Criticising without a shred of evidence – it’s the UKIP way

Posted on 04/04/2015 by gambba • Posted in District council stuff, Government, lincolnshire county council, local government, public sector, South Holland, Spalding • Tagged amateurs, dysfunctional, LCC, lincolnshire, party whip, political groupings, SHDC, south holland, UKIP • 2 Comments

A letter published on the SpaldingToday website and probably in next Tuesday’s Freepress, is so

breathtaking in its hypocrisy, contradiction and nonsense, I am driven to challenge it. This is the link to it. ‘We could have a council non-political on local issues’ – http://goo.gl/alerts/S4Wl. 

Normally, I would ignore much of what a UKIP’er has to say, because once you scratch the surface, it’s either airy-fairy wishful thinking, have little grounding in reality, or simply makes no sense – this letter is no exception.

Paul Foyster of UKIP, writes claiming that his party’s way is the right way and the rest of us are wrong and failing to serve the taxpayers. He claims that having a political group running the council, somehow inhibits good decision making on behalf of those taxpayers. However, he fails to offer a single example of any such failings. Perhaps he’s referring to the reduction in council tax we’ve made, for the fourth year running. Or maybe it’s our policy of collecting household refuse and recycling every week – unlike many other councils – that’s providing poor service to South Holland’s taxpayers.

Having criticised political groupings, he goes on to suggest that a group of independent people working together, can make a difference! What is it Mr Foyster – everybody independent and doing their own thing, or everybody working together to make a difference? You can’t have it both ways sir!

The fact that he even refers to a group of people ‘working together to make a difference’ is comical, given UKIP’s farcical performance at Lincolnshire County Council. One minute the UKIP ‘group’ is holding the balance of power, as the largest minority grouping, giving them them the opportunity to influence the decision making process. Next, they’re showing their inexperience and amateurishness, by having an internal cat fight, that sees their so called ‘group’ fragment into two ineffective and virtually pointless minority groups. So that’s the UKIP version of people working together, for the benefit of the taxpayers is it Mr Foyster?

Finally, Mr Foyster suggests that the amount of publicity being put out by the Conservatives, is an indication of our concern about the threat posed by his political group. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. We don’t panic in elections, we just work at getting our message out, something that his party seem to think they don’t need to do, based on my own experience during the county council elections. Is this arrogance on their part, or are they just too lazy to do the work and therefore leave it to a beer swilling, chain smoker, fag packet policy maker to do their publicity for them, via the tabloid press and TV ?

My message to the voters of South Holland is a simple one. Look at the record of UKIP in South Holland to date and how they’ve been disfunctional and virtually invisible at the county council. Now decide if you want the same outcomes for South Holland District Council over the next four years.

Recycling rates under threat

Posted on 08/12/2014 by gambba • Posted in District council stuff, Environmental, Government, lincolnshire county council, local government, planning, public sector, refuse & recycling, South Holland, Spalding • Tagged EU regulations, recycling industry interest group, recycling rates, separate collections, TEEP, weekly collections, wheelie bins • Leave a comment

Although we in South Holland are currently enjoying some success in our campaign to increase recycling, the article below highlights the challenges yet to come.
Just some of the emerging issues for us, will be the end of the external funding pot we succeeded in gaining a couple of years ago. Added to this, Lincolnshire County Council, in their wisdom and for no other reason than to save money for themselves and grab the available materials revenue, are in the process of taking control of our recycling. We will have to continue to collect the recycling, but the council will not receive any recycling credits from the county council, with the county also receiving the £10 a ton we currently get.
As is usual with everything the county council does, it hadn’t thought through the details and have now had to come up with an incentive scheme for those districts they have ‘stolen’ recycling collections from. Without such a scheme, why would we bother to continue to put any effort into increasing our recycling collection rate?
Further pressure is also being applied by the recycling industry, under the cloak of an environmental pressure group. Supposedly committed to ‘saving the planet’ by increasing recycling rates, the group is actually funded by the recycling industry, so have more of a financial imperative than an environmental one. I believe that, despite loosing a high court case, they are still trying to ‘force’ councils into collecting recycling in separate streams, as opposed to a single container, as we do in South Holland.

