27th March 2009: Back to school
A remark in one of our Focus leaflets about parents' concerns at the performance
of St Neots Community College (Ernulf, in old money) prompts a call from the school
to go and see the headmaster. Fortunately I never had that ominous summons when I was
young - but this time it's to see what we can do to help. With two children there I
already had an inside view on the most serious issue - lots of expensive supply teachers, no
stability and consistency, low morale and retention rates. It's hard enough in general to
find and keep good teachers, given how the profession has been devalued in people's eyes
in the last twenty years, but when you're getting criticised on all fronts... and our
meeting only serves to confirm what we already thought.
But what to do? The Town Council doesn't have the remit or the money to do a lot -
indeed, a secondary school's budget far outstrips a town council's! The County Council
holds the answers - and it is from there that the support has not been forthcoming.
What happened to the specialist performing arts centre? Why was the school left without
a full strength management team for several years before the recent arrival of a
"super-head" charged with turning everything around? The County ruling group's leaflet
seems to give no suggestion that anything is wrong - in fact after a long section
about how good our other secondary school is, SNCC gets a single nine-word sentence. This
issue won't fit under the carpet, though.
One thing we can do - councillors of all flavours and at all levels
can move public opinion. I believe passionately that the present government policy - that
good schools should get extra funds and expand while struggling ones are left to die and
get closed - is morally wrong. Our children's futures should not be decided by a grand
experiment in market forces. All schools should be fully supported to maximise their
potential. And that's going to be a plank of our election campaign. In the meantime,
getting the community as a whole to rally behind the school will be important.
Edit - OFSTED have reported that they are to impose special measures. It's a
turning point - the powers that be can no longer pretend everything is OK, and will have
to start making every effort to turning things around. At least allowing the status quo
to drift along is now off the menu.
24th March 2009: Parking problems
The extension to the station car park that's being built at the moment probably won't
cure one of the problems that's been hardest to crack - commuters arriving early and filling
up Longsands Road and the side streets around it - leaving it too narrow to get two vehicles
past each other in places, and very poor visibility around the entrance to the school.
The problem is not a lack of space, as they're turning up at 7am when the car parks
are still half empty - it's that there are no restrictions at all on them parking all day
for free. And who wouldn't, when the car parks cost £6 or more a day? The problem is
of course that it makes life that much harder for the people who live there.
Today though, another rebuff from the County Council - there is no money in the
budget to spend on jumping through all the hoops, so nothing will happen. And it's not
as simple as painting a yellow line or two - there are feasibility studies, consultations
(to which the answer would be pretty obvious given my postbag), and so on which have to be
done first. Despite a very well supported petition being presented back in October last
year.
Edit: in the run up to the election, a list of possible additional schemes
to be looked at for funding has appeared, and Longsands Road is on it. Perhaps we
will now see some progress!
14th March 2009: that nice feeling when a job goes right.
The new town bus timetables start today. After a lot of correspondence between me, the
operators and the County Council, and time over in Cambridge (see 6th February) making
sure that everything fitted, we have a properly coordinated service - the buses
make pretty good connections into and out of the trains, and we no longer have the spectacle
of rival buses chasing each other round the Eatons only minutes apart. And we have
good publicity material at nearly every stop. And some of the long-missing stop signs have
reappeared.
Just for the fun of it, I get up really early and take the first bus into the Love's
Farm estate. Only me and the driver there to witness the little bit of history. By the
evening news seems to have gone round, and there are genuine passengers, as opposed to
an obsessive councillor, on board on the new section.
A big thankyou to Stagecoach Cambridge for their helpfulness.
12th March 2009: staying out of the camera.
Going up...
After quite a lot of behind the scenes work, Stagecoach in Bedford very kindly send
over one of their brand new coaches with wheelchair access for a demonstration and a
bit of publicity. Both
I and Bob the Mayor are very keen on disability issues, and these new coaches - seventeen
of them, a massive investment and at the cutting edge of vehicle technology - represent
a step change in provision for the town.
Unfortunately the day doesn't go to plan... first of all, unbeknown to me a reporter
from BBC Look East is there, ready to capture the day's events and broadcast them
to the world that evening. Then 53617 (pictured) decides that the pavements around the
Green just aren't up to scratch and won't let Judith off because it doesn't have a flat
surface to put her down on. And finally, the rather unwieldly battery sticking out the
back makes the powered wheelchair just a bit too big to actually fit in the space reserved
for it. In the the government's rush to push out accessibility legislation, no-one seems
to have thought that defining a universal standard size for a wheelchair might have been a
good idea, to make sure that everyone building coaches, ramps, lifts, whatever, knew what
they were dealing with.
