End of an era

On Tuesday morning we heard the sad news that Cllr Stephen Smailes, leader of the Conservatives on Stockton Council until recently, had died. He'd suffered for a long time and no doubt for him it was a release but for family and friends it's a huge loss.
I didn't know Stephen well, but he'd been on Stockton Council for 38 years and his name was known to hundreds who never met him. I expect the church to be full today for the funeral service. Much as I disagree with Tory policies I admired the way he always knew how to appeal to the electorate. His calls to preserve the architectural heritage of the "jewels in the crown of Stockton" will be missed. His will be a hard act to follow.
Rest in Peace Stephen. You will not be forgotten.

Grrr!

Way back in the Spring, Egglescliffe Parish Council decided to invest some of the Council Tax in new play equipment for two of the play areas we manage. The recreation committtee duly studied catalogues, relived our own childhood (through rose coloured glass of course!) and chose some wooden adventure equipment which didn't need to have safety surface under it and would appeal to a wide age range.
Last week was installation time - while I was away at Conference. Certain young people declared that we were spoiling their football pitch and they would take the equipment out. Now I admit that the positioning was partly designed to stop them kicking their ball against the fences and walls of adjoining houses, but the grass was never, never designed for football games. It's too small an area for that. Sure enough, some of them had a good try and Stockton Council's Play Area inspection team had to be contacted to go out and make the area safe!
On Sunday evening I had an e-mail from a resident to say that said youths were trying to demolish part of the equipment. Yesterday morning I had a phone call to say that she thought they'd succeeded! The Parish Council Clerk and I paid a hasty visit and concluded that the installation was probably sub-standard. However, we're not experts so we await a written report from those who are.
Meanwhile the area has had to be fenced off so the children who were enjoying the new equipment are now deprived by the selfish revenge action of the few.

What a Week!

Back from conference with a mass of useful ideas and information - thoughts on improving recycling rates; better policies for children and young people; ideas for working towards being a Fair Trade Town; lots of questions to ask about all kinds of things. That's the beauty of Conference - the fringe meetings and the casual chat throw up all manner of ideas that make me want to come back and get on with changing the world!
The debates weren't bad either, not that you'd know it from some of the press coverage. There were some powerful arguments for and against motions, some intense listening and some thoughtful voting. The Urgent Issues debates were particularly good - no arguments over wording to distract attention from the issues under consideration but some really deep thoughtful arguments. Excellent stuff.

Blackpool

My second visit to Blackpool, but my first stay there and my first conference there. First impressions weren't particularly good, arriving after a difficult weekend and driving through some pretty run down areas to reach the hotel.
Subsequent impressions were mixed - the Promenade is beautifully laid out and litter-free, some of the shopping areas new and shiny bright, some super hotels and guest houses, but also lots of flaking paint, shops selling souvenirs that were popular in the fifties, restaurants that close before 9pm.
The Illuminations certainly brightened the night scenery, even though some of the designs were distinctly tacky. I was sorry the trams stopped running when they did, as I'd have liked to have taken a tram ride along the full length of them. Maybe if there's another conference there I'll forgo one of the fringe events and enjoy the Illuminations in all their glory.
I must say how much I appreciated the shuttle bus between the Winter Gardens and the Imperial Hotel which made getting to the majority of the Fringe Venues very easy.

Good News

Amazing U-turn on the part of the Transport Minister means that yesterday it was announced that after all the Grade-separated junction on the A66 at Long Newton will go ahead next April (2006). All the campaigning was worth it.
The announcement was made during the opening of the South Stockton Link Road, so now Ingleby Barwick is linked directly to the centre of Stockton and we in Eaglescliffe have a choice of routes into the town. Unfortunately we have to wait at least another year before the funding is available to do the necessary work on the Surtees Bridge to link the road with Middlesbrough. I haven't tried the new road yet , but I will later today.

Updates (overdue!)

Where does the time go? More than a month since my last post (mental note - must do better).
So what's been happening? Well, the budget is set for better or worse. Thanks to a fairly generous settlement from central government (nothing to do with it being an election year of course) we've got the lowest Council Tax rise in the Tees Valley. We Lib Dems wanted to put an extra £50 000 into youth work but the ruling Labour Group thought it was more important to spend it on the working of reception areas.
Even before we set the Tax level the Local Government Association was warning that rises could be 7.5% next year unless we get another big injection of cash from central government. There's got to be a better way of financing local expenditure than this.
Meanwhile all departments of the Council are looking for more and more efficiency savings so that they can give a good service for less money.
As parish councillors John and I listened to a presentation by developers wanting to demolish The Grange and replace it with 19 flats. A lot of members of the public came, and made their views very clear. As a result John and I as ward councillors were invited to meet the developers and look at their revised plans. They've reduced the number of flats and the mass of the building, but it's still going to be very intrusive into Valley Gardens.
The retrospective application for the motocross circuit has produced more interest than many housing developments. Such a lot of people have been suffering from the noise but not knowing that they could do anything. Dozens of letters have gone in opposing the development. Meanwhile the owner claims that the application is only for what he's been doing for the last 10 years according to a local journalist! We now await the recommendation of the planning officer on that one.