Copied from Local Government Chronicle online
Recycling could fall for first time this century
8 December, 2014 | By Corin Williams

Local authority budget cuts and new recycling standards could lead to a reduction in England’s recycling rates for the first time this century.

With a tiny 0.05 percentage point increase in English local authority household recycling between 2012 and 2013, to 44.16%, it is now considered highly unlikely that the UK will meet the target set by the EU that 50% of waste will be recycled by 2020.

The Chartered Institution for Wastes Management (CIWM) said there was a “real risk” that recycling rates would decline over the next 12 months.

Chief executive Steve Lee said: “We have seen a lot of welcome emphasis recently on recycling quality. Now the government must put quantity back at the top of the priority list.”

A new code of practice aims to boost the quality of waste materials sent for recycling. One consequence of this could be that waste management companies increase the quality threshold for material they receive from local authorities – thereby reducing the recycling rate.

Steve Rymill, a waste management consultant at the environment and energy firm Ricardo-AEA, told LGC’s sister title Materials Recycling World that councils’ environmental and regulatory service budgets had fallen by 16% between 2010-11 and 2013-14.

“Authorities have been evaluating what their statutory service requirements are and this has meant that a number of areas, such as communications and food waste collections, have been subject to significant cuts,” he said.

“The budget just isn’t there to fund the much-needed communications campaigns required to further improve recycling performance.

“The authorities that have seen big increases in their recycling rate are where they have generally coincided with a service change – something which requires positive communications messages to residents.”

Mr Rymil said it was a particular concern that some councils had actually seen a decline in rates, which was partly blamed on street sweeping being reclassified and garden waste services being retracted.

“We’d expect this to continue next year, as more authorities are considering paring back their service, where permissible.”

Phil Conran, director at consultancy 360 environmental, told MRW some councils with high rates were seeing a significant proportion rejected with contractors complaining the material was not good enough to recycle.

“High recycling rates achieved at the expense of quality are generally not sustainable,” he said.

“Some [recycling plants] might prevent local authorities from delivering [mixed]materials with glass in it, because of quality issues and because of the potential impact of the code of practice. If they revert to bottle banks to collect glass rather than as part of the mix, that would potentially depress recycling rates.

“I think there is every possibility that the rates will decline.”

Mr Conran added that many questions remained over why some English councils achieved high rates when others floundered. “The UK clearly can achieve [the EU target of] 50%. It’s just a matter of bringing everyone up to best practice,” he said.

Meanwhile, the latest statistics on waste and recycling in Wales indicate the country is on track to meet its 2015-16 statutory target, the Welsh environment ministry has said, with one council recycling more than 70% of its waste.

Between April and June, Welsh local authorities recycled, reused or composted 58% of municipal waste, an all-time high.

This is in line with a 58% target for 2015-16.

“Wales is the only UK nation to set statutory recycling targets and we are leading the way in the UK,” said natural resources minister Carl Sargeant. “Welsh local authorities are already meeting the European target of recycling a minimum of 50% by 2020.”

Most Welsh councils reported a quarter-on-quarter increase in the period and recycled over half of the waste they collected, except for Rhondda Cynon Taf, which slipped six percentage points to 47%.

The best performer was Denbighshire, which topped the table with a municipal waste reuse, recycling and composting rate of 71%, followed by Pembrokeshire at 69%, Monmouthshire at 66% and Bridgend at 64%.

There’ll be no enlightenment from this Dark(ness)

Posted on 20/09/2014 by gambba • Posted in District council stuff, Environment, Everyday life, litter and fly tipping, local government, public sector, South Holland, Spalding • Tagged council, Graham Dark, Littering, navel gazing, SHDC, stalking • Leave a comment

‘An officer of the district council, should follow somebody they see carrying a drinks can and when they drop it, they should give them an on the spot fine’. Cllr Graham Dark at a full council meeting.