(Edit: At least we knew the problem when the time came for us to buy one!)
To a lot of our chagrin, Look East spun the story as "heartless corporation leaves
innocent people stranded" - despite the fact that several people were already
making regular use of the facility where previously there was nothing. And I'm in the
doghouse.
11th March 2009
A quick drop-in to an exhibition at the station on the way home - after a long exercise,
we're finally going to get longer trains in the rush hours, and a better timetable.
No more half-hour waits in the mornings!
5th March 2009: Definitely not sitting on the fence.
One of those issues that seems to have taken on a life of its own - a piece of fence
at the top of Sandfields Road. It's tatty, potentially unsafe, and it's the sort of thing
that drags the town down by creating an atmosphere of neglect. And yet, while it would
apparently cost about £4000 to replace properly, it seems the County Council spend more
than that each year patching it up each time a bit breaks or falls off. (link to come)
It's an appalling example of short-term "make do and mend" thinking that ends up being far
worse than simply biting the bullet and doing the job properly.
3rd March 2009: On the Buses (2)
Nicely sheltered
A personal pet project delivered on budget and when promised - two completely new bus
shelters have been installed today, in Hardwick Road and Sandfields Road, and one
derelict one replaced with a nice new one in Howitts Gardens. Jumping ahead a little,
the Hardwick Road one is just in time for a substantial increase in services. This
is the part of the job that I find most satisfying - no expensive consultants, no
acrimonious debates, simply getting on with providing a useful, and in the grand
scheme of things inexpensive, facility; and the councillors acting as a team researching
the best locations.
25th February 2009: A bit of bad neighbourliness
This morning the post brings notice that Bedfordshire are planning to restrict HGVs
from driving through a lot of villages in the north east of the county. They have
devised a scheme, a nice big map attached, showing the restricted area, and a big black
line showing where they want the trucks to go instead as they try to get to the A1.
Indeed, in Beds it is a quiet road, not too narrow, minimal people living nearby.
What could be better?
Keep following the black line going over the county boundary, though, and you come
straight into St Neots, past a primary school, through a residential estate, past a young
children's play area, down a hill towards more houses with a tight turn at the bottom.
But that's not in their territory, so does it matter? And does it matter that councillors
in that neighbouring county only have a day and a bit to get written objections in - and
they won't accept email?
So it's up at 5am for me to get my letter in the morning post, and despite tweeting a
warning out mine is the only objection to make it in time. Still, at least the Beds
officers are now coming in to the town council to talk about it on Monday.
Edit 1, 2nd March: they are proposing to allow an alternative route to the A1.
Success? No. When the final Order notice appeared in April, it was back to the original
plan.
Edit 2, 3rd March: as if to remind us that our residential roads are not designed
for a continual diet of 40 ton trucks, a big hole about a foot across has opened up on
one corner. Time to fire off an email to get it filled!
21st February 2009: The Eatons Centre
Can you see what it is yet?
Now that I know I'm not going to upset the press by stealing their thunder, readers
might be interested in the latest press release...
here. Given how long this has
taken to become reality, there have been nights I've wondered if it would ever really
happen - even the the ceremonial sod-cutting seems quite a while back - but as you can
see from this weekend's view, there is visible progress at last.
35 weeks takes us to October - so watch out for more pictures between now and then.
I also notice in town that the River Church, who will be hiring it and providing
some of the furniture, are holding a benefit concert in May - time for me to start
putting people in touch with each other perhaps?
19th February 2009: The Budget, seen from the other side
At work we do a lot of jobs for local authorities. March is our busiest time; in
larger authorities with the end of the financial year coming up, there's the inevitable
spend-it-or-lose-it panic amongst officers. Departments run like little fiefdoms, and if
you show that you are so efficient that you're not using all your budget, your reward is
that it shrinks - and it becomes much harder to stick to your targets next year. Use all your resources up
without going over, and the "punishment" is to stay the same size. So no incentive to turn
in a blistering performance there - simply being run of the mill is the best strategy
to safeguard your position. So, come February, you know how much you'll have left in
your pot, you spend it to make sure it doesn't get siphoned off and given to the department
next door.
