Category Archives: District council stuff

Spalding Primary School expansion plan problems

Posted on by • Posted in District council stuff, Everyday life, Spalding Wygate ward • Tagged , , , , , , , • Leave a comment

Up to now I, along with my fellow ward councillor, have attempted to be as helpful as possible in respect of the county council’s attempts to increase primary education provision in Spalding. A s106 that gave LCC 1.5 hectares of land and £1.3m towards the provision of a brand new school, was due to terminate in 2013, meaning that the county would of been left with no means of increasing the education provision, other than by raiding its own rapidly diminishing coffers. Loss of these funds and the associated land would leave the county council with an ever increasing number of children to accommodate, but no money to do it with – hence our very qualifed support.

The county council have moved very quickly from the provision of a new school on the s106 land, to using the associated money to expand Spalding Primary School. The school already suffers from significant issues regarding traffic congestion and parking. My attempts to offer a radical solution to both the existing and the inevitable future parking and traffic problems have apparently not found favour with the county council. Also, having now seen the architect’s plans for the so called extension, my support for this plan is melting away faster than the latest fall of snow. Not only has the extension become a totally separate building, of virtually equal size to the main body of the existing school, the traffic and parking solutions being suggested are, in my opinion, nothing of the sort and will not offer any relief from the daily misery visited on residents.

Unfortunately, the county council is able to give itself planning permission for such schemes and given their remote and too often high-handed attitude to local issues, I am fearful that the residents concerns will be over-shadowed by ‘the greater needed’, or worse still, ‘the bigger picture’.

Lincolnshire County Council education department have gotten themselves in to this mess by failing to forward plan and build on the opportunity presented by having a large area of land available and a £1.3m pot of money. Had they started budgetting from the moment the planning application was approved, I am sure they would of had a significant pot of money to add to the index linked sum now about to become available to them. Instead, they have chosen to use only the s106 money to squeeze what is effectively a 210 place infant’s school, on to the same site as an already full to capacity junior school.

in an urban location, where many of the children would be taken to and from school by either public transport, or Shanks’s Pony, this type of over-development might be acceptable, because whilst the school might be very busy, the roads and streets around it would be little affected by the comings and goings of parents and children. Unfortunately for LCC, this situation does not apply at Spalding Primary School and a large number of children are transported there by private car, all of which must find space to manoeuvre and park in the streets around the school.

The combination of an enlarged school and inadequate traffic and parking solutions, means that residents will very likely have to endure even greater problems should these plans go ahead.
We have organised a public meeting at the school on 5th March at 7pm, so that the public can come along, hear more about the plans and most importantly have their say.

Get out, yer banned!

Posted on by • Posted in District council stuff, Spalding • Tagged , , , , , , , • Leave a comment

I had the rather bizarre experience of being refused service in a local shop the other day. It wasn’t because I was previously suspected or caught shop lifting, or even because I had a made a scene on a previous occasion because of a defective purchase, or poor service no, it was because I was a district councillor, or more accurately, ‘I was from the council’.

The shop in question is called the Lincolnshire Gallery, located in Swan St Spalding. The owner, Derek, has apparently left instructions with his staff, that nobody from the council is to be served. This short-sighted and seemingly ill-tempered directive is, I suspect, based on the outcome of a couple of recent planning applications. Both applications were on the same site and both were refused. Given that at least one of the applications was refused on appeal by a planning inspector, I wonder if Derek has also written to Bristol, where the Inspectorate is based, to tell them that they are not welcome in his shop? Also, whilst he’s at it, he might as well drop a no thank you card to the minister Eric Pickles, as the planning inspectorate works for him!

Of course any shop owner has the right to choose who he or she serves. However, given that the council employs hundreds of people and at least some of them are likely to want to purchase art supplies occasionally, this is a classic case of cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face.

Police will be forced to act if neighbours complain

Posted on by • Posted in District council stuff, Everyday life, Government • Tagged , , , , , , • Leave a comment

RESIDENTS are to be given the power to force police to tackle anti-social behaviour and end the “horror stories” of communities blighted by nuisance neighbours, the Home Secretary will say today.
Theresa May will say that if five households complain about a repeated nuisance, the police and local authorities will be under a duty to investigate and devise a plan of action within a fortnight.

