Month: Sep 2006

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Uncategorized

Labour council resists good school

I don’t usually cover education issues but I could not help having my mind boggled by this story in the Telegraph today.

Brighton and Hove are a minority Labour governed council. Although the DfES supported the application of the first Montessori school in the country to join the state sector the council and the schools adjudicator were against. The schools adjudictor said: “”With its new facilities, it might prove attractive to more families.”

Sounds just like John Prescott and his comments about the problem with good schools was that everyone would want to go there. Better crap schools for all than a situation where some schools can actually provide an example of how to do better. Old Labour is alive and well on the south coast.

Categories
Ealing and Northfield

South Ealing fire

A large part of the Northfield ward is out of bounds today due to a fire at a food outlet in South Ealing Road last night. This has caused pretty extensive road disruption but no casualties thankfully. A large exclusion/evacuation area was declared because of acetylene gas cylinders being found at the site. More details on the council’s website.

I approached the area along Pope’s Lane at around 2pm this afternoon. The police are letting traffic get right up to the tape and then directing you right into the Trees estate. This is really bad traffic management as it is going to send a lot of frustrated drivers racing around the estate trying to get out. I have called Ealing police station to be answered by someone in Hendon. The SNT team are also on voicemail. Hopefully the message will get through and they will start deflecting people a little earlier.

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Ealing and Northfield High tax, low pay

Council tax part of high tax, low pay Britain

Rowntree.gif

Today the Joseph Rowntree Foundation publishes a report that finds that two million households in England struggle to pay their council tax each year. The fact that three million summonses are issued each year for non-payment of council tax drove it to this conclusion. The report found that the majority of people having difficulties paying their council tax are working people on low incomes and in low-value housing. The report found that one in four households in band A (the least expensive properties) receives a summons, and one in seven in band B, but fewer than one in ten in bands E-H.

Council tax is therefore hitting the poor hardest. Council tax bills have doubled over the past decade, far outstripping wage increases. The Trust leaps from this analysis to say that lower council tax bands should pay less and higher ones more. No, we need to make sure that council tax stays under control so that we are all protected from out of control council tax rises. Ealing council will be doing its bit to ensure that Ealing people have sensible and small rises in future.

Categories
Ealing and Northfield

Storming the 33 Creighton Road fortress

Ealing logo.bmpThis morning at 10am I joined staff from the council to see them tackle 33 Creighton road. The resident here has effectively turned his home into a fortress piling up large amounts of building materials and rubbish in his front garden, the alleys to the side and rear and his rear garden. Although I was glad to see the council taking action I felt sorry for the chap having his home intruded on. We do have to consider the neighbours though who have had to put up with this eyesore for over a year.

The process has been somewhat long-winded. A planning enforcement notice was served at the end of March this year. What with legal notice periods and the time taken to co-ordinate various groups of people it has taken fully six months to get to this stage.

We can only hope that the resident will now stop pilling this material up. Whilst we would love to leave him alone he can be sure that we wil be back if he does start again.

Categories
Health, housing and adult social services

Health, Housing and Adult Social Services Panel

Townhall.jpgThe title of this council committee is not very glamorous but its work is important. I am one of five Conservative members. There are four Labour members.

Last night we had a full agenda covering:

  • the problems at the Nuffield Speech and Language Unit
  • the closure of Ravenscourt Park Hospital
  • previous work on diabetes (a major killer in Ealing especially amongst the Asian communities)
  • involving older people in decisions and the development of services
  • the broader subject of the public’s involvement in health and social care services.

In attendance last night we had the chief executive of Ealing Hospital, the chairman of the PCT, a director of the WLMHT, the cabinet members for Children’s Services and Adult Services & Housing and the Chairman of Overview and Scrutiny Committee.

The work of this committee is pretty demanding as the issues are complex and highly political and the papers are very hard work. The Better Government for Older People paper last night was particularly jargon ridden and hard to digest.

The Tory chairman of this panel, Clifford Pile, is very capable and his Labour deputy, Jasbir Anand, made frequent and impressive contributions in the first two meetings. The Labour group really let themselves down last night though. All four members failed to turn up. Councillor Anand did manage to get Councillor Dhami to stand in for her but he felt unable to make any contribtuiton whatsoever to the main meeting. Two of the Labour members have failed to turn up for ANY of the first three meetings of the panel. The people of Ealing, and in particular the people of the Southall wards, who suffer the greatest health inequalities, are being badly let down by these councillors.

Scrutiny allows opposition councillors to make a real impact. It seems a shame that the Labour group can’t come up with four councillors who can make a contribution.

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Uncategorized

“Kill Strasbourg” petition gets a million signatures

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I reported on this in May when they only had 375,000 signatures. They have just topped the million mark. Apparently only 15,000 of them were Brits so it is not only the Brits who can’t stand the EU waste machine.

www.oneseat.eu was set up by Cecilia Malmström, member of the European Parliament for the Swedish Liberal Party, to mobilise support for getting rid of the Strasbourg seat of the European Parliament. It costs European taxpayers approximately 200 million euros a year to move the Parliament between Brussels in Belgium and Strasbourg just over the border in France.

