Sunday, 31 March 2013
Saturday, 30 March 2013
Political Defections
Whilst everyone has gone off to bed for an early night, I have been catching up on the local newspapers from the back end of last week.
Am I the only one who thinks it is odd that a Lib Dem councillor on Southend leaves to join the Liberal Party and become part of the Independent Group and not a word is uttered by the 'Independents'. Nice to see the Independents sticking to their pledge of keeping party politics out of local government.
Yet an Independent councillor leaves the Independent Group to join the Conservatives and the 'Independents' are outraged. The irony. Politics can be a strange old game. Churchill crossed the floor twice. I wonder if the Independents would have asked him to stand down and force a by-election?
Friday, 29 March 2013
Graffiti on Maplin Way
With last night marking the start of the Easter holidays it seems that the graffiti artists were out in force over the town. Was this a coincidence? Unfortunately, the bridge in Maplin Way, Shoeburyness was again a target as the vandals left their tag on the clean surface. I have reported this to officers so it can be removed after the Easter bank holiday weekend. Despite Easter being a holiday period for many, it is not for West Shoebury councillors.
Shoebury Common Flood Defences Public Consultation
Between these dates an exibhition of the plans will be on display at Thorpedene Library with a public meeting to be held on the 22nd April at Shoeburyness High School, starting at 19:30.
It is important that residents come along to the meeting and view the plans so they can have their say and feed in their thoughts so they can be incorporated into the final design on the embankment concept to go for planning permission.
From the residents that I have spoken to I do not believe that there is universal opposition to the flood defences being proposed at Shoebury Common, despite a leaflet doing the rounds from a couple of local individuals.
From time to time it is inevitable that people will disagree with their elected representatives and unlike the UKIP candidate in West Shoebury in recent years I will not resort to abusing those that I disagree with.
Whilst the two authors of the leaflet live on high ground and are not at risk of flooding at Shoebury Common, I do find it somewhat distasteful to illicit support for their campaign to stop the improved flood defences from residents in the flood plain plus claim that Shoebury Common is a low risk area and describe the sea defences as a luxury we can not afford.
According to the Environment Agency map, the following roads and areas in West Shoebury, Shoeburyness and Thorpe wards are at risk from flooding at Shoebury Common:
Doing nothing at Shoebury Common could have some serious consequences. At present, in a recent survey of the flood defences, homes currently in the flood plain at risk of flooding once every five years, eventually leading to the risk of flooding every year. If we act now with the proposed scheme the risk of flooding to homes reduces to one in two hundred years.
If we do nothing and keep with the existing level of protection at Shoebury Common, not only is there a real risk to peoples lives and homes, there is also a real danger that in the future that homes in the blue areas may become uninsurable.
As the rumour mill has gone into overdrive, many people believe that a huge brick wall is going to be placed on top of the existing sea wall at Shoebury Common creating a 'Canvey Island' effect. The leaflet depicting a brick wall on the front asking residents to help urgently stop this being built certainly has not helped. The artist impression circulated at the Shoebury Residents Association meeting on this issue last Spring does not suggest that a structure resembling the Berlin Wall is about to be built.
The one thing that has been striking since the proposed flood defence enhancements are were first put in the public domain last year is that all the Independent Party and Conservative councillors in Thorpe, Shoeburyness and West Shoebury wards are fully supportive of the proposed flood defence arguably the only issue which has united all nine councillors.
Thursday, 28 March 2013
Food Waste Blue Boxes and Liners
It has been a busy week for Independent Party leader Cllr Martin Terry. Earlier in the week he offered to abandon his residents in Westborough to challenge Cllr Alex Kaye to a by-election duel in Thorpe ward.
It would have been an interesting prospect to see how Cllr Terry, a former Labour Party member and candidate in Southend, would have explained to residents in Thorpe that he is a 'Conservative a heart' as all Independent Party candidates in Thorpe are encouraged to do.
Cllr Terry then though that with all his flexing of the muscles talk he would put it into practice by taking on the challenge of holding four new blue recycling bins in an Echo article criticising the council in its efforts to increase food recycling rates.
