Fix 1: Tories use road repairs as electioneering tool

County councillors in Watford and St Albans have expressed astonishment over the county council’s programme for road repairs.

The latest ‘surface dressing’ proposals involve NO roads in Watford district whatever and, almost without exception, only roads in Conservative-held county councilor divisions in the district of St Albans.

Cllr Chris White said: ‘When I saw this list, I sent it back to officials in disbelief: Tory areas have already had more than their fair share of highways work so far over the past four years.’

Cllr Stephen Giles-Medhurst added: ‘It becomes increasingly difficult to see this as anything other than electioneering by a Tory administration which knows it’s on the run.

‘First we had the completely untrue suggestion that we wanted to cut highways spending when we are actually proposing increases. Now they are rushing out to fix the roads in the seats of councillors about to lose their seats.’

NOTES

The schedule is shown below. The single road listed for Watford is in fact in Hertsmere. The roads seemingly in Aislinn Lee’s division are in fact brought forward from the previous year.

Kennels Lane Harpenden – Coles Lane to Kinsbourne Green
Sauncey Wood Lane Wheathampstead – Common Lane to SD jt E Mackerye End Lane/The Slype
Kimpton Bottom Bower Heath – E Plummers lane to NH bdy (SD jt o/s Blue Cross).
Amwell Lane Wheathampstead – Down Green lane to SMA jt Harpenden Road
Wheathampstead Road Harpenden – HRA jt Piggottshill r’bt to SMA jt 100m W Long Buftlers
Holly Lane Wheathampstead – Sauncey Wood lane to Common Lane
Lye Lane Brickett Wood – SMA jt West Riding/Lye lane x’rds to 30mph A405 excl M25 bridge
Mile House Lane St Albans – HRA jt 15m W Nappsbury r’bt to HRA jt E Butterfield.
Smug Oak Lane Brickett Wood – Rear bellmouth Station Road to HRA jt 15m A5183
Harper Lane Radlett – E of railway bridge to new surface jt Shenleybury r’bt
Hemel Hempstead Road Redbourne – 40mph Cherry Tree Lane to SMA jt A5183 r’bt
Redbourne Lane Redbourne/Harpenden – HFS jt A5183 r’bt to W Hatching Green Close
Redbourn Road St Albans – HFS jt/end of hatching A4147 r’bt to SMA jt o/s Prae Mill Hotel
Redbourn Road St Albans – SMA jt 80m SE Keepers Cottage to surface jt 130m S Hogg End Lane
Redding Lane Redbourne – Rear bellmouth A5183 to limit of adoption (30m SE Norrington End Farm gate) excle new SMA
Beesonend Lane Harpenden – Rear bellmouth A5183 to end of metalling
Little Cuts Road Wheathampstead – B652 to Limit of Adoption
Beechtree Lane Appspond – SMA jt A4147 to Limit of adoption ( concrete road o/s cottages)
Little Revel End Lane Redbourne – Holtsmere Lane to rear bellmouth B487
Holtsmere Lane Redbourne – SMA jt B487 to Gaddesden Lane
Hollybush Lane Wheathampstead – SD jt Mackerye End to limit of adoption (gate Eight Acres)
Common Lane Harpenden – N Sauncey Wood Lane to S Bower Heath

Fix 6 – Concerns over introduction of councillor budgets

The Lib Dem group on Hertfordshire County Council have expressed concerns
over the introduction of councillor budgets by the Tory administration.

Group Leader Chris White said: ‘We voted against these proposals in the
budget round because we felt that the money could better be spent on local
highways.

‘We also have serious concerns about how to make the system fair and
transparent: it would be easy for the public to get cynical and think that
each councillor had a £10,000 slush fund.

‘There need to be clear rules and regulations to make sure all spending is
above board.’

Notes: The county council announced this week that three quarters of a
million pounds had been set aside for this project.

Fix 6 – Stop the County Council wasting your money and freeze your county
council tax

Call for abolition of Herts Highways

Hertfordshire Liberal Democrats have called for the outright abolition of Herts Highways, the public-private partnership which is responsible for maintaining the county’s roads and pavements.

County Cllr Stephen Giles-Medhurst, the Liberal Democrat Environment spokesperson, said: “It has been clear from some years that local residents have become sick and tired of the poor deal they get from their money when it comes to the maintenance of roads and pavements.

”It is obvious from mine and other councillors’ post bags that the dreadful state of our highways and pavements combined with the failure to do maintenance work jobs properly is the number one issue with residents.

“At least this year residents can pass judgement on the Conservatives’ management of our highways when they vote in the county elections on 4 June.”

He added:

“I want to be clear: if the Liberal Democrats win control of the county council on 4 June we will start the process of breaking up the current arrangement so as to make work on highways more accountable to local residents and more reactive to the real world.

“I and my colleagues no longer believe that Herts Highways in its current form is working for the benefit of Hertfordshire residents. The current arrangements allow the private sector in effect to write itself cheques: the private sector plans the work, dream up expensive safety schemes – many of which have to be redone – and monitors the work of other private contractors.

“Local people and their councillors have precious little say. Indeed the current arrangements mean that residents and councillors are effectively ignored when they want schemes to happen like 20 mph limits and ignored when they want money-wasting schemes NOT to happen. There is almost no local accountability and just recently the Conservative Administration has cut the number of front line staff delivering on our streets.

“No-one would employ someone to decorate their house and then ask a second decorator to check whether the first was doing it properly. They would expect to have the right to check performance themselves.

“When it comes to public money, it is public servants, answerable directly to councillors and the public, who should be doing the planning, checking and monitoring.”