Well done to Cecilia for getting the million. I hope she takes it further now. Goodbye Strasbourg.

Categories
Ealing and Northfield

Labour trying to smear the council for being sensible

In a letter to the Ealing Gazette last Friday a man called John Messer of Northolt called the current administration “this thieving Tory council”. We have more important things to do than get into legal fights with Messer and the Gazette but these people need to grow up a little and moderate their language. No wonder people get turned off politics.

The Northala Fields scheme is great and a credit to the previous administration. It looks like Phase 1 of the project will come in with a £690K surplus. The Labour group and the consultants involved, who perhaps are not as disinterested as they might be, would like to spend this surplus raising more cash to undertake an ambitious Phase 2. In doing so they would put at risk the surplus generated to-date in order to raise further cash. Whilst the speculate to accumulate spirit is admirable in some ways it is not prudent. Phase 2 is high risk and will cost the council £1.8 million in the best of all possible worlds and maybe £4.6 million in a worst case.

When Phase 1 ends the park will be left with some notable missing components such as loos, signs and a children’s playground. The Conservative council has prudently decided to take a bird in the hand approach. We have a surplus. Let’s spend it on delivering these missing components so that we can all enjoy the park next year. Sure it would be great to have a more ambitious project but the money ain’t coming from the Lottery in the run up to the Olympics so get real.

The council is taking a sensible approach and the scheme’s opponents are using half truths and scare tactics to get people excited. The council’s priorities are clear and splashed all over the website.

Priorities.bmp

Labour may want to play double or quits with public money but we would rather bank the winnings for Ealing and get on with governing. When we have got the basics right we can afford to be a bit more ambitious. The reason Labour lost the last election was because they lost sight of the basics. The vision thing is fine but not if your street is strewn with rubbish and your mum can’t get help from social services.

If you want some more facts as opposed to smears see Jason Stacey’s statement on the council’s website.

Categories
Ealing envirocrime

DJ flyposters at it again

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This time The Priory will be getting a letter from me. I know it is the same DJ running around putting up these posters but it will be the pubs and clubs that have their licences curtailed if they will not control their anti-social DJs.

On Saturday I took down two posters from the junction of Little Ealing Lane and South Ealing Road and two down from the junction where South Ealing Road meets the A4 at the Texaco garage.

Categories
Ex-Mayor Livingstone

CC not making a profit

CC sign.jpgYou might imagine that Livingstone’s congestion charge is making a surplus. Er, no.

In their 4th annual monitoring report published on 29th June they claimed “£122m being raised, in the financial year 2005/06, to invest back into London’s transport system”. This is highly misleading as it does not consider the capital costs of the scheme, which are currently being doubled by the Western Extension. The numbers also show just how poor their cost control is.

The scheme started in February 2003 and has appeared in the last four TfL annual reports as a note to the accounts. These figures are tabulated below (click to enlarge):

CC Figures 2003-6.bmp

The first observation to make is that their management control/monitoring systems must be pretty weak if they can publish a document in June saying that the surplus will be £122 million and then publish figures 3 months later that are significantly worse at £106 million. Where did £16 million go? Uncontrolled costs?

On these numbers Livingstone has taken £677 million off Londoners in charges and wasted 72% of it in costs whilst returning 28% for spending elsewhere. The real figures are much worse.

In an answer to a question raised on 13th September by Conservative AM Andrew Pelling the Mayor gave some background on the capital costs of the scheme. The original scheme cost £161.7 million to set up. The Western Extension is costing £123.1 million – this cost is already committed and can be considered sunk.

Of the figures in the table above the “Financial assistance/deferred charges” and “Depreciation” lines are accountants’ adjustments so we can discount these for the purpose of this analysis. As at the end of the last financial year the Mayor had collected £677 million from Londoners, £452 million had been spent collecting the revenue leaving a surplus of £225 million which is less than the committed capital costs of the scheme (£285 million). The Mayor still needs to make a surplus of at least £60 million in the current year just to break even. The Mayor has simply spent the whole lot in costs. NO SURPLUS has been created yet.

Will things get better in the future now we have got over the initial period (over three years!)? No.

In another question Pelling has found out that costs are increasing steeply. Expenditure for 2004-05 in the area of toll facilities was £120.8 million. Expenditure for 2005-06 was £143.5 million and projected expenditure for 2006/07 is £155.1 million. In other words a 19% increase last year and another 8% projected for this. Most commentators agree that the Western Extension will not result in a large increase in revenue – it may even reduce revenue as those in the Western area are able to avoid the charge.

This is not the worst of it though. Yet another answer to a question from Conservative AM Angie Bray reveals a major risk to revenue. 30% of it comes from penalty charges. In other words if Londoners smarten up and stop incurring fines this whole stupid scheme will never wash its face. Aaaaaaaagh.

Categories
Ex-Mayor Livingstone

Livingstone acting the swell with our cash

The Standard reports today that the Mayor spent £10K of our money at a charity ball in support of the Variety Club. I really want him to leave my money alone. I have lots of charities I support and I really don’t see how it is right for him to take my money and give it away on my behalf. If he wants to write a book when he is voted out of office in 2008 he can then go to charity balls and take part in auctions and spend his royalties.