Welcome to the first edition of my monthly column for the Erewash Conservatives Website. As leader of the Conservative Group on Erewash Borough Council, I think it is important to get the message out there to all of our members and supporters of all of the wonderful things that we are doing for the residents of the borough.
I will use this edition of my monthly Diary to illustrate just how busy the summer is for Erewash Borough Council and show you a bit of what I have done in July and the early part of August.
I started the month of July with a visit to the Erewash Partnership Manufacturing Showcase in my capacity as a board member of the Erewash Partnership, appointed by Erewash Borough Council. The showcase event was held at Kirk Hallam Sports and Technology College and attracted a large number of exhibitors together with many residents looking for job opportunities and apprenticeships.
The following day, I went to Melton Mowbray to represent Erewash at a meeting of the East Midlands Councils to discuss the best ways to get funding from Europe. Clearly, it is not easy to get direct investment from Europe but it is important to work closely with organisations such as the Local Enterprise Partnership who have easier access to funding sources. While we are on the subject of Europe, I am delighted to see the candidates that are going to fight the European Parliament election next year in the East Midlands on behalf of the Conservative Party out and about in the region.
Later that week I engaged with the local residents in my ward by putting up new Neighbourhood Watch signs around the Pennyfields estate before finally joining local residents and my fellow local Councillor in Wilsthorpe, Geoff Smith to paint the new fence alongside a footpath on the estate.
The following week saw me attending a meeting with Derbyshire’s Police and Crime Commissioner at Derbyshire Police Headquarters to discuss the concerns of the people of Erewash and how he can best help resolve them.
On the Wednesday of that week I attended a meeting to discuss progress on the regeneration ideas that had been suggested by the Council’s scrutiny committee and in the afternoon welcomed the Rt Hon John Hayes MP, special advisor to the Prime Minister and MP for South Holland and the Deepings (Lincolnshire) to Ilkeston. That was a very pleasant afternoon chatting to residents and John himself.
The following day I joined members of the Friends of West Park group and fellow Wilsthorpe Councillor, Kewal Athwal in a balsam bash. We spent a productive couple of hours pulling up Himalayan balsam from Fox Covert. This is a lovely Local Nature Reserve in West Park close to the Erewash canal, which was being invaded by this alien weed.
A busy week was finished with the Annual General Meeting of East Midlands Councils at West Bridgford, making sure that the voice of Erewash is heard when decisions are made which could affect councils in our region. This was followed by discussions with all other Council Leaders in Derbyshire on more local matters.
The following Monday brought an early start to get to Notts County Football Club’s Meadow Lane ground to meet Planning and Regeneration Council officers from throughout the region to share ideas on job creation and retention. In the afternoon I attended training on planning, not a subject that I enjoy and I am not a member of the Council’s planning committee, but I feel that it is important to be as informed as possible on all aspects of the Council’s function. Later that evening I chaired a meeting of all the Conservative Councillors to discuss the agenda for the next Council Executive meeting.
The highlight of the week came on Wednesday morning, the Council Executive meeting, which is open to the public but apart from a couple of interested Councillors there as observers, no-one came. This is a shame because important decisions are made at such meetings. For example, conservation area character appraisals were adopted for Draycott and Sandiacre Lock. If anyone is interested in these areas the reports are very informative and worth reading and can be found on the Council’s website. There was also confirmation of the award of £90,000 to the Council for the construction of a new inclusive play area at Rutland Sports Park in Ilkeston.
Early that afternoon I visited Long Eaton’s Petersham Hall to meet the Secretary of the Trustees and other Local Residents to bring the up to date on the decision made at the Council Meeting that morning. The Council had agreed to purchase the freehold of the Community Centre from Three Valleys Housing and then spend a total of over £184,000 during the next four years on refurbishing the hall. Phase 1 of the refurbishment will deal with the most urgent problems such as the disabled access, improving the toilet facilities, replacing the old boiler and removing asbestos as a priority. Hopefully this will mean that the Council can return to Petersham Hall as a polling station, something that I know many of those living close by have been calling for. It was always the Council’s intention to return once the disabled access problems were resolved and it looks like this will happen before the next big elections in May 2015.
The week ended with a lot of time spent preparing for the decision due to be announced by the boundaries commission on 13th August, when they will let us know their views on the number of Councillors they feel is needed to run the Council efficiently and effectively. Looking at the results of the commissions own consultation, it was clear that the majority of respondents wanted 47 Councillors, a reduction of 4. All of the Parish Councils that responded also went for 47. Interestingly, 18 out of the 26 Conservative Councillors wrote with their reasons for supporting the need for 47 Councillors but only 2 of the 25 Labour Councillors bothered to write in support of 43 councillors, which was the Labour proposal. Does this mean that the Labour councillors as a whole do not support the idea of 43 Councillors or that they just could not be bothered?
As we headed in to August, lots of residents and Council staff appeared to be on holiday so it was a fairly quiet start to the month with just a few meetings, I had time to catch up and do some work for residents in my own Wilsthorpe ward rather than for Erewash as a whole.
I started the second weekend of August with a busy period, beginning with an extremely enjoyable social function at Draycott House on Friday evening along with our Member of Parliament, Jessica Lee. However I did have to sing for my supper as I gave the vote of thanks to two visiting Members of Parliament who told us about life in Westminster following their respective victories at the 2010 General Election.
Saturday was busy with leaflet delivery in Cotmanhay, promoting the second Erewash Jobs Fair, that is to be hosted by Jessica Lee MP in September and also the excellent result of the Get Ilkeston back on Track Campaign. Unfortunately this meant that I missed the event celebrating the 150th Anniversary of the Football Association at Sandiacre Town FC. I understand this was a super event and I am pleased that we do a lot to help them and our other Erewash sports clubs thanks to the enthusiasm and work ethic of our Lead Member, Councillor Mike Wallis.
It has been forty six years since a train last stopped in Ilkeston, but I am delighted to say that the wait will soon be over. It has been a hugely successful campaign, in no small part thanks to the tireless work of Jessica Lee MP, the Ilkeston Advertiser and the Conservative group at Derbyshire County Council led by Andrew Lewer during their four year tenure in control. At a recent fundraising event in Ilkeston, the Rt Hon John Hayes MP quoted a fantastic statistic, that the former Labour MP for Erewash, Liz Blackman spoke three times in Parliament over a thirteen year period and our own Jessica Lee has already spoken thirteen times in just three years, many of those speeches have featured the need to re-open a train station in Ilkeston.
I have recently been asked quite a lot about the opposition campaign to demand that the station be staffed. I would treat such demands with an extreme amount of caution as we really do not want to put the cart before the proverbial horse. As I said to the two residents that asked me about the campaign in Cotmanhay on Saturday, if I demand that we put staff in the station in Ilkeston, the costing for the project automatically increases and could of course make the project unviable. Amidst a trade union and labour party campaign to halt the increase in rail fares, I question the motives of the opposition campaign to staff the new station at Ilkeston which will of course add to the running costs of the station and in turn the running costs of the railway and as if by magic the fares have increased. Is this the same old hypocritical Labour policy making machine at work again?
I finish this month’s diary with the Erewash Triathlon, where I had the privilege of presenting the trophies to the winners of the different age groups. It is so impressive to see what the competitors achieve swimming, cycling and running. Special congratulations went to the overall male and female winners who as part of their prize will travel to compete in the important Frankfurt Triathlon next year as guests of Langen Town Council. This is one of the benefits of our Twinning links with Langen that many people are not aware of.