Archive for November, 2008
Cycling on the Stray
At last night’s Action for the Environment meeting we discussed the Council’s consultation on cycling on the Stray. The proposal is modest and has taken many years to put together. It suggests that it may be possible to allow shared use of a few of the Stray paths – most notably Slingsby Walk, but also a path linking Park Parade with Granby Road and Granby Road with Devonshire Place. The path to Wedderburn Lodge is already a highway and can be used by cars and cycles. Some land would have to be returned to the Stray of couse so a few of the existing roads and paths are to be narrowed or closed altogether.
As I am a cyclist and a pedestrian and I live very close to the Stray I take a keen interest in this proposal. Personally I have supported the relaxation of the rules which prohibit cycling on the Stray for many years and tried – sadly unsuccessfully – to launch such a consultation back in 1995, when I was Chair of the Council’s Environmental Health Committee. But I understand the concerns of pedestrians, particuarly visually or hearing impaired pedestrians, who are worried that it will be dangerous. I was almost knocked over by a cyclist on a pavement a few weeks ago and it unsettled me for quite a while.
In response to those anxieties, I think it is important to reiterate that the vast majority of cyclists are responsible and law abiding people. Those who are not already cycle on the Stray and on the pavements and will continue to do so even if the Council decides not to go ahead with the proposals. It is these these thoughtless people who are responsible for creating the tension between pedestrians and cyclists.
It is also important that it is made very clear that cyclists on footpaths should always give way to pedestrians and that they are encouraged to make their presence known, either by ringing a bell or, in my case, by a short pull on their squeaky brakes.
Harrogate’s Stray is a bit like the River Thames in London – iconic, lovely but underused and a throttle on traffic. The problem is that cyclists who need to cross the Stray without defying current by-laws – and because it surrounds the town centre, many have to do so – are forced to use roads that carry large amounts of traffic funnelled on to them. Thus the Stray actually puts cyclists at greater risk at the moment when it has the potential to protect them.
I hope that there will be a massive response to the consultation from those with a wide variety of views and that the issues will be fully aired.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 1 so far )Emmaus House
This afternoon I visited Emmaus House, a residential home for elderly Christians in Harrogate, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary. It was a lovely event, and we had a chance to talk with many of the residents who are so well cared for physically and spiritually in this home.
I also had a chance to talk briefly with the Treasurer about the difficulties that lie ahead for all residential homes: personal budgets which elderly people can find so difficult, ever greater shortfalls in the levels of public funding, and a growing elderly population. He was also most concerned about the loss of expertise in local authorities as more responsibility is passed into the private sector.
This is such an important issue and all of us have an interest in it. I see little evidence that the government is making adequate arrangements to ensure that older people are cared for with the love and dignity they need.
What price scrutiny?
Only days after a defection handed an overall majority to the Tories on Harrogate Borough Council, they showed their true colours by publishing a proposal to drastically reduce the already too weak powers of scrutiny. The Council’s administration wants to cut the number of Scrutiny Committees (whose function is to examine administration decisions and policy) from three to one. This will mean that only eleven backbench councillors will have an opportunity formally to hold the Cabinet to account. And six of the eleven (including, no doubt, the Chair) will be members of the ruling Conservative group. Five of twenty-six opposition councillors – fewer than 20% will be able to be part of the scrutiny process.
The Cabinet system of local government – introduced supposedly to increase accountability – has had the opposite effect here in Harrogate. Opposition councillors have virtually no chance to question decisions made by senior councillors. Investment in the scrutiny process has been minimal. Now they want to close it down further.
An elected Council should be a place of lively debate, where people of differing views are able to discuss local issues and reach considered positions drawn from collective experience. That is not the case in Harrogate. A small group of senior Tories make virtually all decisions and contemptuously dismiss any opposition as ‘party political point scoring’. They propose to reduce the function of formal scrutiny to the legal minimum.
Liberal Democrats will vigorously oppose this this move and perhaps – just perhaps – some of the backbench Conservatives will join us
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )PRESS RELEASE: Welcome for Government u-turn on Post Office Card Account
Claire Kelley, Liberal Democrat Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Harrogate and Knaresborough has welcomed a decision by the Government to abandon proposals to hand over the payment of pensions and benefits from post offices to a private company.
Thousands of elderly people, carers, disabled people and claimants in Harrogate and Knaresborough currently use their local post offices to receive their pensions and benefits through the Post Office Card Account.
But earlier this year ministers invited bids from private companies as well as the Post Office for the contract to pay out pensions and benefits from 2010.
Had the Post Office lost the contract, up to 3,000 more post offices could have gone to the wall as a result of the lost business. These unmanaged closures would have been in addition to the 2,500 “managed” closures which the Government has already announced, including five in this area.
“The Government’s u-turn is welcome,” said Claire Kelley. “It means our post offices have a better chance of staying open.
“But this is a u-turn that should never have had to happen in the first place. If the Government had listened to the people who use the service in the first place they would have realised the importance of post offices to communities and awarded the new contract to the network without these months of delay.
“Instead, local branches have had to deal with the uncertainty that ministerial dithering and unnecessary contracting processes have caused.
“Hopefully, local branches can now plan ahead knowing they will continue to pay out pensions and benefits. But I am also calling on the Government to carry out another u-turn.
