Council’s New Apprentices

I read with an interest a story in the Scunthorpe Telegraph about the council taking on new apprentices.

http://www.thisisscunthorpe.co.uk/8217-hired-16-council-apprentices-start-today/story-15770995-detail/story.html

Unlike some, I wholeheartedly welcome any measure to help reverse this Tory assault on young people. Axing EMA, trebling tuition fees and scrapping the Future Jobs Fund – I think anyone who takes Liz Redfern’s quote seriously about how this is a “wonderful opportunity for young people” is living in cloud cuckoo land.  This is a woman who doesn’t give two hoots about local young people.  Just look at her voting record in the council chamber for proof.  I’ve always supported the Future Jobs Fund. I’ve supported many measures to encourage new jobs for young people. The same cannot be said of Redfern, Rob Waltham and all the others now running this council into the ground.

But while I welcome any job creation, I find it very interesting our local newspaper hasn’t covered any of the stealth Tory redundancies at North Lincolnshire Council. 16 new jobs have been created – but over a hundred have gone in the last year. I’ve asked the Chief Executive to tell me exactly how many jobs have gone and will report back on the blog when I get the figure.  If our local newspaper won’t print the truth, I will.

Interestingly, I was reminded of this story this morning:

http://www.thisisscunthorpe.co.uk/Tories-plan-job-cuts-new-budget/story-12844173-detail/story.html

In it Liz Redfern states there would be “no” new job losses. This, as I feared, has proved to be a complete lie. Try telling the communication staff who received their redundancy notices last week, freshly signed off by Redfern and Waltham, there are no job losses.  I’m sure those people, consigned to the dole queue by Liz Redfern herself, will be over the moon 16 people will get a new job. You can only spin for so long – as David Cameron and this government has recently found out.

Andy Burnams action on the NHS

Andy Burnham today, (April 10th) sets out how Labour will defend an NHS coming under sustained attack from David Cameron. Set out below, are the five reasons why you should vote Labour in local elections on May 3rd

1. Protecting an NHS that is free for all, resisting the encroachment of charges and unwarranted restrictions based on lifestyle choices.

2. Preventing a postcode lottery. Patients in some areas are already being denied routine treatments, such as for varicose veins, that are available on the NHS elsewhere.

3. Maintaining Labour’s waiting ¬standards for cancer care, operations and in A&E. Since the election there’s been a 25% rise in people who waited longer than 18 weeks for operations.

4. Promoting collaboration over ¬competition, preventing the market from destabilising valued NHS services. Labour will call for a “one NHS” approach in every community.

5. Putting patients before profits. There are already signs that financial ¬incentives may mean NHS patients get sub-optimal care. Labour will always be vigilant in protecting patient choice and preventing profiteering

A vote for Labour in May’s elections is a vote for the NHS.

Farce at Planning

Planning Committee started at 14-00 hrs today to listen and debate about the applications that were in front of them

Everything went alright until an application for an extension to a Doctors Surgery on Ashby Rd was under debate and a Tory member moved the officers recommendation with an extra recommendation. This went to a vote and the outcome was out of ten members, eight voted, four tory members for and four labour members against. The chair was going to cast his casting vote, when he was informed from officers with not voting on the application he couldn’t use his casting vote. A discussion followed with the result, that the committee was suspended for twenty minutes while it was looked into by the legal people at NLC. After that time they came back with a ruling that the Chairs casting vote couldn’t be used, so one of the tories moved a proposal that in my mind was the same as the first. We went to the vote and to my surprise the vote was five tories for and four labour members against. It left me wondering what had gone on in the break to see this change in the vote.

This Tory group on this Authority seem to me to be incompetent to take any decision.

Just to demonstrate this point better, when the tories won the election in May 2011 they questioned why they should have an assistant director for housing when they had transferred the stock in 2007. It had to be explained to them that housing goes further then public sector housing. They have private sector housing, homelessness, allocations and affordable housing to deal with.

I still don’t think that by the time their time comes to an end in 2015 they will be any better

Children Homes Closures

After reading Cllr Steve Swift’s blog today I thought people would be interested in a report in the Scunthorpe Telegraph dated May 20th 2011. ‘We have no plans to shut homes just yet’

I’m sure people can come to their own conclusions

Concrete Pond Update

It has come to light today that the Ashby concrete pond is not within the Scunthorpe development boundary, so anyone putting forward an application for building houses on this site should have it refused.

