Len Gates

Following on from the success of the Amazing Alamein litter pick your local environmental group has now arranged a swap shop. This is an ideal opportunity to bring along things you no longer want and swap them for something you do want. Recycle and reuse rather than dumping things.

 Also on offer is face painting, cookery demonstrations and a treasure hunt. The event takes place on Saturday 11th October from 12:00 noon at the Smannell Road church centre.

Full details are given on the attached poster swap-shop-poster.pdf

It strikes me that the current financial crisis is a direct result of lax controls over financial institutions over a number of years. The orgy of asset stripping of public and mutually owned businesses in the 1990s, sold to us all as privatisation for the common good turned out to be nothing of the sort. It has now left this country’s economy in a weaker situation than otherwise it would have been.

Successive governments have encouraged and sometimes forced through deregulation for the sake of it to satisfy the demands of bankers and others who have proved unfit to be trusted. The leader of the Scottish Nationalists has rightly called them a band of spivs and speculators.

While the US government seems to have grasped the seriousness of the situation and is taking appropriate action in the UK there appears to be an air of indifference to the whole thing. Strange until you realise the two major political parties are responsible for and still committed to the system which is on the brink of collapse.

More worrying is the close links between some of them and the hedge fund managers responsible for the current run on our banks. As reported in today’s Observer a small group of city financiers who have made fortunes from falling stock market prices are paying at least £50,000 a year to the Conservative party. These donations entitle them to buy privileged access to Tory leader David Cameron

Commenting on the donations Lord Oakeshott, Lib Dem Treasury spokesman said “We see the same hedge fund wolf packs that brought HBOS to its knees are bankrolling the Tory party. No wonder David Cameron and George Osborne wouldn’t condemn short selling or the hedge funds’ disgraceful behaviour.”

Full details of the Tory party’s link to the hedge funds are to be revealed a Dispatches program to be broadcast by Channel 4 tomorrow.

Readers will be aware that Cllr Alan Dowden and I proposed a motion to council on fluridation of Test Valley’s tap water (see http://lengates.mycouncillor.org.uk/2008/08/14/council-to-debate-fluoridation/). The motion was referred without debate to the council’s Overview and Scrutiny Committee. The date and agenda for that meeting has now been set.

The meeting will take place on Wednsday 8th October at 6:00pm at the council’s Duttons Road, Romsey council chamber. The decision to hold the meeting in Romsey was taken because residents in the southern part of the borough, particularly the outskirts of Southampton are most affected by the current proposals.

I have discussed the matter with the chair of the committee and he has decided the whole meeting should be devoted to this issue. There will be presentations from the South Central Strategic Health Authority, a representative of Hampshire Against Fluoridation and a local dentist. Councillors will then be free to quiz all the speakers on the issues.

The meeting like all council meetings is open to the public.  If anyone would like further information please let me know.

Andover Liberal Democrats have this weelk launched a new website for the town. This will contain news items of interest to residents across Andover and updates on the work carried out by our county councillors and candidates for county council elections next year.

The link to the new website is http://andoverlibdems.blogspot.com/ 

The three candidates selected to represent Andover are

Andover North: County Councillor Robin Hughes

Andover South: Vince McGarry

Andover West: Josie Msonthi

The Chair of North West Hants Lib Dems has today written to Lloyds TSB CEO Eric Daniels expressing the party’s concerns over the deal that sees Lloyds TSB purchase HBOS.

In a highly unusual move for a bank merger, the company insisted it would retain its Scottish HQ and that its “management focus is to keep jobs in Scotland”. This statement is considered by many commentators to mean that a political deal has been done by Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling to limit the job losses in Scottish banking at the expense of the English operations of Lloyds TSB/HBOS. This announcement coincides with the Glenrothes by election which happens to be the neighbouring constituency to Gordon Brown.

Lib Dem Constituency Chairman Rob Cooper speaking today said “our fear is that Lloyds TSB jobs in Andover will be at risk to save the skin of Gordon Brown, this is simply unacceptable. I will also be copying in Lib Dem Economic spokesman Vince Cable to ensure that our concerns for Andover Lloyds TSB staff and ancillary businesses are raised at the highest level.”

Residents will by now know that the funfair planned for this weekend has been cancelled again. The main reason for the cancellation was the weather making the site too water logged for the fair to open. However, only a small fair could have moved on to the site because of ongoing works by Southern Water. This work also contributed to the condition of the grounds. It is hoped that the fair can be re-scheduled for October.