“They must stop putting pressure on pensioners and benefit claimants to get their cash paid through the banks. People should have a free choice of how they receive their money.”
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Harrogate secondary school admissions….continued
Today is the day that the County Council’s Executive Members decide whether to judicially review the Schools Adjudicator’s decision on their admissions policies in Harrogate. The support of the Harrogate Advertiser for the parents’ stance has been most welcome.
This is a difficult problem – the stark truth is that all oversubscribed schools are selective schools and changing their admissions criteria simply changes the group of children who are offered places. It does not change the numbers who have to be refused.
It seems to me that the Adjudicator’s suggestion of quotas is the only fair way forward. The conundrum is how to allocate the quotas – is distance fair, given that the most sought after schools are located in the most affluent areas? Is a lottery acceptable to parents, perhaps combined with a sibling rule to ensure that families do not end up with their children at different schools? Or are feeder primaries the way forward?
These are the questions the County Council should be asking, not whether they should spend our money on a judicial review.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Frazer Theatre
Pam Godsell, the Mayor of Knaresborough, is a huge supported of the town’s Frazer Theatre. She and her husband Bob decided to celebrate their thirtieth anniversary with a fundraising party for the theatre. And a very good do it was too – packed with friends of the family and the theatre and I have no doubt that it will have raised a good sum too.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Wonderful voices raised
I went to a marvellous concert at St Mark’s Church in Harrogate on Friday night. Speakability is a charity which helps people whose speech is impaired as a result of damage to the brain. It runs a local self help group for stroke patients and they had invited me to this fundraising event. The performers were two individuals and a selection of the seventeen musical ensembles from St Aidan’s High School in Harrogate.
The evening began with an incredibly powerful and moving account from Charles Spencer of the havoc that losing the power of speech through a stroke can wreak on your personal relationships and, through that, on your self-esteem. Speakability provides an invaluable forum for patients and also for their carers.
All the performances bar one were singers – fittingly as the concert had been named Voices Raised. The one instrumental interlude was an astonishing virtuoso violin solo by Rebecca Else, an incredible talent.
The singers were all superb and there was a debut performance from the new Boys Choir – pictured here. The standard was all the more astonishing when you take into account that they have been rehearsing together for about seven or eight weeks only. How fantastic will they be by the end of the school year?
St Aidan's Boys Choir - First public performance
Secondary school admissions – the fight goes on
Opposition is growing locally to North Yorkshire County Council’s announced intention to seek judicial review of the Schools Adjudicator’s criticism of their Harrogate secondary school admissions criteria.
Yesterday the parents of children in Harrogate primary schools received a letter from the Director of Young People’s Services explaining the situation. This has had a completely opposite effect to the one intended and parents who had not previously been aware of the unfairness of the system are now joining those who made the initial complaint.
Local anger has been increased by learning that the decision to embark on the judicial review process was taken without consultation with Harrogate councillors, by Executive Members and the Director. And the decision to go ahead will also be taken by Executive Members on Monday 17 November. As it has been classed as an urgent decision, the call in procedure, which allows councillors to question executive decisions, cannot be used.
Local residents are now questioning the democratic procedures of North Yorkshire County Council and whether they pay any attention at all to the views of the people living in the town which makes the largest contribution to the funding of the county.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Sorry, did I really hear that?
Aspin Lane Post Office - a successful branch now closed
There are times when you feel that you have, without realising it, slipped into a parallel universe. I had one of those moments today when I heard a radio news reporter suggesting that the government was launching a new initiative aimed at securing and expanding the Post Office network by allowing it to provide government services.
I have just checked the Post Office website. It confirms that the ‘Network change’ programme is still underway – a programme promoted by the government, aiming to close thousands of post offices. Thousands of those that still remain that is, after 3500 closed by the Conservatives, 4000 already closed by Labour and years of the government systematically bringing to an end the provision of government services through the Post Office network.
Millions of pensioners have been bullied into actively encouraged to have pensions paid into bank accounts rather than collecting them from the post office. Prize draws are offered as incentives to those who choose to retax their cars on the internet or the phone rather than through the post office.
As a result of losing this business the incomes of postmasters have fallen to the point where many have simply given up. And for those that soldier on, the rates paid for different transactions have been changed so that in order to make a profit, post offices have to sell insurance and other financial services because that is where they can obtain a decent return now.
Only yesterday, Labour MPs voted down a House of Commons motion calling for government services to be delivered through post offices. So while one arm of government continues in its determination to destroy the post office another has now announced that it intends to save it. I don’t know whether to be glad or mad.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )PRESS RELEASE: Recycle that battery
5 November 2008
The average family uses 21 batteries each year and when they are used up most of us simply throw them in the bin. About 600 million are sent to landfill sites every year.
Claire Kelley, Liberal Democrat Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Harrogate and Knaresborough has contacted Harrogate Borough Council and North Yorkshire County Council to ask them to provide local collection points – in shops and Council buildings – to make it easier for people to recycle spent batteries.
Custom designed tubes to collect batteries are available at low cost and have proved very successful in other parts of the country.
Claire said “This scheme provides a cheap and easy way to recycle batteries which contain a range of metals, including lead, mercury, nickel and cadmium. These can be recycled, recovering valuable materials and minimising toxic waste sent to landfill.”
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