You may have heard that a large amount of money is available (from One North East et al) for a makeover of the Market Square in Durham City. This is being moved forward by the Durham 2020 Vision people as part of a partnership between the County Council, the City Council and other bodies in the region.

So why has our MP got herself so exercised about the award of a contract to do some public consultation on the project?

Apparently she objects to the fact that the company with the contract employs a chap called Greg Stone, who happens to be a Lib Dem Councillor in Newcastle and was the Lib Dem Candidate in the Sedgefield by-election in 2007.

For some reason the fact the the City Council is Lib Dem controlled is a problem, and so having a professional who happens to be a Lib Dem involved upsets her and she thinks there has to be something not quite right.

Why this should be the case must elude any reasonable thought process.  The company was appointed by the County Council (Labour controlled) and I can assure everyone that as the Leader of the Opposition Lib Dem Group, I was unaware that Greg was involved in anything until after the company was appointed, so my party had no part in the appointment at any stage.

At the Labour end of the scale, over the years there have been a number of senior officers at County Hall who have made no effort to hide their membership of the Labour Party. I am pleased to say that as a leading member of the opposition, I have always received proper, full and accurate advice and information from these individuals; I have always had respect for their professionalism. If I had not been dealt with properly by a council officer for party reasons, I would have shouted it from the rooftops, but I have not had to because they are professionals. Why should this be any different?

The fact is that making this sort of complaint demeans the role of the MP and she should withdraw these baseless accusations.

Indeed, having spent the past three and a half years trying to throw brickbats at her local Council because it is Lib Dem controlled she makes me wonder how she is going to fill her time when it is abolished on 31 March next year and the Labour controlled County Council is all that is left.

The County Council met this morning to decide on how the planning committees would work in the new unitary council after 1 April 2009.

On the table was a proposal for a structure of three area committees and one central committee (to deal with minerals, waste and major planning applications with a wider strategic impact).

The area committees would cover Chester-le Street + Derwentside, Durham City + Easington, and Sedgefield + Teesdale + Wear Valley respectively.

The proposal was that the area committees would each have 16 members made up of 8 members from within the areas and 8 from outside.

The Labour majority then received a mauling from the combined opposition on the grounds that the areas were much too large and that by having so few local members on each committee, the public would have little confidence in decisions being taken by a group of councillors where at least half would have little or no local knowledge of the area concerned.

The Conservatives first moved an amendment to increase the number of committees to five, but this was defeated, and then we Lib Dems moved that the 16 members of each area committee should have as many members from within that area as possible so that local residents would have great confidence in the decision-making process. [Note: the legal rules on political balance on council committees would require at least one Tory on each of the committees and there are no elected Tories in Durham City or Easington districts, so having all members from within the area would be impossible.]

This second motion was also defeated as the Labour Group had been put on a 3-line whip to vote it down (even though I know that there are a number of Labour Councillors who agreed with us - so much for democracy). Interestingly while there were many speeches against the Labour position from across the opposition, hardly any Labour councillors spoke in favour during the whole debate.

Nationally, the Labour government has trumpeted the slogan ‘local decision-making by local people’. Not much sign of that in Labour controlled County Durham I guess.

One final observation - the system of 8+8 members will mean a lot more travelling by councillors and presumably a big increase in expenses claims to cover travelling costs.

As I went in to County Hall this morning, I was told that the local BBC News reporter, Tony Jones, wanted to see me, so I sought him out and he told me that there was to be an announcement at noon about traffic issues in Durham - did I know anything about it?

The short answer was no, but later I picked up a whisper that the Labour Leader, Councillor Simon Henig, would be making some sort of announcement at the end of the Council Meeting that was due later.

Indeed as the meeting ended, Simon asked to speak and announced that it had been decided to put plans for an inner relief road for Durham City and for additional congestion charging (a.k.a. a toll on crossing Milburngate Bridge) to be ‘put on the shelf’.

This will be a great relief (sorry about the pun) to many in the city, and particularly residents of the Sidegate area, who had been appalled about the prospect of building a new road across the valley from the Carrville Interchange to Framwellgate Peth.

No doubt the decision was influenced by the recent overwhelming rejection of a congestion charging scheme in the Manchester area, but I am please nonetheless that the fears of many Durham people can be put to rest, at least for the time being.

