Tilehurst Bus Shelter Update

The bus shelter lots of peoploe in Tilehurst are waiting for is the one by the Plough opposite the Triangle in Tilehurst. It should appear in two weeks time after they complete the one outside Park Lane School. Pierce’s Hill, the other bus shelter that a number of people have asked me about is not due till October, as is the one at the top of City Road.

By November all the nearly 200 original bus shelters will have been replaced but it is thanks to the previous Labour  Administration that we had such a long gap between losing all our bus shelters and new ones being installed. There are a lot of folk, especially the elderly ones, who are quite angry at how this transition has been managed. This is no way to support public transport in Reading and, frankly, Labour have let the town down.

Why we have a coalition Government

There has been a lot of press speculation about the Lib Dems losing support and about our poor showing in recent opinion polls. This is contrasted with the Tories who are bounding ahead in the polls. It seems that the public willed us into a coalition and are now blaming us for having formed one.

There are two answers as to why we are in a coalition. First, there is the simple electoral arithmetic from May’s general election. Only a coalition with the Tories would produce a stable government. The second is about what we can achieve in government as opposed to being on the outside. See the recent speech by Simon Hughes at http://www.libdems.org.uk/latest_news_detail.aspx?title=10_weeks_on_the_Lib_Dems_have_had_huge_influence_in_Government&pPK=56581a41-74a5-4f93-b2e7-844d5e829448

Simon reiterates our key aims and sets out what we have achieved in 10 weeks of government. A  Tory government on its own would have looked very different and yes, we have had to sit with gritted teeth as they announce new directions for our schools and NHS which would see state control broken up and replaced by the free market,  not something that most LibDdems would happily support. But a coalition is exactly that, it means trading ideas and if we have to grit our teeth whilst we prepare the ground for electoral reform, so be it. Next May we will knock down the discredited  first-past-the-post voting system and the next general election will be a very different campaign. It goes without saying that without electoral reform this coalition does not make sense, but it is the only way of getting this vital reform.

Public support may be fickle but we, as a party, voted overwhelmingly to go into a coalition and we are strong enoughto stick with it till next May and hopefully to the next general election in May 2015.

Coalition Politics

I spent two hours in the Council Chamber on Tuesday evening listening to a debate on the Agreement proposed by the Conservative-Lib Dem Coalition that now controls Reading. The Agreement sets out the objectives of the new Coalition Administration (available online at http://www.readinglibdems.org.uk/2010/06/the-liberal-democrat-conservative-coalition/ ).

Unsurprisingly, the Agreement contains bits of Lib Dem policy and bits of Tory policy and yes, there are bits that we do not like and there are bits that the Tories do not like but that is the nature of coalition agreements, there is give and take on both sides. What amazed me during the debate was spleen vented by  Labour at the Lib Dems for daring to enter a coalition, the charge of traitors coming from the Labour benches, how could we suddenly change trackaway from our erstwhile partners in progressive  politics? If the Labour Party was so progressive then we would not have witnessed the huge growth in the gap between rich and poor in this country since 1997 (and yes it widened under the Tories as well but they never pretended to be’progressive’), we would not have seen the introduction of tuition fees, we would have seen education treated as a priority and not just an election slogan, we would not have the largest jail population in Western Europe, we would not have wated billions on the ID card system, the list goes on.

So for all ‘progressives’ in the Labour Party, here is a thought. If we believe in proportional representation or even an Alternative Vote electoral system, the outcome will surely make coalition government more common and end the curent system where Labour or Tory governments make radical reforms to our country with the backing of only 35% of the voters. Very few elections give any one party over 50% of the total vote on their own. Don’t listen to the dinosaurs in your own party or you will be in opposition for a very long time.

Stop nicking our bus stops !

I am sure that there are lots of elderly folk who do not understand why all the bus stops all over Reading have been removed over the last month or why the bus stop on Pierce’s Hill in particular has never been replaced at all since an accident damaged it last year.

The explanation is that one company was awarded the contract to provide bus stops several years ago by the Labour Administration in charge of the Council. Just before the contract ran out, they tendered for a new contract and awarded it to a new company. Sadly the contract allowed them to pick up their bus stops for all over the town without any reference to the new company that apparently cannot start operating until all the old bust stops have been removed. Only when can they start installing new bus stops. It makes you weep when contractual arrangements like this end up as a right pig’s ear with the poor public losing out. Lucky for the people of Reading, we have had good weather over the last couple of weeks – otherwise a lot of people waiting for busses would have got soaked as well as having no place to sit down.