A sad day

Today a number of colleagues and councillors gathered to say farewell to Stockton's Head of Democratic Services. Not a job title that grabs the public imagination, but one of the most important jobs in the whole council system (in my opinion anyway). This is the person who has organised elections, guided newly elected councillors through training and advice, supported Select Committees in their scrutiny role, and much much more besides. She will be sorely missed and whoever tries to fill her shoes will find it a difficult and frustrating job at times.
Good luck Fran in whatever you decide to do next.

Will it never end?

This week we've had the revised planning application for Copsewood - slightly fewer dwellings but still crammed onto the site. The only reason for the smaller number is that the developer needs to put an access onto The Avenue instead of onto Yarm Road. The volume developers can offer such a huge price for land that house-owners find it very hard to refuse. As a result anyone who would treat the existing house and grounds with sensitivity is priced out of the market and Eaglescliffe suffers from yet more second-rate architecture.
On Thursday Egglescliffe Parish Council were informed that a developer who is proposing to demolish the Grange on Urlay Nook Road and replace it with 19 flats would like to come and discuss their proposition. The Grange is one of the oldest houses outside the Egglescliffe Conservation Area, although it's had new windows and other alterations that mean it's probably not worthy of listed building status. It's also in a very prominent corner location - I bet they're not planning beautiful building surrounded by lovely trees to grow into the listed building of the next century!
On Friday came the news that the application for reserved matters on the two bungalows to be built in the grounds of Sunnymount has been withdrawn. Maybe I'm jumping to conclusions but I wouldn't be surprised if that meant that the application to demolish the Rookery and Sunnymount in order to build flats is going to appeal.

Budget Time Looms

I spent a large part of yesterday afternoon with some of my fellow councillors in a seminar on the budget pressures we face this year. A job that few if any of us enjoy is setting the budget and level of council tax for the coming year. Ideally we'd like to be able to do all the improvements that residents want. But of course very few people are happy to see the Council Tax go up to pay for them.
Because of the unfair way that it's worked out at the moment most of the say in the level of Council Tax sits with the government in Westminster. It's very frustrating for local councillors who want to do their best for the local people.
As it is we have to make some very hard choices, trying to decide between such things as paying for the electricity for the street lights, providing more help for elderly and disabled people to live independently, doing work with young people to stop them sliding into a life of crime, making sure that the computer systems work properly so that everything else can happen properly and many many more.
In the end, the councillors who were present decided that priorities should include working to stop the increasing trend towards anti-social behaviour, to keep people able to live at home as much as possible, and to keep the town safe & pleasant to live in. Sadly, while the Liberal Democrat group thought it important and ensured that almost all attended, only 6 other councillors bothered to give up the afternoon.
The final decisions will be made by the Labour controlled Cabinet. Readers may be interested to know that Cllr Gibson, leader of the council, described the increase in Anti-social behaviour as "just young people pushing the boundaries to see what they can get away with." "It's what young people do".

New Year, New Ward

OK so I haven't exactly been posting regularly. But the early days were just trying the software, and no-one knew it was there to read.
The idea of the blog is to have another way to keep the people of Eaglescliffe informed, and to let you tell us what concerns you.
On May 5th there will be elections (again!) for Stockton Borough Council. The ward boundaries are changing right across the Borough. Here, Egglescliffe ward is combining with the "urban" bit of Preston ward, a few houses from Parkfield ward and one from Hartburn to form a new Eaglescliffe ward. The remaining "rural" part of Preston becomes part of the Western Parishes ward.
The 3 current councillors - Mike Cherrett, John Fletcher and yours truly are hoping to be elected to represent Eaglescliffe. Meanwhile, if you want to get in touch our contact details are here.

Today dawned cold, crisp and frosty. A good day to visit the church Christmas fair in Yarm, and to order the Christmas turkey. Still people stop me to ask what the decision was on The Rookery, despite all the coverage in the Evening Gazette and BBC Radio Cleveland. The really nice thing is the number of people who thanked me for what I said, when all I did was follow on what had been said by John Fletcher and Mr Douglas from CPRE.

More than 80 people came to tonight's meeting at Egglescliffe Primary School, organised by one of the local residents. John Fletcher and I were invited to take along the plans for the latest applications around the village and explain to people how the planning system works in Stockton Borough Council. There were lots of questions about the type of letter to write, and what the officers will take account of. The Parish Council were represented too, and their chairman was able to read out the objections which the council had agreed to put in at last night's meeting. John and I of course had to point out that we hadn't finally made up our minds and were listening to all comments.
At the end several people thanked us for explaining the system. A collection to cover the cost of renting the hall raised a little more than needed so just over £7 went to Children in Need - a good evening all round!

Planning success!

