Councillors on Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority discuss the Greasby fire station consultation and one states “there is no reason the vocal minority should get their way”
Councillors on Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority discuss the Greasby fire station consultation and one states “there is no reason the vocal minority should get their way”
Chief Fire Officer explains to councillors at a meeting of Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority why he thinks Saughall Massie is the best place for a new fire station
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Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority meeting 29th January 2014 Part 1 of 2 starting at agenda item 4 (Wirral Fire Cover Consultation Options)
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CLLR DAVE HANRATTY (Chair, Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority representing Liverpool City Council): Item number 4 is the consultation outcomes of the proposed merger in Wirral of Upton and West Kirby. Thank you.
Decision expected soon over whether to consult on plans to build new fire station on green belt land in Saughall Massie
Decision expected soon over whether to consult on plans to build new fire station on green belt land in Saughall Massie
Dan Stephens Chief Fire Officer, Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service at Greasby Methodist Church Hall, Greasby Road, Greasby on 10th November 2014 at a consultation meeting on closure of Upton and West Kirby fire stations and merger at Greasby
Last year, one of the more high-profile stories was the consultation on plans to close Upton and West Kirby fire stations and replace them with a new fire station in Greasby village. In a dramatic U-turn last year Wirral Council decided to withdraw their offer of the land in Greasby part way through the consultation.
Councillors will choose from one of three options which are:
1) deferring a decision on the closure of West Kirby Fire Station and holding a further 12-week consultation starting on 2nd March. This consultation would be very similar to the last one with the main difference between this and the last consultation being that the new fire station would be built on a piece of land on Saughall Massie Road, Saughall Massie not Frankby Road, Greasby.
2) have a six-week consultation on the closure of West Kirby Fire Station and keep Upton Fire Station. Councillors would then make a further decision in April 2015.
3) have a six-week consultation on the closure of West Kirby Fire Station, reporting back to make a further decision in April 2015 whilst at the same time looking for an alternative site for Upton Fire Station before a further 12 week consultation.
According to Wirral Council’s asset register this piece of land is down as “Saughall Massie Road Open Space” and is described as “public open space (amenity)”. It’s also in Wirral’s green belt.
Wirral Council’s Cabinet disagree with Lib Dem concerns over how the Lyndale School closure decision was made
Wirral Council’s Cabinet disagree with Lib Dem concerns over how the Lyndale School closure decision was made
Cllr Phil Gilchrist explains his concern about the Lyndale School closure decision at a public meeting of Wirral Council’s Cabinet 15th January 2015
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Cabinet – item 7 – Notice of Motion – The Corporate Plan’s Ideals in Practice
The mundanely titled motion The Corporate Plan’s Ideals in Practice was put forward for debate by two Lib Dem councillors at the Council meeting of the 8th December 2014. However no debate had happened then and it had instead been referred to Cabinet. The notice of motion was mostly about the closure of Lyndale School and how the decision had been made.
Cllr Gilchrist’s criticisms of how the decision had been made ranged from questions the parents had submitted in March 2014 which had not been answered, the way the consultation meetings had been chaired, how what was said at the consultation meetings had then been reported back to Cabinet, the imbalance between the financial resources of the Council compared to the financial resources of the parents to challenge the decision and the consultant’s report on the SEN Improvement Test (amongst other points he made).
Cllr Phil Davies responded that he had read that there might be a legal challenge so he asked Mr. Tour for advice. Surjit Tour said that they hadn’t received notification of a claim or a claim itself, but that a decision had been taken by Cabinet about the Lyndale School. He advised that councillors not to speculate in response to the specific points about the potential claim, bearing in mind that they were on notice that there may be a potential claim. Mr Tour asked them to stick to the Corporate Plan issues and engagement issues.
The Cabinet Member, Cllr Tony Smith thanked Mr Tour for his advice. He outlined the history of the decisions on Lyndale School, the consultation meetings and the visits councillors had made. The “significant amount of correspondence” on many issues about Lyndale School was also referred to by Cllr Smith, so was the consultant’s report and the equality impact assessment.
Cllr Phil Davies responded by saying “I do believe that we were faithful to our principles in listening to people. Phil can I just remind you that listening to what people say doesn’t always mean you have to agree with them?” He said he had read the report of the parents, visited Lyndale School, met with the parents and he repeated that he believed the Cabinet had listened but that they “came to a different conclusion than you did Phil but that doesn’t mean to say we didn’t listen.”