By Tom Whitehead Daily Telegraph 30 Jan 12

Whilst I applaud any proposal to require police and councils to take more seriously the issue of anti-social behaviour, there is a glaring loophole in these proposals. Not for the first time, a well meaning, but urban centric policy has completely ignored the rural dimension. Whilst it might be a no-brainer that a bunch of persistent yobs, will upset at least five separate households in a residential area, the same cannot be said for thousands of rural households. Drive around anywhere outside of our main towns and villages and you will see isolated homes, remote from any neighbour, let alone four others.

This new policy is very welcome, but like so many government policies in recent years, needs to be given far more thought and go through the apparently now forgotten process called ‘rural proofing’. The alternative, is numerous rural houses and hamlets of less that five houses, left to the mercies of the yobs driven out of urban areas by this new policy.

Shortfall of 450,000 primary school places

Posted on by • Posted in District council stuff, Spalding Wygate ward • Tagged , , , , , , • Leave a comment

Figures have revealed that the English school system will need to provide more than 450,000 primary school places by September 2015. The LGA responded by calling for better forecasting methods for future demand to identify where the big increases are likely over five to 10 years.

This is particularly relevant for us in Spalding Wygate, given the county council’s proposal to extend extend Spalding Primary School. Shouldn’t the county council show more foresight and actually build the new school on Wygate Park rather than just extend an existing school that is already too big for its available parking area?

160,000 Brits lose jobs to migrants

Posted on by • Posted in District council stuff, Everyday life, Government, public sector • Tagged , , , , , • Leave a comment

A study by the Migration Advisory Committee has revealed that more than 160,000 British people have lost out on a job to an immigrant in the past five years. Figures also revealed that a total of £2,216 is spent per head on education for immigrants and their families every year, whilst only £1,662 is spent on British children. At least 112,000 new homes will need to be built for immigrants over the next five years.

I doubt this will come as much of a surprise to those at the sharp end. No doubt the politicians are already sharpening their pencils in preparation for trotting out the same lame excuses for failing to control immigration into our already overcrowded country. The one about migrants only taking jobs the locals don’t want is a standard one along with the unconvincing one that nobody believes anymore about them making a net contribution to the economy. I wonder if these figures also include all the money wasted on the translation services virtually every public service provider needs to use in order to communicate with many of these immigrants?

Network Rail yet to build bridges with public

Posted on by • Posted in District council stuff, Everyday life, Government, Spalding Wygate ward • Tagged , , , , • Leave a comment

it looks like the saga of the lighting, or rather the lack of it, on Steppingstone Bridge in Spalding might be coming to an end in the new year.  However, whilst Network Rail appear to have agreed  to fund the work required, following discussions with the county council, they deserve little real credit.

Having communicated with a number of national organisations I can safely say, without reservation, that Network Rail is by far the most arrogant and un-cooperative I have ever dealt with.  Almost since the first day the new (secondhand) bridge was opened, people have been complaining about the lack of lighting and the standing water on the top deck.

I alone must have registered at least four complaints, with the inappropriately named, customer service dept in York, about these problems.  Each and every time I was promised a call from their local representative and each and every time it never happened.

Of course Network Rail makes a point of not ignoring everybody, especially when it’s the local MP.  Only a week or so ago, I was told that the county council was still awaiting written confirmation, from Network Rail, that they are willing to finance the work to move the currently non-working light.  Then, by pure chance, I was emailed a copy of a letter sent to John Hayes by Network Rail, stating that they are just waiting for the completion of legal agreements before carrying out the work!  It would seem that Network Rail doesn’t even have the good manners to communicate with the other party to this work, the county council, so what chance does a minor politican like myself have?

I would like to think the passing in to law of the Localism Bill would eventually lead to the building of bridges (pardon the pun) between faceless organisations such as Network Rail and the public.  Unfortunately, based on my personal experience to date, there’s more chance of HS2 being built this century!

Affordable housing con

Posted on by • Posted in District council stuff, Government • Tagged , , , , , • Leave a comment

In their housing bill, the government has suggested that developers should be able to renegotiate section 106 agreements for affordable housing contributions, in order to enable them to deliver currently stalled developments. At the same time, the government has found yet more money, in those treasury coffers that are supposedly bereft of funds, to provide £400m for guess what? – affordable housing!