Eavesdropping on Simon giving an interview for Durham FM, I also learned that there are plans for two more park and ride locations for the city. No detail was given of the proposed locations, but I would hope that one would be on the western approach to the City from Meadowfield (I have heard of a site near Stonebridge being in the frame) . This would do something, perhaps, to ease the congestion at Neville’s Cross, which gets worse year by year.

So this is overall good news and responds to what local Lib Dem councillors have been urging for some time.

I do have two concerns, however. the first is that Simon Henig did use the phrase ‘on the shelf’ which to me means that they may be brought down and dusted off at some time in the future.

My second moan is that this is yet another example of me being kept out of the loop and uninformed about a key decision affecting my area.

From time to time, residents have raised concerns with Councillors as the staff working for recycling company, Greencycle, appear to put the contents of the green boxes and bags into the collection van together instead of separating them at the time. To clarify the situation, the City Council Environmental Services Manager, Chris Tomlinson, who oversees the contract with Greencycle for the City has issued the following statement:“If Greencycle has capacity on their picking line at the Materials Recovery Facility at Tursdale, crews are allowed to collect recycling materials unsorted which certainly speeds up the collection operation.

“However, if the picking line is not running or is running to capacity then crews have to resort to sorting the material at the kerb.

“It is essential therefore, that Residents continue to sort their materials into the bag and the box as this will then allow Greencycle some flexibility in their method of operation as the situation changes.

“We hope that clears any confusion up with Residents.”

So to re-emphasise things, it is still important to place paper, card and plastics in the green bag and only glass bottles and cans in the green box.

If you are interested in transport issues, the County has produced a leaflet reporting on the outcome of Year 2 (2007/08) Area Programme Schemes. The leaflet can be viewed on the council web site at Area Programme Leaflet Yr 2.

This and much else is available on the Local Transport Plan web pages.

A group of councillors (including your truly) visited the new Durham Johnston building last week. It is currently 61 weeks into an 80 week build and is on target to be open next April in time for the Easter school term.

A view looking along from the main entrance.

A new teaching wing.

As the building is pretty well weathertight now, there should not now be any delays due to bad weather. The scale of the new building is extremely impressive and will, I hope be a tremendous improvement to the education the children of local families.

I went over the Mount Oswald yesterday afternoon to look at the presentation of the latest proposals by Banks to develop the golf course. The room was already crowded with local residents when I arrived just before the published opening time of 3 pm.

The first thing that struck me was the claim by Banks that there is a need for more student accommodation and hence the usefulness of the so-called Knowledge Quarter. From my recent history in the university there seems to be a surplus of student beds in the City at the moment (unless something has changed in the last 7 weeks since I retired from my university job).

Talking to several local resident who were present, there is clearly no change in local opinion that developing Mount Oswald in the ways suggested (or even at all) is a desirable thing.

So, if like me, you continue to be opposed to the project (even though the scope is admittedly much reduced from the first time round), please do write in to the City Council Planning Department at 17 Claypath, Durham and make your objections known.

The more individual letters that go in the better.

I do not know when the will go before a planning committee, but given the size and complexity of the application, it is probable that it will be after 1 April next year. If this turns out to be the case, then it will be one of the first major applications to be heard by the new Unitary County Council when it comes into being in 2009.

If you have not yet bought your Christmas cards, you may like to know that “Cards for Good Causes” is again in business this year.

Cards are on sale from the ground floor of Alington House on North Bailey from 10am to 4 pm Monday to Saturday until 17 December.

You can purchase cards from over 20 charities with about 79 pence in the pound going to the charities themselves.

I held a meeting for parents of both Neville’s Cross and St Margaret’s Primary School on Tuesday this week to discuss the options for secondary school admissions criteria in the light of the consultation that is currently under way. [Thank you to Vanessa Kind, a governor at St Margaret’s, for her help in advertising the meeting and giving a well-informed contribution to the meeting.]

As luck would have it, there had been a meeting of the County Lifelong Learning Scrutiny Committee that morning to discuss the issues around the consultation.

One thing that emerged at the Committee was that the County had revised their original (now shown to be unworkable) criterion giving preference to families furthest from the next nearest school.