Stephen also commented on the recent row over the highways budget: “We recently proposed extra funding for pavement repairs, upping it by £1m because the county has allowed for just under £4m to be spent in this
area this year – just 16% of its maintainable budget. We also proposed a pro active pothole repair service – not just waiting for them to be reported by the public – thus potentially saving the council money in the long term as well
as extra drainage works to prevent flooding.

“All of this was rejected by the Conservatives who seem unwilling to accept any criticism of their highways plans. It’s time to end the current arrangements which means only senior managers in private companies and Herts Highways get to decide where the money is spent rather than the people who pay the council tax.”

NOTES

Herts Highways locks in two private sector partners in a triangular relationship with the county council. The contracts are due for renewal in 2012. By early planning it would be possible to bring a substantial part of the contract back in house.

We take the battle to county hall over primary school places

Liberal Democrat county councillors yesterday morning met county council education planning officials to discuss the primary schools crisis in St Albans.

We looked at possible sites and discovered that officials had compiled their own list without talking to elected councillors first. Many of those offered were clearly unacceptable. Others rejected were much more promising and rejected because of some spurious approach to the geography of St Albans.

I have continued to press for the Eversheds site to be given serious consideration. There will be a further meeting next week involving SABLE, which is protesting about the lack of primary school places.

It’s official: St Albans pays the most income tax in the UK

Figures available this morning indicate that St Albans residents on average pay £10,500 per head in income tax – more than in any other town or city in the UK.

We have long thought that we subsidised the rest of the country – and to some degree that it what it means to be a nation: one part helps the other. But the starkness of the contribution has only just been revealed.

Worse: what do we get back? Our railways are hugely expensive and desperately overcrowded. We don’t have enough schools, a decent available hospital, a public transport system worthy of the name or even the power to run our own affairs. These things are available elsewhere in the country.

Of course, it is too easy just to blame the Labour Government for treating us as a cash cow. It would help if the money sent back to Hertfordshire were not wasted in county hall inefficiency or indeed spent in other parts of Hertfordshire which need it less.

For further reading: the Guardian page 22

Long holidays for Tory county councillors

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Fix 6: Stop the council wasting your money…

Shocked Liberal Democrats have revealed how long a holiday the ruling Tory
group on Herts County Council are giving themselves each side of the
forthcoming election in June. Many committees and panels last met early in
March and are not set to meet again for up to 6 months.

‘It beggars belief that they think the electorate does not need to feed into
decisions, through their councillors, for so long. What will the cabinet have
agreed to whilst the other 68 councillors are forced to wait for the
resumption of democracy?’ said County Councillor Malcolm Cowan.

‘Some of these committees are monitoring on services that have been shown to
be failing recently. We need to be keeping up scrutiny over what is being
done on our behalf.

‘Taken together, around £200m will be spent whilst councillors are taking an
enforced break.’

District Council take action over Odeon Cinema

Minutes of Plans Central Sub-Committee for 6 April

Enforcement – Odeon Cinema, London Road PDF 55 KB

Additional documents:

Site plan ENF Odeon Cinema 166 London Road, item9. PDF 407 KB

Minutes:

The Committee considered a report on the disused Odeon Cinema within the Conservation Area. The condition of the building was giving cause for concern and the owner asked to rectify the situation on 8 December 2008. Members were particularly concerned about the safety aspects of the deterioration of this building.

RESOLVED

That the Head of Legal and Democratic Services shall be authorised to issue a Notice under Section 215 of the Town & Country Planning Act 1990 notice, requiring the following works to be carried out:
i. Smooth render areas of exposed brickwork or render with white self coloured render.
ii. Repaint all areas of flaked/flaking paint with white paint, including any rendered areas.
iii. That the Council should require the steps specified above to be taken in order to remedy the breach within the period of 3 months from the date on which the Notice takes effect.
iv. That the Head of Legal and Democratic Services shall be authorised to take any further Court proceedings necessary to ensure compliance with the Notice when it comes into effect.

Reason for Expediency

1. Owing to its prominent location in the Conservation Area, on a principal arterial route into the city centre, the extremely poor visual condition of the premises exerts a strong and adverse visual impact upon the general amenity and character of the surrounds. This impact would be ameliorated in the event of superficial remedial and repair works being carried out to the building façade.
2. It is therefore considered expedient to issue a notice under S215, requiring the landowner to implement improvement works as set out above.

Beware of misleading poll reporting!

I too woke up this morning to hear that Labour were down five points in a Telegraph opinion poll and that the Tory lead over them had widened. The implication was, of course: Labour lose to Tories.

After more internet searching than should have been necessary I discovered the truth: Labour are down five, presumably because of MP expenses and the smear scandal. But the Tories are also down 1. The Liberal Democrats, as studiously not reported on the BBC, are up 3%. I think we deserve better from our public service broadcasters.

Meanwhile, I hear that there will be more on MPs expenses on tonight’s Dispatches programme on Channel 4.

Six to Fix campaign rap about pavements in St Albans hits the big time!

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Extract from the Guardian diary today:
“So hats off – or, anyway, rear-facing baseball caps off – to Allan
Witherick (pictured) the Lib Dem councillor who is rapping his message to
the voters of Hertfordshire and can be seen doing so on YouTube. He may be
the first rapper expressing concern about the shocking state of the
pavements in St Albans and to pledge a freeze on council taxes.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/apr/17/met-police-wikipedia-guardian
-diary

This was also featured on BBC 5 Live and in the Herts Advertiser on line.