That's not to say I approve at all of the target culture, designed to tackle this
problem - with little apparent result if our workload is anything to go by. That's
simply led to even more perverse means of manipulating the system. As long as the common
good conflicts with individuals' own aims, then I'll be repeating this or similar moans
for years to come.
However, it does bring the budget process in St Neots Town Council into a little
perspective. As long as we are small enough not to have "departments" as such, there
isn't this internal tension; anything that isn't spent gets carried over into one pot
for next year, and noone is in the position of having to worry that it might be into
someone else's pot. So, no trips to the March sales for us.
17th February 2009: Car parking, proper and improper
Parking around St Neots station has been an ever increasing problem - first it was
Longsands Road full up with commuters, more recently it's been the verge of Hawkesden Road
left looking like a wartine trench thanks to being packed with cars. Finally, today
the promised extension to the station car park opened, 168 more places.
18th Feb: the verge is full again. However, it's clear that the cars on it
are not there because the car park is full, as the extension is almost empty when
I go past on the 7.20 bus. The only thing that is going to sort out this problem is
for County to create a parking restriction - and at last I get a tip-off that they
are working on Hawkesden Road, at least. I would have preferred they do Longsands Road
first, as it impacts more people there - the damaged verge is unsightly, but doesn't restrict
people's view near the school and so on...
16th February 2009: Lobbying Again
In to my email box this morning drops a message from the County Council. Just to
say that Bedfordshire next door is planning to block lots of minor roads to HGVs - and
send them straight onto our patch instead, through the town to the A1. After the
fractious debates over traffic calming in Nelson Road, it seems that this proposal
to deliberately divert 38-ton trucks past a primary school and children's playgrounds
has brought councillors of all flavours up in arms together. The nasty rider is, we
only have two days to get written objections in, although it seems CCC weren't even
asked for a response first time round and have a few days grace to get their reply back.
I'm not flavour of the month at home as I stay up until the early hours drafting a letter
to make sure it is safely in the post at 7am.
It's frustrating that we can submit comments and messages in favour of the scheme
by email, but to formally register our objection it's snail mail only. Fortunately
Twitter comes to the rescue - within
minutes the message is flying around another forum getting people interested. It's
exciting to see just how rapidly viral campaigning can lift an obscure traffic order
to the status of cause celebre. By the weekend a leaflet will be out and
signature collectors for a petition from the roads directly affected signed up.
Whether we are entitled to petition the authority next door is not 100% clear, but,
you don't ask you don't get.
9th February 2009: Lobbying
One of the family's favourite causes is the National Autistic Society - not least because
of the support they gave us when trying to find a school place, ultimately leading to us
having to take legal action against the LEA. There are a whole range of inadequacies
in the system, not least the transition from childhood and often special school to
independent living which we'll be facing in a few years.
Anyway, coming up is the
Autism Bill, to quote:
The Autism Bill is a
professionally-drafted set of proposals to introduce a law to support people with autism.
It is supported by a wide range of organisations across the autism community. It builds on
the Department of Health's recent commitment to produce a national adult autism strategy and
forms an important part of [the NAS's] I Exist campaign.
It needs 100 MPs to actually turn up and vote, but it seems only 91 are even committed to
attending, let alone supporting the Bill. It seems to have fallen below the radar of most,
including ours. So it's time to get writing!
Update: it's the 22nd and haven't heard anything. I know the postbag is probably
heaving but a simple "I'm going" to the organisers would allow us all to relax a bit.
8th February 2009: The bit I hate most
Yes, it's that grit bin again. Because it had to go in the 2009-10 budget, we couldn't
get it in place ready for the onslaught of a week of snow. I dropped round a letter to
everyone in Stevenson Court to explain the progress, and proved just how essential the grit
is by slipping over a couple of times. What people must make of the torturous purchasing
process I don't know. I hate disappointing people.
I was supposed to do a bit of generic leafletting this afternoon after walking the dog (and being
pulled over again), but I was going to do some serious damage to myself at that rate.
So it will have to wait for a thaw.
6th February 2009: Watch this space
Can't say too much about today just yet - but all will become clear soon. Had a very
productive meeting with Stagecoach today; was originally invited to join in by one of our
county people, then when they were late arriving I got the opportunity to talk shop
for a while... and I've come away very happy.