This new attempt was to first give preference to those for whom the applied-for school was the nearest school and if a futher tie-breaker was required to use the above (next nearest school) approach.

The parents meeting turned out to be pretty well attended (around 45 people) and had a good debate on the issues.

They quickly noticed that even the new suggestion from the County could be problematic for children close to a school if there was also another school not far away (as is the case with Durham Johnston and Framwellgate Moor).

There was also a detailed debate on the relative merits of using feeder schools and catchment areas (options highlighted by the Schools Adjudicator earlier ion the year). There were also some interesting ideas concerning distance rules as final tie-breakers).

At the end of the meeting a straw vote was taken and those present preferred the idea of feeder schools to catchment areas by around 80% to 20%.

It was also a clear view that local schools should be for local children and that any system that discriminated against children who lived close to a school would be unacceptable.

The final message was for parents to make sure that they sent their views in to the consultation to make sure that theri voices were heard, something I strongly support.

Banks Developments are putting in a new planning application to develop the Mount Oswald (they call it ‘Durham Park’).

As with the last time, they are putting on an exhibition of the proposals at Mount Oswald. This will be held in the Campbell suite at Mount Oswald Golf Club on Weds 19 November from 3-7pm.

Here is the Durham Park exhibition flier that Banks have sent me.

While these proposals appear to involve considerably less development of the site then the original one that was roundly rejected by the planning committee (and just about everyone who was consulted on it) there are still aspects that fall quite outside the current local planning framework.

As a major development, the timing of the application means that it will almost certainly be determined by the new unitary County Council after 1 April next year and so will represent perhaps thae first significant test of the planning procedures of the new council.

As the local councillors for the area, I and my colleague Councillor Grenville Holland, will be very keen to know residents views of these new proposals as we shall want to represent local opinion as fully as possible.

If you know someone who wishes to contact the County Council about student finance, (grants, loans or maintenance allowances), then they need to know that they will not be able to get through to the County Council Student Support Team before 12.30 pm (at least until 14 November).

I have just received the following statement from them by e-mail:

“To enable the team to continue to achieve high standards, an operational decision has been taken to extend the closure of the telephone lines between 7.30 am and 12.30 pm on a daily basis up until Friday 14th November 2008.

Due to a change in the regulations, all Local Authorities now have an increased number of means tested applications and Disabled Students Allowance applications to process and closure of the telephone lines will allow us to prioritise our resources towards the most vulnerable students within County Durham.

A similar process is still in operation at a number of Local Authorities and is proving to be beneficial.“

As the debate about admissions criteria for Durham secondary schools gets under way, I thought I should do an analysis of the issues around a system of feeder schools for Durham Johnston should be.

Here is a two-page paper that gives some statistical data (taken from the County web site) and some obvious conclusions (mainly along the lines of - this is a difficult problem!).

Here is the file:  Feeder School Admissions to Durham Johnston.pdf

Health warning:  As stated in the document, I really have not yet come to a firm conclusion about what I think should be the solution to the admissions problem in the County. The paper is intended to set out the facts and the issues that the concept of feeder schools raises in relation to my local comprehensive school.

The County Council has just agreed to take up the Government offer of funding to provide free swimming for everyone who is 60 or older or 16 or younger.

In fact, as the districts all currently have concessions for ages up to 18, the County will fund free access for everyone up to 18.

The scheme will start in April next year and last for two years. The Government contribution will not meet all the lost income, but the County Durham Primary Care Trust has agreed to fill the gap in the hope that this will help tackle fitness and obesity levels.

What happens after the two years is up is anyone’s guess, but no-one has high expectations that the government funding will continue into the long term.

Residents of Neville’s Cross have long been frustrated by the lack of a doorstep green waste collection. This is available in parts of the City. but not everywhere. Indeed there is very patchy coverage across the county as a whole.

Following a Council Cabinet meeting this morning,  however,  I am hopeful that things will improve as the Council has just decided to buy 67,000 more wheelie bins over the next two years for green waste collection which will fill this gap over a substantial part of the county.

The only issue for me is whether Neville’s Cross will be included as the purchase will still leave around 48,000 residential properties unable to access this service across the county. Rest assured that I shall be lobbying hard for our inclusion.