It is the drivel spouted in this article, which as I have said on many occasions, has a tendency to become fact when it goes unchallenged. Whilst it may have been a month ago, lets not forget that Cllr Terry was in favour of removing black sack provision in order to try and reduce our landfill costs when he voted for the Conservative administrations budget.
With some members pushing the Cllr Terry myth, it is easy to forget how the increased focus in food waste recycling came about.
The Department for Communities and Local Government announced in 2012 that it had made a £250 million ‘Weekly Collections Support Scheme’ fund available for local authorities in England to ‘increase the frequency and quality of waste collections and make it easier to recycle’.
Southend Council made an application to DCLG’s Weekly Collection Support Fund. The Council’s bid was to seek funding to support the re-launch of the food waste recycling scheme in order to increase our recycling rates.
The proposal included the issuing of new blue food waste bins and compostable liners to all residents in the town. Feedback from residents indicated that a significant barrier to participation in the scheme was the lack of free food waste bin liners.
The Council successfully secured a grant of £1.635M allocated over the next 3 years - £635k in 2012/13, £500k in 2013/14 and £500k in 2014/15.This would make a significant contribution towards raising the profile and uptake of the food waste scheme but also provide an opportunity to further promote recycling as a whole to our residents.
A condition for the issuing of the grant was that the council had to retain a weekly black sack collection. The intention was to increase the amount of food waste that is recycled and diverted away for black sacks. We estimate this initiative will save the Council approximately £100k per year.
The roll out program started the week commencing 4th March 2013 and will be running for 6 weeks until 12th April 2013. We are now at the end of week 4 and there are two delivery phases.
In the first phase containers, liners and information leaflets will be delivered to 60,000 households across the town. Once the roll out is complete residents will start to receive on-going deliveries of liners every 6 months with their allocation of pink sacks.
In the second phase bins and liners will be provided to high rise properties and flats. This requires engaging with managing agents to agree the location of a communal bin and may take longer. It is worth noting that our contractor Cory has already established a roll out program for high rise properties and flats with 10% already having communal food bins.
I appreciate that residents who have already been using the scheme may feel that it is unnecessary for them to have a new set of bins. However, the design of the new bins are a vast improvement on the old style bins with increased functionality, larger capacity, better design and additional locking mechanism. If was felt appropriate for those residents who have been participating in the scheme to also have access to the superior new bins as they are more secure and resistant to foxes.
It is simply more cost effective to provide all householders with a new bin with their food waste bin liners than try to identify all the households who were not using the scheme or those who would have required a new bin. The entire cost of this is met by the DCLG grant meaning that we can use the grant to make revenue budget savings in the long run.
It would have been an interesting prospect to see how Cllr Terry, a former Labour Party member and candidate in Southend, would have explained to residents in Thorpe that he is a 'Conservative a heart' as all Independent Party candidates in Thorpe are encouraged to do.
Cllr Terry then though that with all his flexing of the muscles talk he would put it into practice by taking on the challenge of holding four new blue recycling bins in an Echo article criticising the council in its efforts to increase food recycling rates.
It is the drivel spouted in this article, which as I have said on many occasions, has a tendency to become fact when it goes unchallenged. Whilst it may have been a month ago, lets not forget that Cllr Terry was in favour of removing black sack provision in order to try and reduce our landfill costs when he voted for the Conservative administrations budget.
With some members pushing the Cllr Terry myth, it is easy to forget how the increased focus in food waste recycling came about.
The Department for Communities and Local Government announced in 2012 that it had made a £250 million ‘Weekly Collections Support Scheme’ fund available for local authorities in England to ‘increase the frequency and quality of waste collections and make it easier to recycle’.
Southend Council made an application to DCLG’s Weekly Collection Support Fund. The Council’s bid was to seek funding to support the re-launch of the food waste recycling scheme in order to increase our recycling rates.
The proposal included the issuing of new blue food waste bins and compostable liners to all residents in the town. Feedback from residents indicated that a significant barrier to participation in the scheme was the lack of free food waste bin liners.
