Councillor Robinson - September 2017.

[Malcolm Robinson]

Not a great start to the month still unable to access the internet at home?

I was going on holiday just after the first week so I wanted to get everything done and in place before I left.  I contacted everyone I had to with the concerns and questions my constituents have asked me about and I hope to have all of them answered by the time I get back.

I had a Local Government Pension Panel meeting to attend and it turned into an all-day event!  Several people had come from London and elsewhere to do presentations and answer any questions.  This is a very serious position so I ask a lot of questions and if I disagree I say so, maybe too vocally!  Anyway this took from 9.00am until 3.30pm to get through and I felt washed out by the end because it’s pretty heavy going.  Never mind holiday to look forward to starting tomorrow!

I was only going for a week and I had let everyone who had contacted me and was waiting for a response, know.  For the first 3 days my phone hardly stopped!

When I got home I was determined to get these ongoing issues sorted.  After wading through the treacle of bureaucracy I eventually spoke to the neighbourhood services director.  He confirmed that the original officer had been redeployed and his replacement had only just taken up the role when he applied for and received part time retirement.  In some strange quirk of fate the original manager has been regiven this area to see to until such time as a fulltime replacement is found.  I therefore shot off this communique listing the problems I had been asking about for some time now and in reality to him!

“The following is a list of unresolved concerns my constituents have raised with me at my monthly surgeries.

Black path from Glebe Road up to Meadowdale.   Glass and cans strew all over and overgrown vegetation.

Loose drain cover on Dunstanburgh road in the Hazlemere estate.  Been reported by resident but no response from NCC?

Cars driving on path to miss speed bump in Bernard Close, Hazlemere estate.

Empty plot of land Edinburgh Drive, is it designated play area as it was supposed to be?

Ineffective weed killing and blocked rains reported in Westlea. “

This doesn’t seem like rocket science to me but then I don’t have to balance the budgets and man power.

I had to take the LAC tonight due to the fact that Christine the chair was in hospital undergoing a procedure.  At least this one is in Bedlington!    There was a pre planning meeting at 3.00pm followed by the planning meeting proper at 4.00pm followed by the LAC meeting at 6.00pm.

After having procedures and the legal details of the planning applications explained to myself and the chair of planning we had the planning meeting at 4.00pm.  The room was filling up with people who had been told they could address the planning meeting by their ward councillor but unfortunately that wasn’t the case!  Not only that they had all come from the far side of Cramlington and thought this meeting in Bedlington had been handpicked to be out of their way!  So I felt it incumbent on me to explain there was no conspiracy and that these meetings are booked well in advance of any agendas so no one knew the application they had come to shout about was going to be one tonight.  The meetings will be held around the areas and this was just Bedlington’s turn.  Also the fact that one of the members had told them they could speak was in fact wrong, they had to pre book a spot within the 5 minutes public speaking time.

I opened the LAC and shot through the first agenda items and then passed it over to the chair of Planning sitting next to me.   He again explained how the system worked and then opened it up for the first applications.  Just about everyone had come to complain about one of the applications and it took over an hour to hear the case.   One of the opposition members’, who has never been to one of these meetings but is supposed to come to each of them, stood up and spoke against the application.   That got him a round of applause.   Are people really that gullible?  A very young woman spoke for the application and I had to remark to the chair that the audience should be silent and give her the respect she deserves!  He agreed and asked for silence.  Anyway after the speakers and questions surprisingly the chair wanted to defer the application but one of the administration members proposed rejection.  I spoke about the concerns I had and most agreed but I also said we were in danger of looking like every commercial application that comes in front of us is turned down and that was something I wouldn’t like to be associated with.   The vote was a unanimous rejection.

Next item was a change of use and refurb of a commercial property.  Again unanimous vote this time in favour.

We then had half an hour to wait until 6.00pm when I could restart the LAC proper.