The Tories on North Lincs Council are not happy with this so they are bringing out a consultation document on the development boundaries of towns and villages in North Lincs and in this document they will be trying to extend the Scunthorpe boundary to encapsulate the concrete pond so that developers can erect houses on this site without any objections by the strategic planning officers.

When this consultation starts I will put a link on the blog so people can object to the plan if they feel like it.

Comments on MP2

Looks like Thoades was right in his reply to say the link had been deleted by the Scunthorpe Telegraph to remarks that were made on their site about the MP representing Brigg and Goole. I was wandering who asked for it to be deleted, it doesn’t seem right to me that the MP would have it removed as he kept telling me when he was reading my blog that he likes people to be truthful, up front and not put out stories that are not true.

It’s not up to me to say what is deleted or to say who has it deleted. I’m sure people will make their own minds up.

Remploy

Today I went to a meeting of the Industrial Communities Alliance, which in my mind is a good lobbying body for areas where we had and still have manufacturing (Steel, Coal, Ship Building, etc)

One of the issues we discussed was Remploy, which is a firm that employs disabled people. Apparently the government announced on 7th March that they were cutting the money they allocated to Remploy.

Not long after that we hear that the firm is now shutting 36 of its 54 factories with a lose of 1700 jobs and they’re then expected to go into the main labour market to look for work. We all know how hard it is to get a job for able-bodied people, what chance have these people got.

There aren’t any Remploy units in North Lincs but I thought I would just highlight how callous this Tory Government is and we can see that the North Lincs Tory Council has undertaken the same attitude with job losses.

Governments Right To Buy Scheme

The Government today has launched its Newbuy Scheme, which is supposed to make it easier for upto a 100.000 social tenants to buy their home with a smaller deposit and up to £75k reduction in the price. You can find the legislation that was published by Ministers today and the final details of the Right to Buy scheme, here at :www.communities.gov.uk/housing/homeownership/rightobuy/ .

Responding to the Government’s announcement today on the Right to Buy, Cllr Tony Newman, Lead Housing spokesman for the LGA Labour Group said;

“The Tory-led Government has overseen a collapse of all forms of new housing supply. Today’s announcement is a distraction from the real issue which is the dire shortage of much-needed homes for people increasingly priced out of an under-supplied and over-inflated market.

“The country is desperately short of social housing, with 5 million people in England alone currently on waiting lists. Instead of seriously addressing the problem, the government is now proposing to sell off valuable social homes at a discount, which will further reduce much-needed homes.

“The centralising approach of the government means that social homes will be sold off at a discount decided in Whitehall with no regard for the local market. The one-for-one replacement proposals do not stack up – the Government’s own figures show that once homes are sold at a discount and the Treasury takes a slice, the money available is only 30% of new build costs.

“Councils are about to take on huge amounts of debt passed from Government, backed by the future income stream from social housing. These are now to be sold off under the feet of councils.

“This is a cynical move by the government which is in effect forcing a fire-sale of community assets”..

Comments on MP

Whilst reading the weekly Telegraph I came across these comments here http://www.thisisscunthorpe.co.uk/discussions/arogant-MP-Andrew-Percy-Today-following/discussion-15352852-detail/discussion.html about our conservative MP from Brigg and Goole.

A rye smile did cross my face as I’ve been banned by Percy for a couple of years.

Other people are finding out at last what he is like, he’s no different to our north lincs tories, “they do as they do because they can” is their motto.

So if you look at the article and agree with others leave your comments so he can see what people think about him. If not you can always remember in May 2015 if he is still standing.

M and S Application 3

Just thought people would like to know a few facts about yesterdays meeting.

The planning application was passed by councilors who don’t live in Scunthorpe, who on leaflets said they wouldn’t of built the Baths Hall. The mover of the motion voted against having a bigger Tesco’s in Brigg at a planning meeting, maybe doesn’t like competition.

The Councillors who voted for it were Nigel Sherwood, John Wardle, John England, Ron Alcock and the chair Arthur Bunion. Those voting against Mick Grant, John Collinson, Sandra Bainbridge, Mashook Ali and Helen Rowson. The Chair had the casting vote and voted accordingly.

Comment on twitter this morning seems to encapsulate the decision and I quote:- Arthur Bunion’s name should forever be alongside Thatcher, Michael Brown and McGregor as the murderers of our town.

Will the last person leaving Scunthorpe High St please switch off the lighting.