According to this weeks edition of Spalding Voice Graham Dark wishes to enlighten people on the subject of litter.

Using the letters page, this independent councillor and dedicated navel gazer, has decided to get an early start to his 2015 re-election campaign. He does this with a very brief offering of praise for the litter picking efforts of a young Conservatives group, all with Sandra and Tony White, dedicated and tenacious Spalding residents.

However, the real purpose of his politically motivated letter, is to attack the council’s Conservative group and in particular myself, as the cabinet member for waste and recycling.

Councillor Dark appears to be obsessed with use of tickets and fines, obviously a left over from his days as a police officer. Unfortunately, his time as a cop hasn’t given him any understanding of the difference between having a robust policy and actually having sufficient resources to apply it regularly – certainly not to the extent he desires. In fact, this desire is so compelling, he seems willing to see other council services suffer, in order to satisfy it.

Cllr Dark, having seen his previous obsession, a bandstand in Ayscoughfee Gardens gain financial support via Springfield’s s106 monies, has now turned his myopic gaze towards litter and the catching of those who drop it. His repeated references to one thing in particular, enforcement, is becoming a little tedious.

I accept that, some years ago, an undertaking was made to empower certain council officers, to serve fixed penalty notices on littering offenders. In practice, this was never a realistic option, given that few, if any, of our officers were ever in a position to witness, let alone act, when such offences occurred. I am of course assuming that cllr Dark wasn’t expecting these officers to do this enforcement in their lunch breaks, but one can never be sure, when it comes to a member of the Independent group, as they seldom allow reality to get in the way of a bright idea.

I may of course be wrong on this last point because, if memory serves, at a recent full council meeting, he made the quite extraordinary suggestion, that potential litter droppers should be ‘stalked’ by suitably empowered council officers.

Graham Dark considers it acceptable for a professional Housing, Planning, or Environmental Health officers, to wander the streets of Spalding, looking out for anybody with a drinks can in hand. The officer would then follow that person, keeping a careful watch on them and this potentially source of litter. Should that person discard their can improperly, the officer would pounce on them, book of fixed penalty notices in hand, no doubt crying, ‘your nicked’, or something similar. How far and for how long this stalking had to take place is unclear. Suffice it to say, this procedure will not be written in to the council’s robust littering policy, anytime soon.

Incidentally, Graham Dark and his partner in crime Roger Perkins, are both members of a committee that has the role of scrutinising the council’s performance. Despite this, at no time in their ‘years’ of allegedly banging on about it, have they bothered to get the issue of litter enforcement placed on the agenda of that committee, so that the council’s so called, ‘abysmal performance’ can be properly scrutinised. I wonder if Graham Dark would care to enlighten me on the reason for this?

Littering is a serious problem and a blight on our towns and villages. With its larger population and busier streets, Spalding suffers the most problems and presents the greatest challenges.

Finally, can I enlighten you as to what the future might hold. There has been a major reduction in local government funding, due to the previous Labour government’s mismanagement of the economy. As such, I cannot promise to commit any more resources to this problem, than those currently available. We are however, doing our best to encourage and support the sort of community involvement and pride displayed by Jack McLean, young Conservatives, and Sandra and Tony White. If you would like to offer your help, please do get in touch.

Spalding Today website infested by trolls?