When I did restart one of the first items on the agenda was public questions and as there were several members of the Bedlington public there unsurprisingly the questions were about Bedlington.  This did not suit one of the members and he made an exasperated outburst!  His complaint was that there wasn’t more members of his constituency here to ask questions and vary them from being Bedlington centric as he put it.  I thought that is about as ridiculous as it gets and other members said as much!  One of the items brought up could have been classed as repetition but given this member’s outburst not only did I allow it I made sure it was minuted for action!

We then had a police update and I was surprised to hear quite a different report from the one I heard off the Police at the last Bedlington Forum meetings?  When I questioned the officer about it he assured me his report was correct.  Seems Bedlington is fully staffed and there can be no suggestion of a lack of presence here.  Hmmm……

Had a corporate scrutiny meeting yesterday and this time I was pretty vocal.  (I really wanted to get to the last one but it had been called at very short notice when I was away on holiday.  That one was about the aborted County Hall move.  I did read through the associated papers and most are covered by a confidentiality clause.   So I can’t say anything other than I would expect all this information to come out into the public realm at some stage so people can then make their own minds up about who was promoting the truth or not about this move!)  One of the items was the budget performance for this financial year.   I had gone through the papers before attending the meeting and seen the general direction we are talking so several questions needed to be asked as there seemed to be a projected slight overspend.

As this ‘potential overspend’ was mainly made up of one entry I asked about these figures.   I would seem to me that an overspend of about 60% was either accounted for by incompetence, which I doubt, or the base line budget figure was so out of true it skewered the resulting report.  The latter seems to be the case but I was assured it is something which has been identified and is being worked on.   Good.

I have just been contacted by another two constituents, one who seems to have had a less than salubrious service off NCC and another who asks about a project the last councillor was supposed to be doing.  I have had nothing back from our temp area manager about the list I sent so now I need to step it up and include more items!

I wanted to debate some of the topics identified in that Active Citizen report I posted some time ago with the young people I did the Civic Roles with.  I had contacted Lyn at Leading Link and asked if she would ask them if any of them were interested in discussing the subject and I sent the synopsis so they could look and see.  Lyn said it had a good response and there were quite a few young people interested in further exploration so I booked some time to meet up with them.

In the event about two dozen young people came along and we discussed all sorts ranging from Active Citizens to Brexit, from democracy to paths for young people to better access our democracy.

Couple of things stood out, one was they felt they needed better educating about the subject so that they would then be able to make much better and more valued decisions and the second major item was improved transparency!  Couldn’t agree more but I had to play Devil’s advocate.  The discussion went on for well over an hour and I hope we both learnt some things.  I will certainly be pushing their points across at next month’s Democracy Week at County Hall where I have agreed to play host to some of our young visitors.

Well my contact at Management level about constituent concerns has produced an unexpected result.  Saturday night and I came back from work and was just having a cuppa before getting ready for work the next day and I had two emails from the people I have been trying to get hold of for weeks.  I thanked them very much for the contact and assured them I wasn’t after any special treatment but I did need the feedback, good or bad, to the concerns and queries I had raised.  Hope I get a similar response Monday!

That’s this month done then and it might have been a little curtailed by technical problems but I have again tried to include what’s been going on as it happens, in real time so to speak.  It may be a little abridged but some will appreciate the brevity I have no doubt!  LOL.  October is going to be a very hectic month!

I notice the Bedlington Independent Councillors have been asked which way they are going to vote on the costs of over 16 school transport issue by the Labour group.  Talk about insincerity!   Well not to give anything away prior to a vote but I wouldn’t have voted to abolish free school transport for over 16’s in the first place, unlike the last Labour administration!  In fact I believe education like health should be free for all citizens as long as we all agree with the basic policy and agree to chip in.  I look at my monthly taxations on my salary and it seems like many others I have already agreed and I’m fine with that.

Just to answer one snide attack with another…..maybe we could use just 2% of this Special £25M Dividend Arch are paying back to the County Council, according to the last administration,  to fund free school transport for our over 16yr olds!  Ahh… but then we would have to actually find that money; it would no longer just be a soundbite in a pre-election gambit.

[Canny lass]

The time you take to keep us informed is really appreciated, as are all the hours you put in getting the job done.

Edited October 3, 2017 by Canny lass