Setting the stage for developers to wriggle out of providing an element of affordable housing within their developments, suggests a return to the council estates we have been working to get away from since Margaret Thatcher introduced right to buy.

The cynic in me sees more than a little collusion, or even out right conspiracy in these proposals. Developers have never liked devaluing their open market housing developments with affordable housing, even when they could afford it. Even then, they tried their best to bunch them all together in the back of the site – almost out of site out of mind (that’s a pun by the way, not a typo)

Now, with the government promoting the renegotiation of s106 agreements for this provision, whilst at the same time providing money for its delivery, it would seem that the developers are going to get their wish and we are going to see the potential emergence of a new clutch of sink estates.

Instead of giving developers a way of undermining local authorities ability to deliver affordable housing using their own policies, why doesn’t the government give councils the £400m? Councils could then use this money to subsidise developers and require them to maintain a mix of tenure within their developments. But of course the developers wouldn’t like that idea, so it’s never going to happen.

DIY SOS offers me a bizarre contrast

Posted on by • Posted in District council stuff, Everyday life, Spalding • Tagged , , , , , • Leave a comment

I watched DIY SOS on Thurs night. Nick Knowles and his team, along with dozens of local volunteers, were carrying out their biggest ever challenge, to modernise a rundown youth club in Norris Green, Liverpool.
Local people were shown saying how important the club was to their community and how it had saved many local kids from going off of the rails. Everybody who spoke was determined to see the club succeed and were committed to doing their bit both now and in the future.
We have a successful and popular youth club in Spalding, that was refurbished by the county council about 18 months ago. However, since then the opening hours of the club have been cut to only one day a week for less than three hours.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, a meeting I attended recently, along with a couple of other Spalding councillors and arranged by the county council, was asked for ideas on how to keep the club going beyond April next year. It seems more than a little ludicrous that the Nick Knowles team, along with dozens of volunteer tradesmen and women, spent nine days and an estimated 18000 man hours in Liverpool, creating something that Spalding may well be about to loose.

The unacceptable face of localism?

Posted on by • Posted in District council stuff, Everyday life, Government • Tagged , , , , , , • Leave a comment

The story from Spain about a British couple dying in a flash flood has a nasty sting in its tail when you look at why it happened. Apparently, the local council ignored instructions from central government to improve the drainage in the area, that would of prevented this event. They were also ‘ordered’ not to allow any further public events in the area until the work was carried out.

Spain has a much greater level of local autonomy it would seem, with central government making lots of noise, but local government ignoring them when they choose. Is this what we can expect as localism takes hold in England?

Tear up all planning policies, then blame councils for the lack!

Posted on by • Posted in District council stuff, Government • Tagged , , , , • 1 Comment

The government are looking at how to introduce a transition period to give councils time to produce a local plan, but they are resisting any attempt to introduce a reasonable time period for doing so. One excuse given by one of their tame peers, is that councils have had 8 years to produce plans, but the majority still haven’t, so why give them any more time now?

This reasoning, which is actually no reasoning at all, but simply a smoke-screen for wanting to get their own way as soon as possible, ignores the fact that the whole process of plan making is extremely complicated and highly expensive. It also ignores the fact that, until recently, councils could use the default position of using the national policies detailed in planning policy guidance and statements. Unless there was pressing need, such as special local circumstances, why would a council spend large amounts of their taxpayers money producing a local plan?

Successive governments have lulled councils in to what now appears to be a false sense of security, by burying them under multiple layers of planning policy and guidance, for the last 60+ years. Now the current government is throwing all that policy in the bin and then blaming councils for not having any of their own policies. Just to add insult to injury, the government has now produced the sloppily worded NPPF, as a replacement for all that planning policy, with a statement in it designed to ‘punish’ councils that don’t have their own policies; where a plan is silent, indeterminate or out of date, planning permission should be given without delay.

The double whammy of no plan and no time to produce one, is potentially as damaging as the presumption in favour statement that we are all getting so hot and bothered about. I hope as much effort is put into getting a sensible timescale put in place, as has been expended to date, in exposing the NPPF as a flawed document.

Government Tries to Speed up Local Plan Examination to smooth #NPPF Transition