Posted on 11/08/2014 by gambba • Posted in anti-social behaviour, Development, District council stuff, Environmental, Everyday life, Government, lincolnshire county council, litter and fly tipping, local government, planning, South Holland, Spalding, Spalding Wygate ward • Tagged internet trolls, Lincs Free Press, local press, online comments, readersrs letters, spalding guardian • Leave a comment

internet troll – Web definitions
In Internet slang, a troll is a person who sows discord on the Internet by starting arguments or upsetting people, by posting inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, either accidentally or with the deliberate intent of provoking readers into an emotional response …
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_troll

It seems the last place to go, if you want to get an insight into what people in South Holland think about a a local issue, is the website run by our local newspaper.
Oh don’t get me wrong, you’ll get plenty of opinion, but only from a very small element of the population – six at the last count. However, these opinions won’t be from what one could call right minded, or informed people, hence my inclusion of the above definition.
Although the screen names are different, the tone of their comments are not. To a man and possibly woman, they all display the same uninformed, spiteful, small mindedness.
Indeed, I’ve yet to read one that doesn’t sound like it’s come from somebody holed up in a darkened room and fermenting on the conspiracy theory that, all councillors are corrupt and the district council is out to destroy South Holland, one piece at a time.
Unfortunately, these trolls display little, or no grasp of even the basic facts behind the online stories they comment on – all they know is what they read on their screens – so it would be pointless to enter into any sort of constructive online debate with them. Indeed, I don’t think they even care about the content of story, they just see it as an opportunity to snipe and sneer at others.

Only complaining via the letters page, achieves very little

Posted on 23/02/2014 by gambba • Posted in County highways, Everyday life, Government, South Holland, Spalding, Spalding Wygate ward • Tagged accident stats, Beleisha beacon, community, district council, highways, pedestrian crossing, pedestrian safety, road accidents, road deaths, road injuries, road saftey, speeding, wygate park, Zeebrite • Leave a comment

Its always a bit disappointing when the first time you find out that somebody has got a problem, is when it appears in the letters page of the local newspaper. It’s doubly disappointing when the person making the complaint is known to you, because you have had dealings with them in the past and have actually been successful in resolving an issue for them.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not seeking to be the best thing since sliced bread – never really understood what that means – and be the go to guy for everything and everyone, but I’m just a bit nonplussed as they say, that this gentleman didn’t at least given me a heads up on the issue, at the same time as writing to the newspaper. All that said, I have actually been looking into the issue of drivers allegedly ignoring the pedestrian crossing on Wygate Park, over the last couple of months, following a comment made to me by a resident sometime ago.

The comment was along the same lines as the letter in the press and although I have not witnessed any occurrences myself, it reminded me of my own concerns about this crossing. Until the recent conversation, I thought it was just me and that I was somehow becoming less aware of such things and therefore needed to be on my guard when driving. This is often a criticism of drivers of a certain age, so I had to consider it as a possible reason for my concerns, regarding this pedestrian crossing. However, having heard these concerns from somebody of lesser years, I thought I’d do some further research.

For sometime now, I felt the crossing was somehow less obvious as you approach it in the car, than similar crossing in other locations – but only during the hours of daylight. At night the opposite is true and I would defy anybody other than a blind person, somebody sleep driving, or somebody completely off their head on drink or drugs, not to see this crossing clearly. Not only is it floodlit, it also has illuminated black and white posts, that work brilliantly in combo with the flashing yellow beacons that top them.

Unfortunately, during the hours of daylight, the beacons seem barely adequate and along with other surrounding issues, I wonder if this might be the cause of the alleged pedestrian near misses? Does the background of nearby trees and branches make the beacons less visible than normal? Is it the light units on top that leads a driver to see these as street lights, rather than the crossing illumination and warning beacons they actually are? Could it the fact that the crossing actually sits on one of the traffic calming platforms, making the viewing angle from a driver’s perspective, shallower and the black and white crossing less obvious?

I’ve been in touch with the county highways department, asking all of these questions and they are of the opinion that there’s no problem with either the crossing, or its visibility. As always, they are forced to look at getting the biggest bang for their ever decreasing buck, so they use the accident and incident figures for a given location, as a way of determining its priority. In the case of this crossing, nobody has been run over yet and, thankfully, nobody has been killed, so it doesn’t even figure on the highways dept’s radar, when it comes to spending money on improvements.