In addition, 5,000  home composters will be available for purchase at a subsidised rate of £8.

I hope to be able to publish details of their availability when I have the information.

It is time for an update on the possibility of a Neville’s Cross Community Centre and I am afraid it is not good news for those who believe that this is something the area really does need.

A fledgling Community Association was set up a couple of years ago and has been working on plans to build an extension on to Neville’s Cross Primary School which would serve as a Community Centre and also be available for ther school at agreed times.

A feasibility study has just been completed, but with an estimated cost of over £400K and at a time when the financial outlook is generally so bleak, the members of the Committee decided that the project was simply too daunting for them and that they would wind up their activities.

Personally I am disappointed, but I do understand the difficulties facing the Committee and agree that they had little choice. Nonetheless, those involved do deserve thanks for everything they have done and the time that they have spent.

One small positive to come out of all the hard work is the hope that we can have a community notice board for the area.

Negotiations are under way with St John’s Church to replace their church notice board with something that will serve for both the church and for general community events and information. My fellow City Councillor Ron Dickie and I would be funding the community part from our local ward allowances. We hope that approval will come from St John’s PCC in the next few weeks.

Following a (brief but very enjoyable) holiday in Paris to celebrate retirement from the university an e-mail prompted me to look carefully at the consultation leaflet issued by the County Council about admissions criteria.

One option being presented has the following distance-related tie-breaker:

“Distance Priority will be given to those children who would have to travel the furthest distance to the next nearest school.”

Note the wording: “next nearest school”. As stated, this is not the distance from one’s preferred school but from the next one away from that.

At first look this is bizarre, but on further consideration the conspiracy theorists might think this is another cunning plan to disadvantage families living in the Neville’s Cross area.

If I understand the wording, it appears to say that a family living next to Durham Johnston, but less than 2 miles from the next nearest school (Framwellgate Moor)  would be behind someone from (say) Bowburn whose next nearest school (Gilesgate) is over 4 miles away [and they would be behind someone from the far end of Weardale who was even further from their next nearest school].

Given that the associated transport criterion was deemed unfair, it is hard to see whether this is any fairer.

Of course, I may have misunderstood the wording - but in that case, the wording needs a major re-write since it is hard to see what else can have been meant by such phrasing.

I shall investigate further…

I have often had complaints about parking on yellow lines or parking causing an obstruction. My response up to now has always had to be  “call the police” as only they have the legal powers to deal with the problem.

All being well, things should soon change as the County Council is introducing ‘civil parking enforcement’ (CPE) in a few weeks time across the Durham City District area (i.e. the area covered by the City Council).

CPE means that the Council itslef can take action and NCP (who currently manage controlled parking in the smaller City area) will do the enforcement on the ground.

This is why you may have seen a lot of yellow lines being renewed over recent months; the Council needed to get all its traffic orders up to date and all the signage right.

The current expectation is that this will be introduced on Monday 3 November 2008. from this date the NCP wardes will be able to issue fixed penalty notices to those transgressing the parking regulations across the whole district (the remainder of the County will probably follow suit in due course).

The penalty will be £70, reduced to £35 if paid promptly.

Following the Durham Johnston admissions saga earlier this year, the County is now consulting on what should replace the ‘associated transport’ criterion that was deemed unfair by the Office of the Schools Adjudicator.

A leaflet is to be distributed (via schools) to every family with school age children asking for view, particularly on whether catchment areas or feeder schools should be used and whether the same criteria should apply across the County.

Of course, this is of interest to everyone, not just those currently having children in school, so I posting the leaflet and the response form below (as pdf-files) for everyone to see.

The deadline for the consultation is 14 November 2008.

Admissions consultation leaflet

Admissions consultation response form

Friday was a glorious day (weather wise) for the visit of Princess Anne. Her Royal Highness was in the City to do the formal opening of the new Freeman’s Quay Swimming Pool and Sports Centre and to unveil Fenwick Lawson’s sculpure “The Sacred Journey”.

The picture shows her unveiling the plaque at the swimming pool.

I attended the public consultation meeting on a possible Town Council at the Abbey Sports Centre on Friday evening with about 20 others.

