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Tressell Blog
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March 2009:
March 30th: Cabinet meeting today. This time, I did get a chance to say something, speaking for the Labour opposition on the Public Convenience and Building Cleaning Contract. Might not sound too exciting, but it was yet another example of where re-letting the contract had been left to the last moment, not giving time to explore options to run the service directly rather than through a contractor, and market this to other organisations. So once again, money has been given to a private company which could have been kept with the council, and the opportunity to make money by trading services and generating more income has been missed. Peter Chowney
March 28th: Work on the land in the Upper Ore Valley, which is being managed by the new Ore Community Land Trust, in the morning. Quite a few enthusiastic volunteers turned up, and we got quite a bit done, including installing a railway sleeper bridge across the stream. Then on to the playday at Broomgrove Community Centre to begin consultation on the £800,000 Ore Valley Adventure playground. Quite a few turned up to this too, but it's only a very early start to this project. Peter Chowney
March 26th: Meeting of the 'Millennium Communities Stakeholders' group today, which is convened by Seaspace to discuss the development of the Millennium Communities site in the Ore Valley. It seems the developer, Bellway Homes, are still interested, and are now expected to produce plans for their proposed housing for consultation with the community in May. Peter Chowney
March 21st: Did a coffee morning with Jay, Jeremy Birch, Kim Forward and the MP, Michael Foster. Not especially busy - everyone must be happy and contented! Went to a demonstration outside the Town Hall in the afternoon, by local Tamils, telling people about the genocide of their people by the Sri Lankan government. A few speakers, and a petition presented to the MP. Peter Chowney
March 16th: Presented the final report of the Seafront Strategy Working Group to the services Scrutiny Committee - I'd chaired the group, and we'd been working on it a long time, almost two years. There are a lot of good ideas in it I think, several exciting new proposals including new seafront lighting and redeveloping bottle alley. It went down quite well at the committee, now it goes on to Cabinet. Peter Chowney
March 14th: Chaired a public meeting to set up the Ore Community Land Trust, an organisation that will take on the management of the unregistered land in the Upper Ore Valley, and hopefully acquire more land too. About 30-40 local people turned up, and the mood was very positive. The trust is now formally established, and has a committee of 12 members to oversee its work. This is all very promising and very good news in the continuing fight to preserve this much needed bit of open space. Peter Chowney
March 9th: Presented the final report of the Joint Working and Trading Services Scrutiny Review to the Resources Scrutiny Committee. The most controversial proposal was that the Council should investigate using its new powers to trade, in particular in IT services, personnel management, and marketing, as well as looking at the possibility of bringing building cleaning and maintenance back 'in-house' and running these services directly, rather than through an external contractor. This would allow us to trade the services, to other public organisations, to companies and to the public. It would be a radical step. Still, the committee supported the recommendations - now the report has to go to Cabinet. Peter Chowney
March 7th: Spent the morning helping Ore Valley Action clear up the unregistered land in the Upper Ore Valley (off Frederick Road, beside the Speckled Wood development). A lot of people turned up - this bit of community direct action, 'annexing' a bit of unused, unregistered land is proving ot be very popular. Next Saturday, there's a meeting to set up a community land trust to look after the area. It looks like we'll end up with a rather charming wooded valley, maintained by and for local people. And that can't be bad. Peter Chowney
March 5th: Paid a visit to the Jerwood Gallery planning application exhibition, at the Arts Forum shop in Marina. All looks good, and the designs look promising - interesting building, without being too controversial. There is controversy of course - the anti-Jerwood protestors were outside with their banners. I can't really imagine why anyone would be opposed to it, it seems to be a very positive and valuable addition to our town. That was the view of most people at the exhibition too - the response was overwhelmingly positive. Peter Chowney
March 2nd: Cabinet meeting this evening. Thanks to the Tories' single party Cabinet system, the other two political parties (although with as many seats as the Tories) only get to speak once on each item - as there were no items on housing or leisure, I didn't get to speak at all! Anyway, it was all fairly good-natured and uncontroversial .. still went for over two hours though. Peter Chowney
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