He said the decision was based on “sound evidence and thorough analysis” and that “we did understand what the community was saying to us”. Cllr Davies believed that they had been faithful to the principles in the Corporate Plan and that that was the Cabinet’s response.
Not unsurprisingly Cllr Gilchrist disagreed with whether the analysis had been thorough, he also pointed out that there had been issues about the creation of the funding formula and its application across various schools, but as the issue was “parked” he’d see what the outcome would be.
Cllr Phil Davies felt that they’d met the requirements, and whatever happened in the legal case they’d need to respond to that “in due course”. He thanked Cllr Phil Gilchrist for his attendance.
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8 Labour councillors on Wirral Council vote to close Lyndale School from 31st August 2016
8 Labour councillors on Wirral Council vote to close Lyndale School from 31st August 2016
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Yesterday (17th December 2014) Wirral Council’s Cabinet decided to close Lyndale School in Eastham on 31st August 2016. You can watch video of how the decision was reached in the above video, the item on Lyndale School starts at 50 seconds into the meeting. Two of the Cabinet (Cllr Stuart Whittingham and Cllr Chris Meaden) were absent at the Cabinet meeting when it was made.
The councillor who proposed closure of the Lyndale School was Cllr Tony Smith (Cabinet Member for Children and Family Services). This was seconded by Cllr Ann McLachlan (Cabinet Member for Governance, Commissioning and Improvement).
The vote was as follows:
In favour of closing the Lyndale School from 31/8/16
Cllr Phil Davies (Labour, Birkenhead & Tranmere)
Cabinet 17th December 2014 vote on Lyndale School L to R Shirley Hudsepth Surjit Tour Cllr Phil Davies Graham Burgess
Cllr Ann McLachlan (Labour, Bidston & St James) * Note Seconder of motion
Cllr George Davies (Labour, Claughton)
Cllr Tony Smith (Labour, Upton) * Note Proposer of motion
Cabinet 17th December 2014 vote on Lyndale School closure L to R Cllr Tony Smith Cllr George Davies Cllr Ann McLachlan
Cllr Adrian Jones (Labour, Seacombe)
Cllr Chris Jones (Labour, Seacombe)
Cllr Pat Hackett (Labour, New Brighton)
Cllr Bernie Mooney (Labour, Liscard)
Cabinet 17th December 2014 vote on Lyndale School closure L to R Cllr Bernie Mooney Cllr Pat Hackett Cllr Chris Jones Cllr Adrian Jones
Total 8
Voting Against closing the Lyndale School from 31/8/16
Total 0
Abstentions
Total 0
Therefore with eight votes for, none against and no abstentions, the motion was agreed.
It is possible that at some future point six (or more) councillors will request a call in of this decision. However the Coordinating Committee would decide such a call in and is now short of the two parent governor representatives required to hear a call in on such a matter, you can read this blog post about the questions I asked of Cllr Tony Smith earlier in the week about that.
The Coordinating Committee has 9 Labour councillors, 5 Conservative councillors, 1 Lib Dem, 2 parent governor representatives (although both positions are now vacant) as well as a representative of the Catholic Diocese. It should also have a representative from the Anglican Diocese of Shrewsbury, however the Anglicans have (to my knowledge) not chosen someone yet. That’s a committee of 19 people. However three positions are vacant.
Those associated with the Lyndale School will probably be asking their legal advisers to send a Letter before Claim in this format to Wirral Council’s Cabinet and Wirral Council’s legal department in the near future. Once Wirral Council has received such a letter, they usually have 14 days to respond to such a letter. If the response is not to the proposed Claimant/s’s satisfaction it is highly likely that a case will be filed promptly with the Administrative Court (part of the Royal Courts of Justice) requesting permission for judicial review of the decision to close the school.
If decision on permission for judicial review was granted by a High Court Judge, then it would proceed to a hearing. A decision on permission (if the case was filed in January 2015) would be expected within around three months. If permission is given, a decision on this matter by the court would be expected to be decided within a year (that is if the case if filed in January 2015 by around January 2016 or possibly sooner but certainly before 31st August 2016).
Two newspapers that cover the Wirral area have also written pieces about this decision which you may be interested in reading:
How did Councillor Tony Smith answer 2 questions about the Cabinet decision on closure of Lyndale School?