I have made enquiries with a company that supplies beacons that have a ring of flashing LEDs around them, having seen how effective they are in other areas – Peterborough City seems to fit these as standard. Unfortunately the cost, over £3000 per beacon (higher than standard, because of the integral flood light unit on top) makes funding any improvement from my ward budget almost impossible. Just to make life a bit more difficult, county highways would still not sanction any changes, unless they received what’s called a commuted sum of £2,700, to cover the increased cost of future maintenance, or replacement due to accident damage. Understandable, but nonetheless frustrating.

I really do hope that neither the letter writer nor myself, are proven right in our concerns and that the crossing continues to offer genuine safe passage to pedestrians crossing this increasingly busy road.

Should Spalding have a council?

Posted on 23/02/2014 by gambba • Posted in District council stuff, Spalding, Spalding in general • Leave a comment

As the Civic Society, in their latest newsletter, is seeking to resurrect the debate around the creation of a town council for Spalding, I thought it might be worth republishing a previous entry on the subject, from nearly 2 years ago, that was itself a repeat of an even earlier one. As they say, there’s nothing new in this world.

Although the financials are somewhat out of date, page 127, of the agenda supplement that will be put before full council of 26th Feb 2014, gives the up to date numbers and hopefully can be viewed here as a PDF document: http://democracy.sholland.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=119&MId=1351&Ver=4

In order to help with the conversation that is currently taking place via Twitter, I’ve been asked to offer more detailed comment via my blog page. Never being one to turn down the opportunity to offer words of (dubious some would say) wisdom, I am starting off by republishing an entry I made in January 2008.

Spalding Special Expenses – Here we go again!

We had a special meeting of the cabinet today, mainly to approve various financial papers. One of these was a consultation document on the Draft General Fund Revenue (GF) account. Just like all things financial in local government, including the names they call things (GF!) the information (sorry data, information suggests useful data that makes sense!) is pretty impenetrable, unless you happen to be an accountant. In my case, having the numeracy skills of a flip flop doesn’t help, so I’m normally the one asking the stupid questions. Anyway, one of the items in the document was the Spalding Special Expenses and this is the prompt for my latest ramblings.

Spalding doesn’t have a parish or town council, but it does have the equivalent of a parish precept called Spalding Special Expenses (SSE). This amount makes up a very small part of a Spalding resident’s council tax bill, but actually generates a great deal of debate at this time of year. The proposed increase this year is about 4.17% or 1.6p a week, making the average total SSE this year £21.49. Chicken feed most people would say, but even a small amount collected from a lot of people adds up to quite a bit of money (approx £183,000). However, the underlying issue is how this figure is arrived at, who decides it and what it should be spent on.

The final decision rests with the district council, because Spalding doesn’t have a parish or town council and this is where the debate really gets going. We have a Spalding Town Forum made up of elected members and some local organisation representatives. However, it has no executive powers and can only make recommendations to the district council, which can of course choose to ignore them.

Should Spalding have a parish/town council? I joined the district council in May 99 believing that Spalding should indeed have its own council, after all, how could so many people, 22,000+ then, be so under-represented compared to all of out smaller towns and villages? However, now that I’ve doing this for a while, I’m less sure of the merits of this, especially when it comes to unravelling the finances, setting it up and paying the admin costs. A major cost would be employing a clerk in the same way parishes do. How much? £10k, £15k, £20k, who knows until it actually happens? Finding a place to call home (an office) could cost anything from £2k to £10k.

What will the people of Spalding get for their money if they had a town council? Apart from direct control over some very limited areas of council business, maintenance of Spalding Cemetery, Monks house Lane, Hailey Stewart and the provision of Christmas decorations to name a few, not a great deal as it stands! However, once you have a parish or town council, theoretically the sky’s the limit (that’s a scary thought in itself).

So, as far as I’m concerned the jury is still very much out on this issue and given the lack of feedback from the public of Spalding, I think it’s going to remain out for some time to come!

