£206,000 extra for Wirral’s potholes, £170,000 for selling “ornamental pleasure gardens” and a land swap to a body that doesn’t exist!

£206,000 extra for Wirral’s potholes, £170,000 for selling “ornamental pleasure gardens” and a land swap to a body that doesn’t exist!

£206,000 extra for Wirral’s potholes, £170,000 for selling “ornamental pleasure gardens” and a land swap to a body that doesn’t exist!

                                        

Jane Kennedy (left), the current Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside and Labour Party candidate in the 2016 elections for a Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside at a public meeting of the Police and Fire Collaboration Committee (2015)
Jane Kennedy (left), the current Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside | Right Sir Jon Murphy QPM (Chief Constable)

Wirral Council has accepted an extra £206,000 from the government’s Pothole Action Fund to be spent on (no prizes for guessing) fixing potholes on Wirral’s roads.

The details are in a report, but they expect to repair around 3,887 potholes and Wirral Council will be publishing a report on how they spend the money.

Of the £206,000 allocation, £116,000 is planned to be spent on surface dressing, £20,000 on “micro-asphalt” and £70,000 on patching.

The surface dressing work will be carried out in August and the micro-asphalt work is planned to start in July.

In other news, Cllr George Davies has managed to agree a land swap with a public body that was abolished in 2012. Yes, I couldn’t make this up if I tried!

The Merseyside Police Authority (abolished in November 2012) is now the “owner” of a piece of land (according to his decision). Maybe Wirral Council needs to move with the times and realise it’s the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside (after all only last month we had the second election for who would be Merseyside’s Police and Crime Commissioner)!

Finally, onto a phrase you don’t hear very often on this blog “ornamental pleasure garden”. Wirral Council has decided to sell land next to Gibson House to a developer for £170,000 despite covenants restricting its use to an “ornamental pleasure garden”.

Wirral Council selling off green space is of course a worry elsewhere on the Wirral with its flagship Hoylake Golf Resort project causing such concerns a local Hoylake councillor Cllr Gerry Ellis recently called for the project to be scrapped.

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Employment & Appointments Committee – 27th January Part 2

The meeting carried on with the committee discussing item 3 on agile working.

As Cllr Mitchell had been interrupted Cllr Bridson asked him to speak next before he forgets what he has to say. This caused Cllr McLaughlin to tease Cllr Mitchell by saying that Cllr Bridson had called him forgetful.

Cllr Mitchell said that it was very important that they complete the change. He also said he wanted to make sure Wirral Council had the ability to track the changes.

Cllr Davies said it had been a lot of work building on points that feed into the office accommodation review. He referred to Cllr Gilchrist at Council Excellence Overview and Scrutiny Committee meeting asking question as to where agile working fits in with the office accommodation review timescale.

Bill Norman (Borough Solicitor) said it was a tool, but Wirral Council was losing colleagues through early voluntary redundancy. A report to Cabinet had listed buildings such as Bebington Town Hall (and others) to dispose of in 2011/2012.

Cllr Davies said “Just so I’m clear” followed by asking if they’d get reports next year spelling out how agile working was working.

Bill Norman said Westminster House would be relocated and would include agile working.