How did Councillor Tony Smith answer 2 questions about the Cabinet decision on closure of Lyndale School?
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Council (Wirral Council) 15th December 2014
Council 15th December 2014 Agenda item 4 Public Question Time John Brace asks a question of Cllr Tony Smith on Lyndale School
In light of the fact that Wirral Council’s Cabinet meets tonight to make a decision about Lyndale School (amongst other matters), I thought this transcript of the public question time that includes two questions I asked Cllr Tony Smith about the upcoming decision on Lyndale School at the public meeting of Council on Monday 15th December might be of interest to some people. It starts at 31:46 in the video above.
The first question is a written question from Mr John Brace to Cllr Tony Smith (Cabinet Member for Children and Family Services) submitted on the 4th December 2014. The second is one Cllr Tony Smith doesn’t get advance warning of until he heard it on Monday evening.
JOHN BRACE: Wirral Council recently had a four-week consultation on the closure of the Lyndale School in Eastham and there will be a special Cabinet meeting later this month on the 17th December 2014.
Can you please answer:
(a) how many responses were received by Wirral Council to the latest four-week consultation on closure of the Lyndale School,
(b) whether the text of the responses to the latest four-week consultation will be published in full (rather than a summary in a Cabinet report) and if so when,
(c) whether all Cabinet Members making a decision on the 17th December 2014 will in advance of making a decision at the meeting of the 17th December 2014 have read all the written consultation responses to the four week consultation on closure prior to making their decision on the 17th December 2014
and
(d) whether all Cabinet Members making a decision on the 17th December 2014 will in advance of making a decision at the meeting of the 17th December 2014 have read the statutory guidance for decision makers on this matter issued earlier this year by the government which is available online?
Thank you.
CLLR TONY SMITH: Thank you Mr. Brace, thank you Mr Brace.
Errm, right on question a, errm in accordance with statutory guidance there was a four-week consultation period and during that time any person could make comments or objections to the proposal to close the school, to close the school and there are twenty-one representations received.
Six from the Lyndale School, one from Stanley School and fourteen others who were mainly Members, twenty were received by email and one letter was received.
So question b, errm an acknowledgement has been given to all those who made representations. The whole set of redacted copies of the representations has been provided as appendix 4 to the Cabinet report and a full set of unredacted copies has been provided to members of the Cabinet prior to their meeting on the 17th December to inform the decision-making. The unredacted copies have been sent to Cabinet Members on a disc.
Err question c, all, as I said earlier, every Member of the Cabinet have received a disc, which contains copies of the representations, that are unredacted and which will be read prior to their meeting on the 17th December and the question d, yes is the answer.
The full guidance produced by the Department for Education, in December, or the Department for Education in 2014 called School Organisation for Maintained Schools: Guidance for proposals and decision makers has been provided at appendix 3 of the Cabinet report. The Cabinet, as the decision-maker, will have regard to the factors it will need to take into account and this is outlined in paragraph 4 onwards in the Cabinet report.
JOHN BRACE: Thank you.
MAYOR OF WIRRAL: OK, err we normally ask if you if you want a supplementary question? Have you got one? OK?
JOHN BRACE: Thank you Councillor Tony Smith for answering my first question. I do have a supplementary.
Earlier this year, a further decision about Lyndale School was made by Cabinet on the 16th January. This decision was called in.
The Coordinating Committee couldn’t decide on the call in until Council in February had added two parent governors with voting rights to the Committee.
That was because it was a legal requirement to have at least two parent governors with voting rights on the committee.
Now, the Coordinating Committee has met many times over the last six months and I’ve not seen either one of the two parent governors at any public meeting, nor have the minutes reflected that they sent their apologies.
Therefore it seems logical to conclude that it doesn’t have the required two parent governor representatives.
As any decision on the future of Lyndale School could be called in, to the Coordinating Committee, how do you propose as Cabinet Member including the voice of parent governors in the current decision and to remedy that situation?
CLLR TONY SMITH: OK, thank you Mr. Brace. I think errm I will probably have to give you a written report on that regarding the detail of your question. I’ll give you a written report.
JOHN BRACE: OK, thank you.
MAYOR OF WIRRAL: OK, thank you Mr. Brace. That was the only public question that we had to deal with. I’m moving on to item 5, which is Leader’s, Executive Member’s and Chair’s reports.
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