If you want to know more about the issue of creating a parish/town council see: http://www.nalc.gov.uk/About_NALC/What_is_a_parish_or_town_council/What_is_a_council.aspx

Spalding Special Expenses Account – Published for consultation purposes
	Original 2007/08	Draft 2008/09
	Budget	Budget	Variance
	£	£	£
SpaldingCemetery (see note 1)	45,280	47,170	1,890
Spalding Allotments	9,720	11,600	1,880
Ayscoughfee (excluding gardens)	6,470	7,240	770
Halley Stewart (see note 1)	31,150	41,330	10,180
Thames Road(see note 2)	11,990	8,430	(3,560)
Fulney Road	9,120	9,550	430
Monkshouse Lane(see note 3)	21,260	26,010	4,760
Contribution to Voluntary Car Scheme	7,700	8,000	300
Christmas Decorations	16,260	17,400	1,140
Contrib. StMary & StNicolasParishChurch	650	680	30
Contribution to footway lighting (note 4)	2,030	0	(2,030)
Administrative Support	3,630	3,740	110
Bus Shelter maintenance	410	410	0
Spalding Town Centre Promotion (see note 5)	4,000	2,000	(2,000)
Crime prevention (see note 6)	2,000	0	(2,000)
Total Expenditure	171,660	183,560	11,900
Funding
To be funded from Council Tax	171,660	183,560
Tax Base	8,320	8,540
Band D equivalent	20.63	21.49
Council Tax Increase	3.06%	4.17%
Balance Brought Forward		2007/08	2008/09
		(36,000)	(36,000)
Earmarked for crime prevention			12,880
Agreed minimum balance 5% expenditure for contingency		8,580	9,180
Available Balance		(27,420)	(13,940)
Notes 1. Tree works for Halley Stewart and the Cemetery have been estimated at £3,000 and £8,000 respectively. 2. A spiking machine for the grounds (£6,000) has been added to Halley Stewart Playing Field. 3. Maintenance of the Pavilion at Monks House and Legionella testing (£3,900) has been added to the playing field budget. 4. The budget provision for footway lighting has been removed, since no new lights are currently being planned. 5. The Town Centre promotion budget has been reduced to £2,000, so that the spiking machine can be funded this year and council tax increases maintained. 6. The Crime Prevention budget has been reduced to nil for 2008/09 and balances will be used, should the Herring Lane Car park income not be sufficient to pay for the maintenance of CCTV. In prior years this budget has not been called upon.

As forecast, first public comment was a negative

Posted on 31/10/2013 by gambba • Posted in District council stuff, Everyday life, South Holland, Spalding • Tagged district council, road signs, south holland, spalding, spalding guardian, Spalding Town Forum • Leave a comment

Spalding Common

I had a bet with the blokes putting up the first one, about what the tone of the first public comment would be, regarding the new Welcome to Spalding signs. Being a fully paid up member of the cynical B’s club, I bet on it being critical, negative and tinged with an element of spite – and I was right! Pay up guys.
I suppose we should be thankful that at least somebody has not only noticed them, but has taken the time to put pen to paper, given the lack of interest displayed by many when it comes to local issues – apart from planning applications that is.
The writer of today’s letter in the Spalding Guardian, is a regular contributor to the page. He obviously missed the postage stamp sized story on these signs, the first time around, or I would have expected to see his critical appraisal published back then.
No, the signs are not made of Perspex (a trade name for acrylic) Mr Sadd, they are aluminium, with the image printed on – durable vinyl material, designed for this use.
The signs are as temporary as you want them to be Rodney. If you can find the several thousands of pounds, probably as much as £10,000 would be my guess, to commission, design, manufacture and install something similar to the wooden signs that Spalding once had, I’m sure we would all be very pleased to see these signs replaced.
My guess is, that there isn’t anybody out there already writing the cheque for this work and that these signs will remain in place for at least as long as the embarrassing ‘lollipops’ that they replaced – come on prove me wrong for once, I dare you. That’s not an invitation to go and nick them by the way.