I sincerely hope that the new contract does not have the same pig’s ear of a mess when it eventually runs out.

Oh, and the one on Pierce’s Hill will eventually be replaced, we just do not know when.

That Scrutiny Vote

I have been asked why, in the light of my previous post, I voted for Conservative Cllr Skeats to chair last night’s CCEA Scrutiny Panel when I deputised for Cllr Epps.

On the first round of a secret ballot to elect a chair for the panel, I voted for a Labour councillor. The vote produced a dead heat and a run-off ballot was held between Cllr Skeats (Con) and Cll Lovelock (Lab). I abstained on this run and the result was a again a deadlock.

At this point the election of a chair was deferred to the next meeting and a vote was held to install a temporary chair just for the evening. I could not support Cllr Lovelock (and there are one or two other Labour councillors I would not support) and the only way to break the deadlock was to vote for Cllr Skeats, which I did, happy to leave the next run of an election for chair of the panel to its next meeting when Cllr Epps would be back. I took the view that this was preferable to having Cllr Lovelock in the chair for a meeting when the items on the agenda related to her time as Leader of the Council.

So there you have it.

Scrutiny on the Council

Many people may not realise it but the Council has a number of Scrutiny Committees that look at aspects of the council’s activities and allow members to question officers and lead councillors, holding them to account for their actions. Scrutiny Committees are public meetings so anyone can go along, and indeed speak at these meetings.

For many years under the previous Labour Administration the chairs of the Scrutiny Committees were handed to fellow Labour councillors who then proceeded to ensure that the committees did not upset the Administration in any way. It was not a fair or open way to conduct these meetings and as a result they were never very effective in holding the Administration to account.

In 2008 Labour lost their majority on the council and one of the changes that happened was that the Tory and Lib Dem groups wrested the chairmanships of the scrutiny panels away from Labour. I have been Chair of the Environment Scrutiny Panel for the last two years during which we have had some frank but helpful discussions on the Administration’s policies on waste collection, waste disposal and climate change strategy to mention but a few topics. I remember attending a course on scrutiny along with Daisy Benson (Lib Dem Chair of Housing & Health Scrutiny) and Mark Ralph (Tory Chair of Education Scrutiny) and learning that having opposition members chair these panels was the best way of holding the Administration to account.

However, everything has changed with the advent of a new Conservative-Lib Dem Coalition Administration. In the Coalition Agreementthe Lib Dems have accepted the Tory proposal for Chairs of scrutiny panels to be elected by panel members at the first meeting of the year. This could appear to be an invitation to Administration members to select their own scrutiny panel chairs and leave the Labour opposition out in the cold. This would do to Labour what they had done to us for many years but is not, in my book, a good way to conduct scrutiny.

It is worth pointing out that the Coalition Agreement also calls for a rethink of Scrutiny and how it is best achieved and, whilst not wanting to prejudge what might come out of this, I am of the opinion that Scrutiny Panels must be seen to be independent of the Administration and so I, for one will not be voting for any councillor from the Administration Groups to chair a panel on which I am a member.

Just because Labour had a stranglehold on power in the Civic Centre for many years is not a justification for  weakening scrutiny panels now under the new Coalition Administration.

Thankyou Tilehurst

I do not know what last weeks elections did for you but after a minor scare in the early hours of Friday morning when I thought we may have lost Tilehurst, it all came good when the votes were counted at lunchtime on Friday and yet again we had beaten off the the Tories in Tilehurst with a 257 vote majority. It all sounds so simple afterwards but behind that result was a lot of hard work from a small army of helpers, deliverers, tellers and canvassers who were truly magnificent. So thanks to you and thanks also to the electors of Tilehurst for giving me another term of office as councillor. For my part I will try and continue the record of service of local Lib Dems to the good folk of Tilehurst.

Nationally we also pushed our vote up and Daisy took over 20% of the votes in Reading West, our best result here in many years. Even more pleasing is the number of new members and helpers we have aquired during the campaign.