The Council successfully secured a grant of £1.635M allocated over the next 3 years - £635k in 2012/13, £500k in 2013/14 and £500k in 2014/15.This would make a significant contribution towards raising the profile and uptake of the food waste scheme but also provide an opportunity to further promote recycling as a whole to our residents.
A condition for the issuing of the grant was that the council had to retain a weekly black sack collection. The intention was to increase the amount of food waste that is recycled and diverted away for black sacks. We estimate this initiative will save the Council approximately £100k per year.
The roll out program started the week commencing 4th March 2013 and will be running for 6 weeks until 12th April 2013. We are now at the end of week 4 and there are two delivery phases.
In the first phase containers, liners and information leaflets will be delivered to 60,000 households across the town. Once the roll out is complete residents will start to receive on-going deliveries of liners every 6 months with their allocation of pink sacks.
In the second phase bins and liners will be provided to high rise properties and flats. This requires engaging with managing agents to agree the location of a communal bin and may take longer. It is worth noting that our contractor Cory has already established a roll out program for high rise properties and flats with 10% already having communal food bins.
I appreciate that residents who have already been using the scheme may feel that it is unnecessary for them to have a new set of bins. However, the design of the new bins are a vast improvement on the old style bins with increased functionality, larger capacity, better design and additional locking mechanism. If was felt appropriate for those residents who have been participating in the scheme to also have access to the superior new bins as they are more secure and resistant to foxes.
It is simply more cost effective to provide all householders with a new bin with their food waste bin liners than try to identify all the households who were not using the scheme or those who would have required a new bin. The entire cost of this is met by the DCLG grant meaning that we can use the grant to make revenue budget savings in the long run.
Thursday, 21 March 2013
Welcome Aboard Alex
I was delighted to hear this evening from the borough solicitor that Thorpe councillor Alex Kaye's decision to join the Conservative Group on Southend Council has been finalised.
Since Alex was elected in 2010 there has been no doubt that she has worked tirelessly for her residents and has been an exemplary chairman of the Community Services and Culture scrutiny committee. This comes as no surprise to me from the years that I have known Alex as Chairman of Milton Conservatives before she was elected in Thorpe.
Although Alex was an 'Independent' this is still a defection for me as the Independents on Southend are a party in all but name. We all know that they have a leader who draws a Group Leaders salary, hold Group meetings, have identical political literature, have a group whip on certain decisions as confirmed by their leader Cllr Terry during the budget discussions, vet candidates, as exposed by Cllr Ware-Lane this evening and go berserk when a true Independent or single issue candidate stands against one of their charges.
Alex gave the reason for leaving the Independent Party was complete disillusionment with the them. This is not the first councillor to leave their party this year as Dr Vel quit calling them a party in all but name in a parting shot. I said back in December that 2012 may go down in history as the beginning of the end for the Independent Party in Southend.
Alex and Dr Vel have seen the danger of Independent Party and have decided that they can better serve their residents elsewhere. I just hope that the voters have heard Alex and Dr Vel's message too.
Since Alex was elected in 2010 there has been no doubt that she has worked tirelessly for her residents and has been an exemplary chairman of the Community Services and Culture scrutiny committee. This comes as no surprise to me from the years that I have known Alex as Chairman of Milton Conservatives before she was elected in Thorpe.
Although Alex was an 'Independent' this is still a defection for me as the Independents on Southend are a party in all but name. We all know that they have a leader who draws a Group Leaders salary, hold Group meetings, have identical political literature, have a group whip on certain decisions as confirmed by their leader Cllr Terry during the budget discussions, vet candidates, as exposed by Cllr Ware-Lane this evening and go berserk when a true Independent or single issue candidate stands against one of their charges.
Alex gave the reason for leaving the Independent Party was complete disillusionment with the them. This is not the first councillor to leave their party this year as Dr Vel quit calling them a party in all but name in a parting shot. I said back in December that 2012 may go down in history as the beginning of the end for the Independent Party in Southend.
Alex and Dr Vel have seen the danger of Independent Party and have decided that they can better serve their residents elsewhere. I just hope that the voters have heard Alex and Dr Vel's message too.
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