There was some lively debate especially on the issue whether Newton Hall should ‘go it alone’ or be grouped in with the rest of the unparished area of Durham City. The residents there split pretty equally on that issue, but with so few present it was hardly a representative sample.

I hope that there will be better attendance at the coming meetings. My ward colleague,independent councillor Ron Dickie and I have put out a leaflet over most of the Neville’s Cross Ward promoting the up-coming meeting at St John’s Church Hall (Tuesday 7 October, 6pm - 7.30pm) and hope that will boost attendance.

Unfortunately I shall not be there as my wife and I had committed ourselves elsewhere some time before the date was fixed and our arrangements cannot be changed.

Councillors at County Hall have been given the chance several times in the past few days to debate the ‘Blueprint’ for the new Council.

Most of the paper is ‘high level’ stuff setting down the aspirations of what the council wants to achieve for the people of Durham in general terms and is not really controversial.

Where things got more lively was around the precise geography of the AAPs. At the first seminar on Monday afternoon, a statement was made that the villages named in the press release issued the previous week were ’set in stone’ as far as which AAP they were to be in.

Not surprisingly, some councillors were more than a little upset at this, especially Lib Dem Councillor Mark Wilkes who only found out that Bear Park was to be in the Lanchester AAP when he read it in the Northen Echo (this was not mentioned in any committee papaers).

At a second seminar on Monday evening, the line had changed and the exact boundaries were now up for “further consultation” which might go on until the New Year.

As you can imagine, we in the opposition were now unsure about the exact line coming from the ruling Labour group; but yesterday at a meeting of the Scrutiny Management Committee, this latter line was confirmed and an admission was made that the press release of the previous week had been a mistake!

The final clarification comes at a meeting of the Full Council on 1 October when it is intended that the Blueprint be signed off. We shall be watchful of the AAP issue, of course.

You may well ask!

AAP stands for Area Action Partnership and the County is to be divided into 14 areas inside which local councillors at county, town and parish level meet with other agencies such as the Police and Primary Care Trust to improve the area concerned.

So what are the areas?

This is where it all gets very murky. At County Cabinet yesterday all we got was vague blobs on maps and equally vague statements about how the edges would be filled in.

But then County issued a press statement which actually listed a number of villages which would be in certain of the AAPs including a couple where the local (Lib Dem) county councillors had no idea beforehand what was being proposed.

I have been trying today to find out what on earth is going on, but officers at County Hall do not seem to know either, which tells me that Labour is trying to stitch things up behind the scenes.

Or maybe I’m paranoid - but, as the saying goes, just because I’m paranoid …

I was delighted to be invited to open a new croquet club at Aykley Heads on Sunday. Around 30 people gathered at the bowling greens at Police HQ for the event just after lunch.

Nigel formally cutting the “opening tape” 

The founding of the club realises the ambition of Neville’s Cross resident John Coates who has been working for several years to find a suitable location for a club in the City. He is grateful to the police authority who have allowed the club to use the greens which are no longer used for bowls. Croquet North, the regional federation of croquet clubs, has also helped get the new club off the ground, and their development officer, David Turner, was present to support the event.

There are two types of croquet - ‘Association’ and ‘Golf”. Association is the more complicated game, whereas Golf Croquet is more straightforward, at least in its rules. The Durham Club will tend to concentrate more on Golf Croquet.

I expect to be able to post the contact details for the new club shortly, but if in the meantime you are interested in getting involved, just send me an e-mail and I will put you in touch with John.

Nigel trying (unsuccessfully) to “run a hoop”

After the opening and some light refreshments, experts and total novices enjoyed a game, at least until the rain started!

As the consultation process on a possible Town Council for Durham City is now under way, I have created a dedicated page with links to relevant files. The link is on the upper left of the screen.

This page also contains details of a petition in favour of the proposal and a petition form that you can print out and use. the petition should only be signed by electors living within the affected area.

Many people have concerns about the future of the mayor of Durham after the City Council is abolished next April, especially over who will elect the mayor in future and even whether the mayor will actually be a citizen of Durham City.

At County Hall last Thursday,  our fears were confirmed when the ruling Labour Cabinet decided to ask the government to allow all 126 County Councillors to elect the mayor instead of the 22 who represent the existing area of Durham City district.

