Why did Wirral Council councillors vote for a just over 4.5% council tax rise?
Why did Wirral Council councillors vote for a just over 4.5% council tax rise?
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Cllr Phil Gilchrist (right) (Leader of the Liberal Democrat Group of councillors on Wirral Council) speaking at the Budget meeting of Wirral Council (6th March 2017)
It’s been misreported in the press that both Wirral Council and Liverpool City Council agreed a 4.99% council tax rise.
Labour councillors on Wirral Council’s Cabinet will decide next Monday whether to spend £200,000 to demolish Lyndale School
Labour councillors on Wirral Council’s Cabinet will decide next Monday whether to spend £200,000 to demolish Lyndale School
Cabinet 17th December 2014 vote on Lyndale School closure L to R Cllr Tony Smith (Cabinet Member for Education), Cllr George Davies, Cllr Ann McLachlan
As reported around a fortnight ago on this blog Wirral Council’s Cabinet meets next Monday morning to make another decision about Lyndale School.
Cabinet previously decided to close Lyndale School in Eastham at the end of August 2016. On Monday councillors on the Cabinet will be deciding whether to declare it surplus to requirements, to ask the government for permission to sell off the playing fields (with a further six-week consultation expected on this), demolish the school building and to sell off the site.
The rationale for demolition is that an empty building could attract vandalism.
Parents of disabled children at Lyndale School campaigned to try to persuade the Labour councillors on Wirral Council to change their mind and keep the Lyndale School open. Although councillors from opposition parties agreed with the parents that the school should remain open, Labour councillors consistently voted to close the Lyndale School school.
The site of the former Lyndale School is expected to be sold for housing.
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5 days after Lyndale School closes, Labour councillors on Wirral Council’s Cabinet will meet to decide on a further consultation on sale of Lyndale School and the playing fields
5 days after Lyndale School closes, Labour councillors on Wirral Council’s Cabinet will meet to decide on a further consultation on sale of Lyndale School and the playing fields
Cabinet 17th December 2014 vote to close Lyndale School L to R Cllr Tony Smith (Cabinet Member for Education), Cllr George Davies, Cllr Ann McLachlan
Wirral Council’s Cabinet, who decided to close Lyndale School effective from the end of August 2016 (this month), will be making a further decision about Lyndale School at the first Cabinet meeting after it closes.
The decision to close Lyndale School was opposed by the Conservative, Liberal Democrat and Green Party councillors on Wirral Council, but supported by Labour councillors.
At a public meeting of Wirral Council’s Cabinet to be held on the 5th September 2016, the Cabinet will be asked to declare Lyndale School a surplus asset and to seek permission from the government to sell both the Lyndale School site and the playing fields. If agreed there will then be a further consultation on disposal.
The review of commissioning of high needs places, promised to parents during the drawn out process of closing Lyndale School (which many parents stated would conclude after Lyndale School had been closed) will report back to Cabinet on the 3rd of October 2016 (around 5 weeks after Lyndale School will have closed).
Elleray Park School (another primary school on Wirral in the special sector) has recently had internal alterations and an extension in a contract estimated at £1,028,109.84. It was stated by Wirral Council’s senior management that some of the remaining pupils at Lyndale School when it closed would be transferred to Elleray Park (although this appears now not to be the case as parents have chosen other schools) and an invoice for some of the recent building work (£170,798.74) at Elleray Park School is below.
Wirral Council Elleray Park Primary School Lyjon Company Ltd £170,796.74 28th September 2015 resized
Also in 2015 the former Foxfield School in Moreton (which is another special primary school on the Wirral but for clarity this is after the school was moved from Moreton to a new site in Woodchurch) was demolished (see invoice below).
Wirral Council Foxfield School Powell Demolition Ltd £82,050.25th November 2015 resized
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What were the 9 most viewed stories on this blog over the last week?
Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson on a train
There are many stories I plan to publish on this blog soon. There’s one involving Hoylake Golf Resort, a story involving a cover-up at Wirral Council sanctioned by a Conservative Minister and of course the steady stream of news that is local politics. I also plan to look back at what were the most viewed news stories in 2015.
However it’s time to look back at the 9 most viewed stories of the last week (with a few comments on each of them).
This is a look at what Merseytravel spend on media monitoring (which covers not just this blog, but newspapers and broadcast media too). It formed part of my citizen audit over the summer (but with tales of councillors’ salmon dinners and stays at gentleman’s clubs by Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority councillors) only was published now.
The big news story of the week was about whether the Mersey Ferries had a future at Woodside. Councillors disagreed with the consultants and asked for an option that kept the three terminals (Woodside, Seacombe and Liverpool Pier Head).
Inspired by the Sherlock Christmas special, this went back in time to 1894 to a fictional conversation around the Brace breakfast table. Yes Wirral is still in Cheshire, blogs don’t yet exist and the first Mersey Tunnel for the railway has recently been opened.
Number five leads in to Liverpool City Council’s views on Freedom of Information. They suggest a series of radical moves. They want the 18 hour rule changed to 6 or 7 hours, for those making Freedom of Information requests to be charged for the time it takes Liverpool City Council to black out information, more opportunity to deem requests vexatious and to abolish internal reviews.
Wirral Council receives extra £725,000 of education funding (but Lyndale is still closing)
Cabinet 17th December 2014 vote on Lyndale School closure L to R Cllr Tony Smith (Cabinet Member for Education), Cllr George Davies, Cllr Ann McLachlan
I’m half expecting a Labour councillor to pop up and say how terrible this is, how it’s all the government’s fault and that this is the reason that schools like Lyndale School have to shut.
However, this story is more complicated than that and the issue has been discussed at at least one meeting of the Birkenhead Constituency Committee.
Basically the gist of the story is this. Those families on means tested benefits, if they have children can ask the school for free school meals. If they do so, then Wirral Council receives extra money through the Pupil Premium which then results in extra money for the school.
However there is a stigma attached to parents telling a school that their family is on means tested benefits, so many parents don’t. Indeed the parents probably worry about the stigma of free school meals causing embarrassment to their child or children too.
I remember one embarrassing incident from my childhood when I was at a new primary school (I was around ten years old). I went to pay for my school meal at the till but one of my friends didn’t. I ran after them and pointed out they’d forgotten to pay, they turned bright red and explained that they received free school meals because their parents were on means tested benefits. Yes twenty-five years later I still remember!
So Wirral Council has used the housing benefit and council tax information it has instead of relying on parents supplying this information to the school.
As a result Wirral Council will receive an extra £725,000 this year (if you remember Lyndale was being shut for a projected shortfall of ~£190,000).
So you see once again, this mantra of "it’s all the government’s fault" that the Labour administration on Wirral Council repeat again and again turns out to be somewhat of a smokescreen. Labour are in charge of Wirral Council so they are accountable to the public.
Wirral could’ve been doing the above for years and no doubt lost out on millions of education funding over the years as a result. I wonder if this change would never have happened if it hadn’t been for the Rt Hon Frank Field MP behind the scenes persuading the councillors and officers at Wirral Council to be sensible? Indeed the Rt Hon Frank Field MP, rather frustrated by the arcane bureaucracy at Wirral Council recently stated at a public meeting that it was easier to secure peace in Syria than to get Wirral Council to circulate minutes of a public meeting quickly.
This is of course one of the advantages to filming a meeting as you don’t have to wait months for the minutes.
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