Look at all the stuff you can do online with SHDC

Posted on 11/10/2013 by gambba • Posted in District council stuff, Government, South Holland, Spalding, Spalding in general, Spalding Wygate ward • Leave a comment

Just go to: http://www.sholland.gov.uk/doitonline/

Abandoned Vehicles	Report an abandoned vehicle. More information: Abandoned Vehicles – Information
Animal Fouling	Report dog fouling. More information: Dog Fouling \| Dog Warden Service
Dead Animal Notification	Notify us of a dead animal on the highway or publicly owned land. More information:: Dead Animal Notification – Information
Flytipping	Report flytipping. More information: Flytipping – Information
Footway Lighting	Report a fault with a footway light. Street lighting faults should be reported to Lincolnshire County Council. More information: Street Lighting
Graffiti	Report an instance of graffiti. More information: Graffiti – Information
Street Cleaning	Report a road that is in need of sweeping due to accumulation of leaves, litter, etc. More information: Street Cleaning – Information
Litter Bin – Report	Report an issue regarding a street litter bin (e.g. if a bin has been damaged or needs emptying). More information: Street Litter Bins
Litter Bin – Request	Request a litter bin for your street. More information: Street Litter Bins
Benefits and Couuncil Tax Support
Housing Benefits Calculator and Claim form	Fill out this form to see whether you may be entitled to Housing Benefit and to submit a claim if you wish. You can also use this on-line calculator and application form to apply for Council Tax Support (if applicable) More information: Claiming Housing Benefit
Local Housing Allowance Calculator	Calculate the possible amount of Housing Benefit available. More information: Housing Benefit – Local Housing Allowance
Council Tax Support Calculator	Use this calculator to see what your new entitlement might be under the Council Tax Support Scheme. Please note this Calculation should be used as a guide only.
Refuse & Recycling
My Collections	Find out your recycling and refuse collections days. More information: Refuse and Recycling Collections
Missed Recycling Collection	Report a missed recycling collection. More information: Missed Recycling Information
Missed Refuse Collection	Report a missed refuse collection. More information: Missed Refuse Information
Business
Business Inspection Request	Request a business inspection. More information: Food business – food safety inspection \|Health and Safety at work
Industrial Unit Enquiry	Express an interest in one of our industrial units. More information: Commercial Property Lettings Advice and Allocation
Tenancy
Communal Repairs	Report a problem on your estate or in your block. More information: Services and communal areas
Leisure Event Bookings
Exhibition Booking at Ayscoughfee	Book an exhibition at the Geest Gallery, Ayscoughfee Hall Museum. More information: Ayscoughfee Hall Museum – Geest Gallery
Football Pitch Bookings	Make a provisional football pitch booking. Sir Halley Stewart Playing Field Castle Playing Field Monks House Lane Fishpond Lane
Open Space Event Bookings	Check availability and provide details of your proposed event. Spalding Town Centre Sir Halley Stewart Playing Field Ayscoughfee Gardens Castle Playing Field
Wedding at Ayscoughfee	Check availability and provide details of your proposed event. More information: Ayscoughfee Hall and Gardens – Wedding
Environmental
Dangerous Structures Notification	Notify us of what appear to be potentially dangerous buildings, structures, or parts of a building. More information: Dangerous Structures Notification – Information \| Open and Derelict Properties
Markets – Cleaning	Report an issue regarding market cleaning. More information: Markets – Cleaning – Information
Noise Pollution	Report an issue with Noise Pollution. More information: Noise Pollution Information
Public Conveniences	Report an issue regarding a public toilet. More information: Public Conveniences – Information
Stray Dogs	Report a stray dog. More information: Stray Dogs – Information \| Dog Warden Service
Parking
Parking Fine Appeal	Appeal against a parking fine. More information: Excess Charge Dispute
Parking Season Ticket	Apply to go on the waiting list for a quarterly parking season ticket. More information: Car Park Season Tickets
Miscellaneous
Consultation Sign Up	We welcome all feedback so if you would be interested in receiving surveys or taking part in any form of consultation on Council matters, then please complete the form opposite.
eAlerts	Sign up for email alerts about job vacancies.
E-billing Interest	Register your interest in the forthcoming council tax/business rates e-billing service.
My Lincolnshire	What is My Lincolnshire?

