Tag Archives: spalding

A town council for Spalding?

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As request here are some intial thoughts on the question of a council for Spalding.  To start the ball rolling, I have reproduced 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.

Councillor wanted – only professionals need apply?

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Here’s an interesting little conversation I have been having with somebody (Them) who is kind enough to follow my Twitter tweets & ramblings (can you ramble in 140 characters or less?) 

The first post refers to a leaflet produced by the City andCounty of Swansea Council, as a way of giving their taxpayers a better understanding of what a councillor does.  I think the leaflet sums the role up perfectly and, despite being produced sometime ago, I also think that nothing it says is either out of date, or irrelevant to today’s modern councillor.

The exchange of views that followed come from a council employee and offers some very valuable insights from their perspective.  The council has thinned out its management considerably over the last year or so and those that remain, at the senior level, are shared with another council inNorfolk.  Furthermore, until the recent round of local council elections changed their political colour and thinking, we were on course to link up with a second council, thereby expecting those shared managers to work across three geographically dispersed councils.

When the ‘coming together’ proposals were being discussed, I was a dissenting voice, questioning the thinning out, combined with part time nature of the shared management model.  Of even more concern to me, was the potential for generic managers.  These were seen as the way forward for some of those positions currently filled by managers with specialist knowledge of the service.  Under-pinning all of this was something called, new ways of working, a concept I have yet to fully grasp in all of its implications and one that, in my opinion, has yet to have any real meaning for many members.

Part of the new ways of working philosophy, was a belief that executive members would step-up and start taking a more hands-on approach to their portfolio holder roles.  I asked for, but never got, the provision of a structured training programme for those executive members expected to take on this ‘new way of working’, which of course brings me back to the comments made below.

I expect that there are a number of executive members in councils around the country who are relishing the opportunity to be more hands-on, I certainly am.  However, in the absence of any meaningful training, am I and others, doing any good, or are we just making life more difficult for departments already struggling with a leadership deficit?- only time will tell I suppose.

Dave Mckenna ‏@Localopolis   Final plug for my post on explaining the Six Roles of the Local Councillor to the public http://bit.ly/KGZe24

Them: Role of councillors is changing rapidly with the advent of customer services, Web interface and social media: time for reform?

Me: Yes, but that doesn’t change basic role of the councillor, helping people with ‘the system’. Some think themselves above that.

Them: With councils ‘shared management’, councillors need to assume more of an executive role and take ‘ownership ‘ of their patch.

Me: maybe so – for now. Poachers turned gamekeepers not good for the democratic process. Some relationships already too cosy.

Them: A proactive opposition is supposed to be the Democratic balance to combat political ‘cosiness’, isn’t it?

Me: Don’t agree. Having a majority trumps a robust opposition. Keeping em honest is not the same as stopping em going native

Me: members need to walk the tightrope of showing leadership, but not becoming part of the system and blind to service failings

Steppingstone Bridge Spalding – update

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25 May 2012 – Despite several online complaints, a full council motion by SHDC and a number of letters, with the last one being special delivery to the chief executive, nothing has changed since 16 March. A phone call from them today has now promised that the work will take place on Thursday of next week.
I have also now written to Grantham Magistrates’ Court, asking for advice on how to obtain a Litter Abatement Order against Network Rail.

I will be giving further updates via Twitter at: Twitter.com/gambba_jones

Steppingstone Bridge update

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16 March 2012 – Some progress made on the Steppingstone Bridge cleanup campaign. The two overflowing skips have disappeared already – thank you NW, now what about the rest of it please?

A clean up team from SHDC has cleaned up the glass and used a portable vacuum to clean-up the dog ends and grime that had collected in the nooks and crannies. They’ve also cleaned up the litter and rubbish around the approaches.

No doubt it will be made a mess of again in a day or two, but we’ll just have keep redoing it until people get the message that making a mess of our environment is unacceptable and we won’t put up with it.

Spalding Primary School expansion plan problems

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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!

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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.

Shortfall of 450,000 primary school places

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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?

Swan St Spalding closure – not yet it seems!

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I had some disappointing news from the Lincolnshire County Council highways dept this am.  I had asked them to consider keeping Swan St in Spalding closed once the sewer repair work had been completed by Anglian Water, because the traffic flows in the town centre seem to of improved significantly since the work started.

Highways were willing to give the closure a trial period leading on from the sewer working, providing their informal consultation with local businesses showed overwhelming support for the idea.  Unfortunately, this was not the case, with a split of 60/40 in favour of closure for a trial period.  Because of this, LCC will now have to carry out a formal consultation exercise, contact any objectors and try to resolve their concerns and only then, initiate the trail!  To do anything else would leave them open to challenge and subject to official sanction for not following the rules! 

It would seem that some people have gotten hold of the wrong end of the stick on this one.  They seem to be under the misapprehension that it is the whole of Swan St that would be closed, rather than just its junction with Kings Rd, leaving the full length open for normal access from Winfrey Ave. 

Worse still, at least one individual, despite being asked for comment on behalf of the large retail outlet store he or she manages, responded by saying, “I object because it will take me longer to get to work”. 

I will try to be charitable as we approach Christmas and put this response down to a very busy manager, not really thinking about the long term implications of what they have written.  On the other hand, it could a short-sighted and self centred response from someone who cares little for his customers, the town of Spalding, or even for the increased carbon emissions caused by stop start traffic flows and tail backs that normally occur when this junction is open.

However, all is not lost and the highway authority has promised to look carefully at the responses they receive to the official consultation and to carry out a scientific analysis of the traffic flows if and when the trial period goes ahead, with a view to making the closure permanent.

Hopefully, our local press will pick up on this issue and encourage a wider group of Spaldonians to make their views known – only those in favour please ;¬)

A timely reminder of the purpose of the Johnson ‘Hospital’

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A front page story in today’s Lincs Free press, has resurrected an interesting debate that took place when the new ‘hospital’ was first proposed.
From memory, the hospital trust did try to reduce the public expectation for their brand new facility, by referring to it as ‘a community hospital’. In the same way that a community centre cannot be compared with full blown, seven days a week entertainment venue, our community hospital has very limited functionality, when it comes to offering the full range of services.
As a centre for the various health professionals that operate in and around South Holland, it has created a much improved base. Likewise, the dedicated staff that were running numerous outpatient clinics in the various outdated, cramped and overcrowded buildings dotted around Spalding, now have a much improved and well deserved workplace. As do, of course, their patients.
Nobody can pretend that the minor injuries department is anything but that and those suffering more serious injury than a cut, twist or sprain, still have to accept that a trip to the Pilgrim Hospital in Boston is inevitable.
I sympathise with the lady who was left waiting 45 minutes for an ambulance to take her to Boston. However, she appears to have been let down by poor communication and, not for the first time, by the poor management of the hospital trust and the ambulance service, but not by our community hospital, that is doing exactly what it was designed for.

Steppingstone Bridge Spalding flooding

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A bit more information for residents regarding the flooding problem the bridge suffers during periods of heavy rain.  Below is a link to a letter received from LCC.  As you will see from reading this, the issue of who does what on the bridge is far from straightforward.  I will do my best to make progress on this before the freezing weather arrives again this year.

Bridge flooding