OK - It's been far too long since I sat down and did this but I'm not even going to try to fill in the gaps. Suffice to say that yesterday the SBC planning committee accepted my proposal to refuse permission to demolish the Rookery and Sunnymount and replace them with a mix of houses and flats. Along with my fellow ward councillor and local residents I argued that the Rookery is sufficiently unusual in the region to warrant preservation, and that in a conservation area that is what we should be doing. After John had read out the relevant paragraphs from the previous appeal inspector's report and the new report from English Heritage the whole committee voted to retain the Rookery.
As I said in my proposal, the design of the proposal was an attractive design in the right place, but the highest point in that part of the conservation area was not the right place. We now wait to see whether an appeal is lodged.
Meanwhile residents from round the village green area have organised a public meeting to discuss the applications that have been put in for building of new houses round the edge of the village. John and I will go to display the plans and listen to what people have to say, as well as to answer any questions.

Planning Disaster

Yesterday was not a good day. Stockton's planning committee passed the revised plans for Aislaby Road on the chairman's casting vote. 4 perfectly good family sized houses in wonderful gardens will now be demolished to make way for 29 family sized houses in smaller gardens. This is better than the mix of flats and houses that was originally proposed, but still a huge change in the character of this stretch of Aislaby Road.
There will be a footpath along the Aislaby Road frontage of the site, but no further because the road is too narrow to take a footpath along its whole length. Instead, the stretch of the Teesdale Way from there to Yarm Road will be surfaced. We were assured that Northumbrian Water Ltd will resolve the manhole issue, and I have no doubt that faithful residents will keep us informed on the progress of that resolution!
Egglescliffe Parish Council and the residents of the area affected showed just what people can do when they work together and I am proud to be a Borough Councillor representing this ward. My hope now for Aislaby Road is that the residents of the new houses will become part of the community which has started to develop along there, and perhaps we will after all be proved wrong and have a vibrant sustainable community.

Regional Assembly

Friday evening saw me at the Virtual Reality Theatre of Teesside University (aptly named perhaps?) listening to the debate on whether or not the North East of England should have an elected Regional Assembly. I found myself in the strange position of willing on someone with whom I have very little in common - John Prescott, Deputy Prime Minister, leading the pro-assembly side. The opposition was led by Bernard Jenkin, with whom I have even less in common. The whole evening was sponsored and chaired by the Evening Gazette and Tyne Tees TV, and the debate will rage right up till November 4th in the Gazette, so no excuse for its readers to be ill informed.
I also got to meet Ed Davey, John Prescott's opposite number in the Lib Dem Parliamentary team, which was good and useful.

Our young guests working at the Hartlepool by-election continue to be inspiring and amazingly wakeful, given the minute amount of sleep they seem to manage on. Ah well, I was young once!

Planning update

One of the less pleasant parts of being a ward councillor is opening the post and finding that the next planning committee agenda includes no less than three controversial applications in my own ward. First up, the ongoing saga of Aislaby Road. Following the deferment last time of an application to build 50 dwellings (flats and houses) we now have an amendment to build 29 houses. Again many residents complain that it's too many. Again we have the question of pedestrian safety - will people be able to live there and not use cars for most journeys?
The proposed extension and alterations to 15 Station Road are causing concerns about parking and road safety in the Station Road/Swinburne Rd area. On the other hand, the premises are currently an eyesore, and the refurbishment of the frontage would probably be a great improvement.
The proposed alterations and extension to 3 Langdale Close are causing more anguish to neighbours, and that is the third of the trio for next week. I foresee some lively debate in committee. Anyone wishing to be there should go to the Lecture Theatre in Stockton Central Library for 1.20p.m. ready for the meeting at 1.30. Anyone wishing to speak on any of the applications should let the committee clerk know in advance. Contact either John Fletcher or me for ways of doing this, or speak to her when you arrive.

Local History

One of the joys of being a Borough Councillor is that we get invitations to things which otherwise might pass us by. This morning was one such occasion. I was invited to the launch of the Local History Book of the Year - not at all as dry as it may sound! Two local men, Peter Moon and Alan Betteney, have produced a superb book in which they contrast old photographs of Stockton Borough with new ones taken from the same viewpoint. The photography is superb, the old pictures fascinating and the notes full of interesting information. Well worth the money, so get along to the Tourist Information Office and buy a copy. Better still, go to Billingham Art Gallery on Sept 20th and have your copy signed by the authors themselves.

A New Start

Inspired by several other Lib Dem activists I have taken the plunge! Residents of Egglescliffe ward, and people with an interest in it, can now read news and comments on the wonderful, world-wide web. (Happy Birthday for 2nd September to the Internet - 35 this year)
Today we said goodbye for now to Michael and Ray, our house guests of last night, as they went off to Hartlepool to do yet more leaflet delivering before driving back to Luton. During the last few weeks we've hosted an amazing variety of people who've come to make their contribution to getting Jody Dunn elected.

Yet more planning applications for Eaglescliffe - Aislaby Road application has been changed to remove the apartments and fill the site with houses instead. Comments need to be in by the end of the week. Clarence Works, Clarence Road application has changed from 3 houses to 2. Comments need to be in by 15th Sept. Rookery/Sunnymount, South View has a new application for 3 houses and 21 flats with the demolition of the two existing buildings. Meanwhile Stockton Council is getting on with the lengthy process of producing some planning guidance on flatted development. If it goes through it will help to ensure that flats are only built where the infrastructure (public transport, shops, etc) will support them.