Category: Wirral Council

Planning Committee – 4/1/2011 – Part 1 – dry silo mortar bagging plant (Bromborough)

The <A HREF=”http://democracy.wirral.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=157&MId=3116″>agenda</a> for last night’s Planning Committee can be found on Wirral Council’s website. All councillors usually on the committee were present. The minutes were agreed, there were no declarations of interest and no requests for site visits. The first item for consideration was the extension of a planning consent for a dry silo … Continue reading “Planning Committee – 4/1/2011 – Part 1 – dry silo mortar bagging plant (Bromborough)”

The <A HREF=”http://democracy.wirral.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=157&MId=3116″>agenda</a> for last night’s Planning Committee can be found on Wirral Council’s website.

All councillors usually on the committee were present. The minutes were agreed, there were no declarations of interest and no requests for site visits.

The first item for consideration was the extension of a planning consent for a dry silo mortar bagging plant in Bromborough. Cllr Gilchrist stated that he was interested in a particular aspect of this planning application due to a long running desire to have the coast open for people. He was anxious if the opportunity arose that the owners would be approached over access to the coast. Cllr Salter asked that as this was an extension of a planning consent wasn’t it more usual to reapply? The answer given was that permissions can be extended.

Cllr Elderton asked if another fee applied? The answer given was that the applicant only had to pay a reduced fee as they don’t have to submit all the forms again. Part of the previous government’s changes to planning in 2008-2009 to make it more flexible had meant that applicants could apply for an extension of time. Cllr Elderton was concerned over the true cost and was told that the planning fees were set nationally.

Cllr Mitchell asked if a noise assessment had been done and what the highway effects would be. He also referred to the Wirral Waters projects and the need it would have for cement and sand. The answer given was that in the original planning application there had been a statement regarding noise. The nearest residential property was 660m away. It was an industrial area, but the noise would be of a contained nature. It wouldn’t result in any signficant traffic and was near the motorway and A41. There were no grounds to object on traffic management.

A councillor asked about the 3 years limit on development, when the original planning application had been given 5 years and was told the 3 year limit was brought in in 2007, with the original application being made just before.

Cllr Mitchell proposed the application be approved, with Cllr Salter seconding it. It was approved unanimously.

 

 

 

Ridgeway closure & Bins backlog

Ridgeway will be closed this week due to flooding. It’ll now open next Monday 10th rather than the planned date of Thursday 6th.

Biffa crews are still trying to clear the backlog of missed bin collections. By tomorrow evening (Wednesday) they hope to have caught up with all missed green bin collections.

Missed grey bin collections will be collected by Friday.

Advice to residents

Missed collections

If you missed a collection last week, you should leave your bin out (including side waste if it is a green bin) for collection and it will be emptied within the next two days. Some areas that were worse affected by the delays will receive a catch-up collection early this week, in addition to their scheduled collection.

Green Bins

Please leave your appropriate bin (grey or green) out for collection on the scheduled day.

Grey Bins

If you are experiencing a build up of recyclables from last week or previous weeks, please wait until your next scheduled grey bin collection.

To clear the back log, Biffa is prioritising green bin collections. If you are due for a grey bin collection this week and it is not collected on the scheduled day, please leave your bin out as it will be collected by Friday (8 January) at the very latest.

Bin collections & rubbish; the plan to deal with the backlog of rubbish

Bin collections & rubbish; the plan to deal with the backlog of rubbish

                                          

Well, after yesterday’s post about the bin collections seems things are changing again.

As Cllr Green puts it, “leaving bins uncollected for weeks is not acceptable” and “people also pay their Council Tax and expect a level of service in return”.

So, to summarise as of today (and yesterday) all scheduled collections are happening as they usually do. Anyone who had a missed collection this week should leave their bin out as Biffa will be coming to collect those they missed.

If you missed a green bin collection this week, leave your green bin with any extra bags of rubbish for collection on Sunday morning (Jan 2nd) and it should be emptied in 2-3 days.

Green bin waste is no longer being accepted at the extra ten locations set up to deal with the cold weather, so you can either take it to Bidston tip or hang onto it till Biffa collect it.

You can get more information from Streetscene on 606 2004.

P.S. I realise residents haven’t received the service they expect. Wirral Council collects the rubbish, which is then dealt with through Merseyside Waste Disposal Authority. The two Wirral councillors on MWDA are Cllr Alan Brighouse (Lib Dem, Oxton, 652 6041) and Cllr Tom Anderson (Conservative, Upton, 608 1899). Maybe you could highlight your concerns with them or in the comments?

FOI request – Freedom of Borough – £2k so far and counting

I’ve just received a partial answer to my request and I am to be quite frank staggered by the costs so far in awarding a person Freedom of the Borough.

The buffet was £705, the alcohol £121.15, flowers were £30, a photographer was a staggering £258.50 (to take a few photos)! and the scroll was £846.

So far that’s £40 shy of £2000. Bear in mind although this is a public meeting any members of the public are kept away from the alcohol & buffet (which the public have paid for) and told they can’t sit anywhere in the public gallery they’d actually be able to see how at least £2k of their money is being spent.

157 guests were invited and 110 turned up.

I will point out at this stage, I’m not in any way criticising Steve Maddox getting Freedom of the Borough, but at a time when Wirral Council is making people redundant, personally it just doesn’t seem right to be spending so much. I’m not saying there shouldn’t be money spent on awards and ceremony it’s just the taxpayer should know that its money is being spent prudently.

The original report stated “There are no staffing implications arising out of this report; there may be some modest financial implications which can be accommodated from within existing budgets.”

Clearly Jim Wilkie’s view of “modest financial implications” are different to mine!

Freedom of Information & Wirral Council. Do officers get paid overtime for attending meetings?

Freedom of Information & Wirral Council. Do officers get paid overtime for attending meetings?

                                            

I have today received an apology from Wirral Council about a Freedom of Information Act request submitted on the 1st December 2010.

The request here is basically an answer to the question, “How much does it cost to award someone Freedom of the Borough?” which I wrote about before on this blog when it happened earlier this year.

As readers may recall Wirral Council was "named and shamed" by the Information Commissioner in October for taking too long to respond. Quite what the monitoring being done by the Information Commissioner isn’t gone into detail.

As pointed out when he was awarded Freedom of the Borough, Steve Maddox had had to sit through many years of Council meetings and had never been asked to say anything. Whereas I understand the logic of the Chief Officers being there, the only one I’ve known be asked anything (in recent times) is Bill Norman about who had seen the infamous Charteris report into the library closures (and the odd procedural question).

Either the Chief Officers of Wirral Council come to meetings on a purely voluntary basis or they are paid overtime. The table below shows how much they got paid last year (although there have been some controversial changes uprating them since).

Senior Officers Remuneration (Wirral Council) 2009-10
Senior Officers Remuneration (Wirral Council) 2009-10