Edit: see the 14/3/09 entry!
2nd February 2009: Fighting bureaucracy
Tonight I'm helping someone in the ward with their Disability Living Allowance. Now,
this is someone whose condition means they can't fill out forms, to start with. It will
never get better. The bureaucrats know that. Yet every three years he has the same
performance - a form big enough to get a novel into, which asks the same questions
each time, and to which the answer would be "same as last time you asked" if that
didn't prompt automatic rejection from the System. Yes, forty pages of A4, about 250
questions. At this rate I should be claiming for writer's cramp?
21st January 2009: Pulling hair out over a budget
Tonight is the night that the budget for 2009-10 has to be decided. For various reasons
this year's process has been started late, so it's going to be even more fraught than usual.
Now every budget is essentially the same - whether you start with everything you have
to do and work up, or from everything you want to do and work down, you find
yourself balancing a tightrope between three accusations:
- you're increasing council tax too much (yes, I pay a band D rate too!)
- you're cutting projects that must be done, or really ought to be done
- you're not keeping enough in reserve
Whatever you do, you're bound to be pilloried for at least one of them. I guess
I can take some small solace for this year that it's only one.
A wise friend told me early on that opposition is easy. You can always find something
wrong - you can always push people off the tightrope on one side or the other, and as long
as you don't say what you think should be done instead, your position is pretty bullet proof.
Personally I can't stand that sort of game playing. The academic within me wants a sensible
reasoned argument between two alternatives, and when everyone is saying "your budget is
wrong", I just want to shout "compared to what?"...
14th January 2009: Waiting in the rain...
Just a quick note, it's nice when things start happening. Confirmation that this
year's quota of three new bus shelters (two locations that have
never had a shelter, and one to replace a derelict eyesore) are booked to be installed
at last.
However, it's never quite that simple. Buses are skipping one of these
stops, the Hardwick
Road one, in the early morning because they can't get through the narrow bit of
Montague Street past all the parents parked up dropping their children off at school.
As usual it's a problem that means trying to get various people to talk and sort
something out, in this case the school, the parents and the PCSOs. And I'm glad I have
a good team who can help by pulling favours from all their contacts.
10th January 2009: A surprise visitor
David Howarth MP (left) drops in
It's not often I get a call to say an important visitor is passing by, but today is
the exception. David Howarth, MP for Cambridge, is at a conference down at Wyboston. And
rather than do the ritual handshaking in the tea breaks, he's sneaked out to see a real
issue for us locally - the uncertainty over the future of village post offices. It feels a
bit awkward in a way - I feel like a bit of a stranger because I'm at work in office hours,
and it's my partner who's the regular visitor! One might think that the internet age is a
big threat, but we certainly do our part in keeping them afloat with all the parcels going
to and fro on eBay...
9th January 2009: Bits and Pieces
Named at last
January seems to be the month when there are the greatest number of little bits and
pieces to sort out. These are the jobs that sort out the councillors who really care
for their community, from the ones who simply have visions of their names in lights.
A damaged street name sign (I didn't have my camera, so the picture
is one I sorted last year. Mill Hill Road had never had a sign at the Green end for some
strange reason). Street lights that need repairing, including down quiet footpaths. And
a gritting bin on a steeply inclined road that got removed by the County Council, but
apparently it's now up to us to replace. That's not so easy - it's not a statutory
requirement, and the money will have to be squeezed out of a budget somewhere. For someone
who works in a private sector company where the attitude to such a small but important job would
probably be "do it now and worry about the money later", the local government way is quite
a culture shock.
5th January 2009: On the Buses
I'll snap one when the light is good
Back to work after the Christmas break and the rumours I've been collecting are confirmed;
St Neots has two brand new town buses. Not only are they properly accessible, unlike their
predecessors, they're light, airy and spacious. And the amusing electronic bell makes me want
to call out "Avon calling". After a long time trying to encourage bus use in the town and
at times feeling like a lone voice in the wilderness, this is a serious step forward. The next
task is to try to get the frustrating connections fixed at the station, if not now then
at least for when the train timetables are overhauled in May. At least I've finally managed
to get a meeting with Stagecoach set up to make
my case.
I had thought that the two buses could be branded for the town - perhaps even named,
if we could find two suitable individuals from the town (any offers?). But it seems they
are only on probation here. If they do leave, I hope it's only to get bigger versions
of the same.