I raised local concerns about Southern Water’s access to the Smannell Road open space at Wednesday’s council meeting. They have the power under government legislation to go on to the land and lay pipes but should advise Test Valley before doing so. On this occasion they did not do so. The current work is to rectify problems with the previous work carried out in April.

Once completed all work must be checked by Test Valley to ensure the land has been re-instated to the previous standard. The previous work was not completed to an acceptable standard and this has been communicated to Southern Water. Council officers will now check the site weekly to ensure the work is done properly. The council will also be seeking compensation for officer time related to the work, costs to rectify substandard work and any potential loss of income for the funfair.

I have also been given assurances that the East Anton developers and their sub-contractors will not access the Smannell Road open space without full consultation with the council and your local councillors to ensure disruption and inconvenience to local residents is minimised.

In July I reported a damaged street name sign in Swallowfields to discover that the lead time for repairs is six weeks and that because of staff shortages work was often taking even longer. I raised this with the Cabinet member responsible at yesterday’s council meeting and got the following response.

 A six week lead time is typical because signs are ordered in bulk on a six week cycle. Approximately 35 signs are repaired and 80 replaced every year at a cost of £3000 pa (£85 per sign) for repairs and £10,000 pa (£125 per sign) for replacement.

Council officers are required to survey damaged signs before further damage is done and pro-actively repair signs where possible. Doing so saves the council £40 a time and prevents the area looking run down. Because of staff shortages this service has not been provided for several months. Now that extra staff have been recruited it is hoped the service will return to normal once the backlog of work is cleared.

For the future I would advise residents to report all damaged signs as soon as possible so that repairs can be undertaken before the signs  are damaged beyond repair.

Damage should be reported to Test Valley Borough Council on 01264 368000 or direct to me.

Test Valley Tory councillors have rejected calls for increased spending on public transport. At this week’s borough council meeting councilors debated petrol prices. Lib Dem councillors proposed the following amendment to a Tory motion -

 “Test Valley Borough Council will communicate its concerns (on fuel prices)to the government and request it take appropriate action to control fluctuations in fuel prices whilst encouraging investment in alternative environmentally friendly fuels and investing in adequate public transport for those areas currently over dependant on private cars for transport.”

In proposing this I reminded councillors of their need, as signatories to the Nottingham Declaration on Climate Change to promote more environmentally friendly policies and reduce local dependence on private cars. However they rejected the motion preferring to send a demand to the Labour government that it introduce a “fuel stabiliser” to subsidise petrol prices from tax revenues. This move would reward the owners of gas guzzlers while ignoring the needs of the 20% of local people with no access to private transport.

The Daily Mail has recently identified Hampshire as one of the most wasteful local authorities. Among some of the more wasteful items are £12,000 on new taps and £1.25 million on new furniture. The following article recently appeared in the Daily Mail (July 4th 2008); highlighting some of the ways that Hampshire County Council are spending your money.

Council in hot water over £12,000 taps:

 A council criticised for spending thousands of pounds on bottled water has brought six designer taps costing £2,000 each. Hampshire County Council bought the Zip Hydrotaps as part of a £40million taxpayer-funded renovation of its HQ in Winchester. Some £1.25million was spent on furniture alone, including designer desks and chairs. Earlier this year residents were furious after it was revealed that the council was spending £141,000 every year on bottled water for staff. Hampshire County Council claimed it got a discount when ordering the taps, which are said to ‘dispense freshly filtered, chilled and boiling water with an impressive flow rate’. But Lib Dem opposition leader Adrian Collett yesterday described the purchase as ‘extraordinarily extravagant’. Meanwhile the Tory run council continues to cut bus services, close care homes and schools, and reduce investment in libraries, roads and other facilities.

A careers evening being held at King Arthur’s Hall on 11th September. It is for those aged 16-24 years, for school leavers, or those not in education or employment training.

Young people between the ages of 16 and 19 can claim £30 a week Education Maintenance Allowance while on the Andover CHOICES (e2e) program. If you are interested in joining contact Wendy Holmes on 01264 360137 or email wendy.holmes@sparsholt.ac.uk.

 If you need information about jobs, apprenticeships or training go to the careers evening at Blenheim Youth Club, King Arthur’s Hall on 11th September between 6pm and 8pm.

For further details see the attached pdf file.

king-arthurs1.pdf