Breaking their silence for the first time since Joseph Ball died last year, highways experts at Southend Council warned a campaign to improve safety could actually have the opposite effect. Not that that will worry the ‘Something must be done, this is something, so do it!’ crowd. The tragedy prompted more than 10,000 people to sign a petition calling for improvements. Those ‘improvements’ being, specifically, a crossing on the London…
A music producer whose songs have appeared in Hollywood films asked for a £5,000 tree outside his house to be cut down because it was interfering with his solar panels. Ahahahahaha….! But, as with most local news stories, it wasn’t the whole story: Producer and recording artist Steve McIntosh, whose songs have appeared on Sex and the City and Scary Movie 3, listed the reason as among those for removing…
The decision made by the council’s community services committee last week will mean residents can do their shopping locally without having to fork out for high parking charges. Yes. It’s only five free spaces. And the attitude that they are doing us all a favour grates somewhat. But it’s a start! Mary Powell, who owns the Emporium on the High Street and also chairs the Maldon Business Association, added: “While…
A senior city councillor has claimed officers are vetting every letter he writes to constituents. Conservative group leader John Fareham said he was “astonished” to discover non-political letters about issues such as parking signs were being checked by the council’s legal department before they were sent out. Well, got to keep all those council staff in a job, haven’t we? “This behaviour smacks of the Soviet Union,” he said. Yeah.…
The Mayor of London should take control of all the capital’s libraries in a move that would save millions and transform the service, the former head of Waterstones said today. I thought the current buzzword was ‘Localism’? Maybe he has a point, though: The duplication of administrationcosts £80million a year out of the £200million spent on the capital’s 380 libraries, he claimed.Mr Coates is working with the New York public…
A former deputy chief constable of Notts, who was expected to take the county’s police authority and Chief Constable Julia Hodson to an employment tribunal, has accepted a settlement. And just what was his beef? Howard Roberts claimed the authority did not renew his contract in December 2009 following pressure from Denis O’Connor, a former Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary for Notts. Interesting…. Details of the tribunal emerged during a…
Taking all of Winchester’s cars off the road for a year would still not be enough to meet the city council’s carbon footprint targets. That was the stark warning from a city councillor worried about the scale of the challenge facing Winchester City Council as it tries to cut carbon emissions by 30 per cent in four years. Not that they wouldn’t like to do just that, I suspect. Except…
Croydon faces a reduction in the multimillion-pound funding it receives for looking after hundreds of young asylum-seekers. Oh noes! They’ll all be destitute! How will they cope!!! The UK Border Agency (UKBA) is to revise one of the grants following a 26 per cent drop in the number of children who are cared for by the council. Hang on. A drop? So…..the money is being cut because there’s not so…
Polly Toynbee rages at the ConDem ‘localism’ plans: Sigoma, the municipal authorities group, says that if councils were all allowed to keep their business rates, the City of London would gain £517m. Together, the Tory boroughs of the City, Westminster, Hammersmith and Fulham, and Kensington and Chelsea would gain £1.6bn. Who would be the losers? Birmingham would lose £175m, Hackney £116m, Liverpool £104m – and Cornwall £45m. It’s as if…
Up to a fifth of councils in England may not accept the government’s offer to help pay for a freeze in council tax next year, a survey suggests. Councils denying government money? Can this be true? According to the Local Government Chronicle’s research, based on responses from 146 local authority finance directors, 116 said their councils would implement the freeze, six councils said they would refuse and 24 remained undecided.…
Bristol should implement a “progressive squeeze on cars” to solve its transport problems, campaigners have been told. It’s apparently ‘progressive’ now to force people out of their own personal transport and onto public transport, or non-powered bikes, is it? The call was made at a meeting called by the city’s Civic Societylast night.The debate, titled Transport in Bristol: The Art of the Possible, was organised by the society and took…
A group of homeless men who have set up home on a golf course are threatening any intruders to their makeshift camp with legal action. Wha..? The men have been sleeping in archways on the pitch and putt course at Kingsway Multi-Play in Hove seafront since Saturday, October 8.The men, who are using tarpaulin and polystyrene boards to protect themselves from the elements, have taped a legal warning to the…
Solicitors representing the Lap Dancing Association are arguing with Bournemouth council on what makes a performance ‘lewd’ or ‘stimulating’. Well, I guess it depends… Jeffrey Green Russell say the council’s current conditions, which will regulate For Your Eyes Only, Spearmint Rhino and Wiggle, are too unclear to work.Councillors meeting at today’s licensing board will now have to debate the finer points on what lap dancers can do and what can…
Oh, look! It’s councillors and donations again! Just three out of 51 Southend councillors signed up for a voluntary scheme to help fund cash-strapped youth services out of their allowances. What a shocker! Mr Terry, who came up with the idea, said he hoped enough councillors would have contributed to pay the wage of an extra youth worker or bankroll some new equipment. But the lack of support means only…
I’ve occasionally had to defend Oz against charges that it’s turned into a nightmare bureaucracy cum fascist society where everything is either banned, compulsory or requires prior application in triplicate for the relevant licence. One day, maybe, but not yet. And mostly it’s just duplicate. Nor is it noticably worse than the UK (and lacking both the pernicious influence of the unelected EU as well as the UK’s various mini-enabling…
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