If I happened across a blog written by a moron….

Posted on 22/09/2013 by gambba • Posted in District council stuff, Everyday life, Spalding, Spalding Wygate ward • Tagged blog, campaigning, greed, moron, ranting, raving, spalding • Leave a comment

If I happened across a blog written by a moron, that contained a personal attack on me, I’d probably respond to it something like this.

I’d suggest that they didn’t ramble on and on, like somebody just back from a binge drinking session and lacking the brains to go to bed and sleep it off instead of scrawling on their blog page. I’d also suggest that they read more carefully what they are ranting about before going off half cocked, like a spoilt child that’s just been told they can’t have a sweetie.

Finally, I’d tell them that, if they want to keep banging on about something written months ago, all of the above applies and that they shouldn’t think themselves so important that everything that was written all those months ago, was only about them.

Oh, and if I happened to try to find out a bit more about the writer of the blog and took a look at their profile, I’d be very suspicious if I found that it actually contained absolutely nothing about them, or anything else come to that. I’d also have to wonder what they had to hide and ask how they expect to be taken seriously, when they hide themselves from their readership.

Of course I’d only respond like this if I happened to come across such a blog entry.

Even then, I might think twice about bothering, especially if the site was saturated with tacky adverts, designed to make money and not really communicate with local people at all.

Likewise, if the site was just a regurgitation (vomit for short) of other people’s stuff, this would clearly show that the owner had a lack of original thought, so it wouldn’t be worth reading in the first place, so I’d probably never bother reading it and wouldn’t have to respond like this after all.

This reply belongs in the toilet

Posted on 17/09/2013 by gambba • Posted in District council stuff, Everyday life, South Holland, Spalding • Tagged Anti-social behaviour, Lincs Free Press, Mr Angry, public toilets, readers letters, street cleaning, vandalism • Leave a comment

http://www.spaldingtoday.co.uk/news/opinion/letters/public-toilets-one-of-the-most-stupid-replies-i-ve-ever-read-1-5489989

Having tried numerous times to log in to the newspaper website, so that I can respond to this letter, I’ve given up and resorted to my blog page. Although very few, if any, will read this compared to the letters page of the local paper, it will at least get it off of my chest and if nothing else, this website does let me log-in!

In truth, Mr Turps letter is so lacking in substance and so full of bile, it’s almost impossible to come up with a newspaper response, that isn’t equally bile ridden. However, as this is my blog and I can say pretty much what I like, bile ridden included, so here goes.

From the outset, I really didn’t get the, ‘the most stupid replies’ bit. Clearly this gentleman started off unhappy with my response and went on to build up a head of steam to the point of becoming slightly irrational in his arguments.

He offered some clearly insincere regret, for the verbal and sometimes physical abuse the staff suffer, by saying, “which, if true, is very regrettable”. He then goes to display a clear lack of understanding of what the problem is, by claiming that it’s all about ‘the management’ and finishes by telling me to ‘get out of the way’. Out of the way of what, to allow what to happen exactly?.

If it’s about anything, other than the totally unacceptable behaviour of a minority of users, it’s about closer supervision of the task and that will always be a major challenge with such a small street cleansing team, that is trying its best.

In conclusion, Mr Turps’s letter is, “One of the most stupid replies I’ve ever read!”.

Roger Gambba-Jones

Roger's rants and sometimes something useful!

Category Archives: Spalding