Tomorrow we are off to a Special Conference in Birmingham where the Lib Dems will discuss the coalition with the Tories. Almost all the members I have spoken to agree that this coalition is right for the country and  although we will need to hold our noses, the actual agreement contains an awful lot of our Lib Dem manifesto  policies. Coalition politics in Parliament is new to us all but is clearly not uncommon in other countries that seem to have prospered, notably Germany.

I shall listen to the debates and what Nick Clegg has to say with interest.

Elections 2010

Just now recovering from a very long day yesterday which continued into the morning with little sleep and ended with a victory pint in the Retreat in town. And that, in a nutshell was election day 2010.

The good folk of Tilehurst turned out to vote yesterday in their thousands which was good to see and the total turnout was 67.5% in our ward. This is about double  the normal turnout for a local election and was due to the general election being held on the same day, always a big draw for voters.

The good news is that Tilehurst Lib Dems once again saw off the blue Tory tide that swept over most of the country. Thanks to the efforts of our committed team of helpers we beat the Tories by 1920 to 1663, a majority of 257, with Labour a distant third. Many thanks to all the electors of Tilehurst who turned out yesterday.

Over the last few weeks I have been struck by the warm reception on the doorsteps and streets of Tilehurst with many people wishing me and the Lib Dems well. This was partly due to the Clegg effect and partly due to the fantastic reputation that the Lib Dems have here in Tilehurst in working for local residents. Long may it continue !

We also had some more good news for the Lib Dems in Reading, where not only has our vote gone up in every ward but we also took a seat off Labour in Katesgrove. Well done to Rebecca Rye and her team. The council now has 19 Labour, 17 Conservatives, 9 Lib Dems and 1 Green councillor so it is still in no overall control and no party has a majority.

Thanks once again to all the helpers and deliverers who have worked so hard for the Lib Dems in Tilehurst and thanks to all the voters of Tilehurst who have re-elected me as their councillor.

The Tilehurst Doorstep – Part 2

Well as you can imagine I have ben a litle busy recently what with the odd election campaign going on. But the good news form the doorsteps of Reading West is that even before the Leaders Debate last Thursday we were getting contacts from lots of people volunteering to help us. Since last Thursday we have had even more. That debate has also created an even more positive response on the doorstep. The whole team in Reading West is now buzzing and determined to get our literature out to every nook and cranny in the constituency and to knock on as  many doors as we possible can. In Tilehurst we have been round more doorsteps and talked to more residents than in any year that I can remember and the responses are good.

Daisy’s tabloid has gone down a treat over the whole constituency and everyone now knows who Daisy is and that she is a really serious threat to both Labour and the Tories.

I often canvass with my Fulham hat on and lots of folk recognise the FFC badge (I am a seaon ticket holder at Craven Cottage for those of you that know much about football).

If you had told me 6 months ago that the Lib Dems would be winning an  election and that Fulham would be in a European Quarter Final I would never have believed that either of them were possible !

Park Lane School Update

Tilehurst residents have endured a long saga on the project to rebuild Park Lane School on the site of the current Laurels Infants School, Tilehurst Library and the Health Clinic. Essentially the plan involves building a new school on a single site (replacing the four different sites currently used by the school) with outdoor play areas and selling off the existing playing field in Downing Road, the curent main school building and the annexe in Downing Road. The plan was put together in repsonse to the last two OFSTED reports on Park Lane School which pointed to the limitations of using the current four sites and the unsuitability of the old buildings for modern teaching methods. The sale of the land would finance a large part of the new build. The plan has already been out to consultation in 2008 and last year a further consultation was held prior to seeking agrement to sell off the playing field (legislation requires that permission is granted by the Minister for Children, Schools and Families before any playing fields are disposed of).

The minister has now given consent for the playing field to be sold in order to finance the building of the new school. This is excellent news for Park Lane School and the children of Tilehurst.

However, in the current climate the value of land is considerably down on estimates from two years ago and government is far less likely to  fund any rebuilding as it deals with the current economic crisis. The upshot is that the school now has permission to sell off the playing field but will have to wait some time (probably several years) before finance can be found for the rebuilding. This is not good news for Tilehurst as the saga will continue for some time to come and the council also has to decide whether to finance some serious repairs to the school buildings that are becoming more urgent by the day.