37 Labour councillors agree Wirral Council's budget for next year & reject amendment to keep Lyndale School open

37 Labour councillors agree Wirral Council’s budget for next year & reject amendment to keep Lyndale School open

Councillor Phil Davies "I'm pleased that for a second successive year this Administration will freeze Wirral's council tax" Budget Council 24th February 2015 — Councillor Phil Davies "I’m pleased that for a second successive year this Administration will freeze Wirral’s council tax" Budget Council 24th February 2015

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Video of the Wirral Council Budget meeting of the 24th February 2015 is above and the papers for this meeting are on Wirral Council’s website.

There was plenty of blame to go round at last night’s Council meeting, called to agree Wirral Council’s budget for 2015/16.

Labour’s Cllr Phil Davies blamed both the Conservatives and the Lib Dems. The Tory Leader Cllr Jeff Green chose instead to blame the Labour Administration on Wirral Council. The Lib Dems said that both Tories (on using money for welfare assistance for other purposes) and Labour (on streetlights not being fixed) were wrong, but did agree with Cllr Green’s plea for a U-turn on the closure of Lyndale School.

The sole Green Party councillor Cllr Pat Cleary blamed first the Conservatives referring to “untold misery” caused by housing benefit reforms and then the Labour Administration for accepting the Council Tax Freeze Grant which he called “simply a bribe”.

It then went on and on and on a lot more with backbench councillors trying to score political points. In the end Labour wouldn’t back down on closing Lyndale School and the votes were as follows:

Lib Dem Budget
Votes: 5 for, 56 against, 1 abstention
LOST

Conservative amendment to Schools Budget to reverse Lyndale School closure decision
Votes: 24 for, 37 against, 1 abstention
LOST

Conservative Budget
Votes: 18 votes for, 43 against, 1 abstention
LOST

Labour budget
Votes: 37 votes for, 24 against, 1 abstention
WON

The councillors went on to agree to Eric Robinson as Chief Executive, unusually by a card vote with 57 votes for, 4 against and 1 abstention.

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Wirral Council's Cabinet agree to continue council tax freeze for 2015/16

Wirral Council’s Cabinet agree to continue council tax freeze for 2015/16

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The budget item starts at 1m33s in the video above of the Cabinet meeting on the Budget on the 10th February 2015

Councillor Phil Davies introduces the Budget for Wirral Council for next year at the Cabinet meeting on 10th February 2015 — Councillor Phil Davies (right) introduces Labour’s 2015/16 Budget for Wirral Council at the Cabinet meeting on 10th February 2015

Wirral Council’s Cabinet agree to continue council tax freeze for 2015/16

Last night’s Cabinet meeting included Labour’s fifteen page budget recommendation to Council on the 24th February so the items below are just some highlights. Although the Wirral Council element of Council Tax is being frozen at 2014/15 levels, the Council Tax for Wirral residents may still go up because of a rise in the amount for Merseyside Police.

Continue reading “Wirral Council's Cabinet agree to continue council tax freeze for 2015/16”

Cllr Jean Stapleton tells Conservatives to "get their priorities right for humanity's sake" on fire station merger

Cllr Jean Stapleton tells Conservatives to “get their priorities right for humanity’s sake” on fire station merger

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Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority meeting of 29th January 2015 (agenda item 5 West Wirral Operational Response Considerations (Post Consultation))

Councillor Jean Stapleton speaking at the Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority meeting of 29th January 2015 about opposition to a proposed fire station at Saughall Massie

Continues from Cllr Lesley Rennie refers to proposed Saughall Massie fire station site in green belt as “a piece of scrappy land”.

CLLR JEAN STAPLETON (Lead Member for Finance, Assets and Efficiencies) representing Wirral Council: I would definitely go with the Chief’s recommendation and I concur with Councillor Rennie but I would suggest also Lesley you might have a word with your colleagues in West Wirral because there’s an opportunity for them here to show some political leadership in the community to help them, I hate to say but get their priorities right for humanity’s sake!
Continue reading “Cllr Jean Stapleton tells Conservatives to "get their priorities right for humanity's sake" on fire station merger”

Why did a £1 million street cleaning budget saving at Wirral Council end up actually costing £875,919?

A litter bin on Hoylake Road from 2012 (thumbnail) — A litter bin on Hoylake Road

Last year, after requesting the Biffa contract during the audit, I published the part that related to street cleansing.

What Wirral Council failed to give me then were the extra pages that had varied the street cleansing part of the contract from 1st July 2013 to try to save a million pounds.

Here was what was in the original contract under minimum cleansing frequencies:

7.6 Minimum Cleansing Frequencies

7.6.1 The minimum Cleansing frequencies required by the Council at each location shall be in accordance with that outlined below and the appropriate zoning allocation.

Zone	Frequency
	Manual	Mechanical
1	Daily	Weekly
2	Weekly	Fortnightly
3	Monthly	Monthly
4	Monthly	Quarterly

The alleyways were (before July 2013) being cleaned every four weeks as detailed in this part of the contract:

Continue reading “Why did a £1 million street cleaning budget saving at Wirral Council end up actually costing £875,919?”

Over 3,000 people sign 2 petitions against Wirral Council cuts generally and to West Kirby Marine Lake

There are two large petitions on the agenda of tonight’s Council meeting, which means each petition organiser has up to fifteen minutes to speak. The first petition of 4,042 signatures (combined across an e-petition and paper petition) is from Sue Kellett of UNISON and is titled “Save Our Services”, the front page of which can be viewed here. It’s basically an anti cuts petition.

The second petition of 3,546 signatures by Mr M Shipley is asking to remove the budget option to save money at West Kirby Marine Lake.

West Kirby Library one of the four central libraries that won't be affected by changes to opening hours — West Kirby Library one of the four central libraries that won’t be affected by changes to opening hours

Also on the budget options, the Lib Dems (see pages 3/4 of the supplementary agenda) seem to be upset at the prospect of opening hours at some Wirral libraries being reduced.

On the subject of libraries, below is some information on Wirral libraries recently given to this blog: