The Council meeting last week was another quiet affair with the Labour Group fairly supine. Sir Albert did try to stir them up but his heart does not seem to be in it. It is hard these days for them to get up and say anything. We have managed to keep out of the Icelandic Bank mess but it seems the Police Authority and now Centro have been caught up in it. We like the way they all say it will have no effect on their services but you have to wonder if it does not matter why have they got it?
Before that on the Saturday evening Sue and Keith were at the ICC for the annual ANKA Daycare Dinner. This is a longstanding organisation which provides daycare, and a lot more, in some of the hard-pressed areas of Lozells and Aston. Although they do much good work it is one aspect of the gun/gangs scenario which gets little publicity, although it deserves more. Cllr Yvonne Mosquito was the co-host and she believes we should all sing for our supper so during the evening Keith, Sue, Cllr Alan Rudge and Cllr Paulette Hamilton were dragged up on stage and had to recite a rather long poem, Blake's " Augeries of innocence" no less. Very intellectual for us councillors.
On Wednesday Keith was at the Innovation Centre for the LAAP enqiry whilst Sue spent most of the day at the Council House doing some training for the Licensing Committee, firstly about normal licencing issues and then a session on about gaming, bet that was interesting. Sorry. That evening Keith was at the AGM of the Sir Barry Jackson Trust. This is the body that owns the shares of the Rep and a lively meeting was followed by an enjoyable meal and discussions about the forthcoming Library of Birmingham Project which will include part of the Rep.
On Thursday Keith was at the Planning Committee helping some local residents with an application by the Reaside Clinic for new security measures. All went well with a meeting afterwards between the residents and the clinic's Estate Manager which will hopefully solve the problems. It is nice when two sides of a dispute can work together to sort things out.
On Friday Sue and Keith went to the Caravan and Camping Show at the NEC. Nothing to do with the Council and yes they paid for the tickets. It turned into an expensive morning as they bought a caravan. It involved a good deal on the motorhome but does mean that Keith will have to change the Micra for a bigger car. Another smacking from the green doom merchants seems on the cards.
After the show Sue and Keith took the motorhome over to Wem in Shopshire for a beer festival. Also on site were Ken and Barbara, Cllr Adrian Delaney from Weoley with his two kids and Derek Johnson and Gary Sambrook. Derek is the candidate for Brandwood and a big Post and Mail letter writer while Gary is a young man who almost took Kingstanding this year and is working extremely hard in order to win in 2010. We all had a great time. There were lots of real ales from all over Shropshire and the standard was very high this year.
We had to come back early on Monday for the funeral of a good friend and local personality, Gill Yates. Gill was a loving wife and mother as well as a well known teacher. She also sang in the City of Birmingham Symphony Choir for twenty years as well as playing the trombone. The ocassion was attended by a large number of her numerous friends and her loss at such a young age is a great blow to her husband Malcolm and their three children.
It seemed odd afterwards to be going on to more meetings but it has to be done. Sue was at Colmers Juniors for a Governors meeting which seemed to go on for hours whilst Keith was at the Northfield Town Centre Shop for a meeting of the board of South West Birmingham Community Association.
Tuesday and Wednesday saw Keith at the LAAP enquiry again. As we have told you the one session has been adjourned. Yesterday Sue, Keith and Ken had a meeting with the Highway Engineer at some shops on the Bristol Road South. It seems some of the shop owners and residents have been driving down the pavement to access the frontages. This will be stopped before someone gets killed or injured but we are assessing how we can help them gain a safe acess to the shop frontages. It is amazing how aggressive some people can be when you are trying to help and it can be very tempting to walk away and say bugger the lot of you. Luckily we have thick skins and shrug it all off and get on with trying to help them even though they don't seem able to help themselves. One man was full of his own opinions, we felt like telling him that we would run his shop and he could be the Highway Engineer but restraint won out in the end.
Today Keith and Sue have been at the Callowbrook Day Centre for a Section 33 visit. These are snap inspections which we are reqired to carry out on Childrens Homes, Elder Peoples Homes, Daycare Centres and Emergency Assessment Teams, mostly in our own wards but sometimes in other area of the city. Callowbook is well known to us as we hold a regular surgery there and the visitors speak very highly of it.
Thursday, 23 October 2008
Getting our hands dirty
Just to prove that this job is not all glamour we would like to show you a pic of a recent incident. Keith got a phone call telling him that a resident had put some bulky rubbish out at 12midnight on Friday night for an arranged collection on Saturday. At about 1am a local herbert set fire to it. The fire spread to a nearby fence and hedge belonging to a sub station. The Fire Service were called and responded prontly and put the fire out. Unfortunatley they left all the debris spread over and blocking the pavement. Keith and Ken went out on the Sunday morning and managed to get some of it down the tip and swept the pavement to allow people to get past. Keith arranged for the rest to be picked up by the neighbourhood workers an Monday. Just think about this the next time the Post talks about Councillors only being in it for what they can get out of it.
Just rewards
On Sunday the 12th we had the pleasure of attending a presentation at Colmers Leisure Centre of some awards to three members of staff who leapt into action when a member of a football team had a heart attack. They kept Mr Greenway going until the police and paramedics came to take over. The police and PCSOs did get a lot of publicity from the incident and we thought that these heroes deserved some recognition of their own. Congratulations and thanks to Pauline Davies, Ian Harper and Lucy Spurrier. We took some pics which also show Cllr Randal Brew, Deputy Lord Mayor and Ivor Williams who is Head of Northfield Constituency.
Non stop
The last two weeks have been a non-stop effort by all three of us.
