onto Rob Beresford who is in charge of this area at the Town Hall. This has been raised previously at an Area Forum and the placement of a litter bin on the corner of Hoylake Road did help with the more casual amounts of throwaway litter.

Residents did talk to us while we were filming and said they saw those dumping it and suggested CCTV either on the site itself or the pub across the road. If the owner doesn’t clear it away within the 21 days, Wirral Council can take action and invoice the owner. It’s just a shame local residents have had their community looking like this for so long!

If you click on any of the buttons below, you’ll be doing me a favour by sharing this article with other people.

Cabinet meeting – 14th April 2011 – Election Special Edition – Part 5 – Support for Wirral Council’s Coastal Resort Towns

Cllr Green said a series of lessons had been learnt, the key lesson being regarding how and why regarding the opportunity to get involved. Allsop’s letter had asked the Cabinet not to go forward. He was not minded to do so as they needed to move forward. The controversy was around the criteria and issues regarding money going direct to companies to spend. He asked Kevin Adderley about this.

Kevin said there was wide ranging support for the seaside towns. Support for business needed to comply with EU State aid rules. For example if they gave money to one retail business it would be unfair on competition grounds, the same would go for a local manufacturer of kitchens. He said they need to ensure that officers look at any proposals before they are recommended to Cabinet.

Cllr Green asked about helping the unemployed to work in the tourism sector. Regarding the ideas that had not been successful, what support would be given or would these ideas be lost? If the recommendations were accepted, would Wirral Council speak to all applicants including the unsuccessful ones?

Kevin said there was work in the town regarding the Open golf tournament. £1.4 million was being spent to support worklessness. Environmental improvements were being made and there was funding for empty shops. Cllr Lewis referred to a Labour leaflet of Cllr Dodd’s in Liscard that said the support had been cancelled and that there was no money for empty shops.

Kevin said that Cabinet had agreed £14,500 to each Area Forum above the three areas and original allocation. Cllr Lewis said the three pilot areas had been Bromborough, New Ferry and Egremont. The agreed budget meant an equivalent sum went to each of the twenty two wards. This meant some areas had received double.

Votes for prisoners – Why does the Labour Party falsely claim it is a Lib Dem policy when our Lib Dem MPs voting against votes for prisoners?

Labour pose the question in their leaflet, “Are you aware that the Liberal Democrat Party has long been in favour of votes for prisoners?”

On 10th February 2011 the House of Commons voted on a motion to continue denying prisoners the vote.

The following Lib Dem MPs voted against votes for prisoners. If as Labour state it was party policy do you think MPs would be voting against their own party?:-

Stephen Gilbert
Mike Hancock
John Pugh (MP for nearby Southport)
Bob Russell

The motion was won by 234 votes to 22. The full debate and how individual MPs voted is a matter of public record here.

Labour Rose: Election Special

Whilst out today with my wife, I spotted Cllr Harry Smith on Worcester Road and sure enough when I returned home there was a Labour leaflet delivered.

It seems both the Lib Dems and Labour agree that the nearly £2 million spent on Cathcart Street Primary School is a good idea. The very spot Cllr Smith and former Cllr Cocker are standing in in a photo on the leaflet was where we were told by a caretaker that photos couldn’t be taken! I have also listened to the concerns of John Cocker and the headteacher which they have aired at a number of public meetings when the future of the school was under threat.

It was however not Labour’s decision to make. It was Liberal Democrat and Conservative councillors that decided to close Cole Street Primary School, save Cathcart Street Primary School and invest money into Cathcart Street Primary School (in fact they will be making a decision on the contractor on Thursday).

Onto the second story in the leaflet, as Cllr Smith knows it was Liberal Democrats that campaigned for road safety measures on Fender Way. We were the ones who handed in a petition over over a hundred residents. We lobbied the local councillors, showed them photos and kicked up such a fuss we were told (after Cllr Smith complained to Cllr Roberts) never to bring a petition to an Area Forum ever again!

His claim that he "made sure resources were allocated from local Area Forum funding" is a strange one to make. The decisions over the local Area Forum funding allocation for road safety for this financial year were made by Wirral Council’s Cabinet (comprised of Conservative and Lib Dem councillors). We have an email from Wirral Council stating that no decisions are made by the Area Forum panel in respect of this. Wirral Council may have it wrong, so we will look into the matter and report back in a later more detailed post.

Cllr Harry Smith then takes credit for "more than £250,000" allocated to road repairs on Wirral. Going by a press release about pothole repair, the figure is £625,931 and judging by the large difference in the amounts, Cllr Harry Smith seems to be referring (despite writing "the recent cold spell" to not last Winter, but the Winter before when a Liberal Democrat Cabinet member for Streetscene and Transport Cllr Jean Quinn decided to put extra money towards potholes.

Cllr Smith then goes on to mention the Liberal Democrat Party. He states "Are you aware that the Liberal Democrat Party has long been in favour of votes for prisoners?"

Jeremy Brown, Lib Dem MP for Taunton and spokesperson for the party said in the House of Commons, "It was said that my party favours votes for prisoners, but that was not in our manifesto and the Leader of my party has made it explicit that he does not favour them."

In February MPs voted 234 to 22 against giving prisoners the vote. I will write an article further on this. However if you wish to view the debate in the House of Commons on this issue it can be viewed on the BBC’s website.