The Longbridge Area Action Plan Examination in Public, to give it it's official title is taking place at the Innovation Centre on the site. We are rather impressed at the way the Inspector, Jill Kingaby is conducting the enquiry. She tries to find common ground between differents interests and succeeds the majority of the time. There is a disagreement between the Council and St. Modwens and AWM over the money which will have to be paid through section 278 and section 106. This item has been adjourned for three weeks for negotiations to take place, expect some hard bargaining but there should be a deal by the time it resumes.
One thing that struck Keith was the attitude of some of the professionals toward local people. These highly educated and highly paid people, including several QCs tend to be a little superior to local residents such as Sid Grey who is representing the people of Frankley. What they forget is that when they get into their big cars and drive off to their big houses the rest of us remain behind to live and work in the area. They can make the decisions and decide on the future of Logbridge but it is us locals who have to live with the consequences and our views must not be discounted as being unimportant in the grand scheme of things. We did have a former Labour Councillor turn up who made some outlandish statements which caused some amusement but the trouble was that Sid Grey was then lumped into the same category which is very unfair to a man who has fought for his neighbours for umpteen years for no reward and deserves to have his words listened to with respect.
The Longbridge Area Action Plan Examination in Public, to give it it's official title is taking place at the Innovation Centre on the site. We are rather impressed at the way the Inspector, Jill Kingaby is conducting the enquiry. She tries to find common ground between differents interests and succeeds the majority of the time. There is a disagreement between the Council and St. Modwens and AWM over the money which will have to be paid through section 278 and section 106. This item has been adjourned for three weeks for negotiations to take place, expect some hard bargaining but there should be a deal by the time it resumes.
One thing that struck Keith was the attitude of some of the professionals toward local people. These highly educated and highly paid people, including several QCs tend to be a little superior to local residents such as Sid Grey who is representing the people of Frankley. What they forget is that when they get into their big cars and drive off to their big houses the rest of us remain behind to live and work in the area. They can make the decisions and decide on the future of Logbridge but it is us locals who have to live with the consequences and our views must not be discounted as being unimportant in the grand scheme of things. We did have a former Labour Councillor turn up who made some outlandish statements which caused some amusement but the trouble was that Sid Grey was then lumped into the same category which is very unfair to a man who has fought for his neighbours for umpteen years for no reward and deserves to have his words listened to with respect.
Thursday, 9 October 2008
Sion Simon in Government? Are things that bad?
The Erdington Typo has earned his reward for his loyalty to Gordie, and his disloyalty to Bliar, and has entered Government as Minister for Skills. Not all skills, just those in the Universities. Perhaps he will be offering advice on how to maximise the capacity for consuming Frosty Jack and White Lightning in the Student Union, and if you saw his speech about the never ending march of Labour footsoldiers you may suspect that he is no stranger to cheap cider.
Liam Byrne was also promoted but not into the Cabinet, his job was down-graded to a cupboard apparently. He also went on to YouTube complaining about litter in his constituency. He didn't complain about the people who drop the litter, just about the Council for not picking it up. He cannot be called two faced as he would not choose the one he has surely?
Liam Byrne was also promoted but not into the Cabinet, his job was down-graded to a cupboard apparently. He also went on to YouTube complaining about litter in his constituency. He didn't complain about the people who drop the litter, just about the Council for not picking it up. He cannot be called two faced as he would not choose the one he has surely?
Crisis
Although this has been another busy week with meetings and a lot of leafletting the main topic of conversation is the collapse of the banking industry and efforts to stave off economic disaster. We are not economic experts and take our chances like everyone else. It was once said that if all the economists in the world were laid end to end they would still not reach a conclusion so what chance have we got.
At least we had some good news this morning with confirmation that BCC has no money tied up in Icelandic Banks. It appears that nearly 100 local authorities and several other public institutions, Fire & Police Authorities, Transport for London and others have over half a billion pounds in accounts which may longer exist. At least we stayed clear of that mess.
On a personal note from Keith "I decided about 4 years ago to reduce my debt as much as possible. I had a small mortgage but was maxed out on 2 credit cards. I decided to only use them for purchases when I needed them to be insured but other than that have not used them at all and made great efforts and got them down to zero. This meant I was not paying all my disposable income to the card companies and when I need a loan, for instance a newer car last year, I can shop around for the best deal. The reason for my caution was that I could not understand how we could be a successful economy by doing each others accounts and when working for a hardware company I saw that virtually everything was imported from India & China. This could not go on and I now feel this has been vindicated. This is no comfort to all those who are staring into the abyss of job losses and repossessions so lets hope that the action being taken affords some hope for the future, although I fear the worst."
At least we had some good news this morning with confirmation that BCC has no money tied up in Icelandic Banks. It appears that nearly 100 local authorities and several other public institutions, Fire & Police Authorities, Transport for London and others have over half a billion pounds in accounts which may longer exist. At least we stayed clear of that mess.
On a personal note from Keith "I decided about 4 years ago to reduce my debt as much as possible. I had a small mortgage but was maxed out on 2 credit cards. I decided to only use them for purchases when I needed them to be insured but other than that have not used them at all and made great efforts and got them down to zero. This meant I was not paying all my disposable income to the card companies and when I need a loan, for instance a newer car last year, I can shop around for the best deal. The reason for my caution was that I could not understand how we could be a successful economy by doing each others accounts and when working for a hardware company I saw that virtually everything was imported from India & China. This could not go on and I now feel this has been vindicated. This is no comfort to all those who are staring into the abyss of job losses and repossessions so lets hope that the action being taken affords some hope for the future, although I fear the worst."
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