I and my fellow Lib Dem Neville’s Cross Councillor Grenville Holland spoke passionately about our belief that the elected representatives of the City should choose the City’s mayor, but we were ignored.

If government listen to their party in power at County Hall, then it is conceivable that future mayors of Durham City could come from Seaham, Sedgefield or Stanley, rather than here in the City itself.

Even more deplorable is the statement in the report that Durham City’s Labour MP, Roberta Blackman-Woods supported this attempt to hijack Durham’s mayor away from the City.

All is not lost, though. The City Council will be putting in a vigorous representation against this idea, and the initial indications from government was that the elected representatives of the City should indeed choose the mayor under the Charter Trust arrangements.

Finally, Charter Trusts are meant to be short-lived affairs, so that when a town council is created for Durham City, the mayor would revert back to the Town Council. Even then, there were suggestions at County Hall that this might be over-ridden.

In my opinion, this appalling decision by the ruling Labour party at County Hall is nothing more than spite against the fact that they have been rejected overwhelmingly by the electors of Durham City. No dount those same electors will know how to respond when the next elections come.

Background - The government have recognised the importance of the mayor to Durham City and have promised that it will continue after local government re-organisation. In cases like this the policy is to establish something called a Charter Trust, the Trustees of which will elect the mayor and maintain its associated civic tradition.

Charter Trusts are meant to be short-lived arrangements within unitary council areas to cover a period until the relevant area (Durham City in this case) is fully served by town and parish councils after which the mayor would be transferred over to the relevant town or parish council within that area.

If the proposal to establish a town council for the currently unparished area of Durham City goes ahead, then this would mean the new Durham town Council would get the mayor, effectively taking things back to where they were before the 1974 changes to the structure of local government …

… unless Labour at County Hall gets its way.

Readers will have seen my previous posting about the defeat of my motion to the County Council calling for a widespread public consultation on the future of school admission in the County [following the overturning of the County proposals for Durham Johnston].

So what is happening now?

A report is going to the Council Cabinet next Thursday pointing out the problems (that I set out in my motion) and proposing - yes you have it - a widespread public consultation on the issue!

I guess I should be grateful that County has come round to my point of view, but the hypocrisy of it all is breathtaking.

I am a member of the City Council working group on the creation of a Town Council for the City.

The group met earlier this week (it meets quite regularly) and agreed to a publicity and awareness raising exercise in to begin the unparished city area later this month aimed at gauging local support for the idea.

I and the City Lib Dems are fully behind forming a Town Council as we believe it will be essential to maintain local links with elected members whose main concern is our historic city.

I moved a motion at yesterday’s meeting of the full County Council asking for a full and wide-ranging consultation with parents and local communities on the future of school admissions in County Durham.

I did this because of the decision of the Schools Adjudicator to overturn the Durham Johnson admissions criteria for 2009 entry in which he determined that the policy of giving priority to associated transport was intrinsically unfair. He was also critical of the council’s consultation procedures.

My motion was defeated by the Labour majority which leaves a very unsatisfactory situation.

This autumn the so-called “consultation” for 2010 entry will begin. School governing bodies will be asked their opinions, which will be fed into a mysterious body called the Education Forum. This comes up with proposals for Cabinet who take the final decision.

At no point do families and local communities get any real input. All they can do is to appeal to the Schools Adjudicator after the decisions have been taken.

What is this Education Forum? It consists of 14 people made up of two (Labour) councillors, 11 educationalists and just one parent governor representative. It meets in private (no-one else is allowed to listen in to the debate, not even other councillors) and the minutes are not made public. Indeed, I can find no mention of this body on the County Council web site.

In other words the policy is being made by something more akin to a medieval Star Chamber than an open democratic process. Moreover, there appears to be no way for elected councillors in general to scrutinise what is going on.

Frankly this is a scandal. In the debate yesterday, all that Councillor Vasey (Labour Cabinet member for young People’s Services - she sits on the Forum) could say was that the council was following government rules.

I rest my case!

Residents may be aware that County Councillors have been issued with (very up-to-date) mobile phones.

These now have an 0191 number assocatied with them so that if you ring in it will be at local call rates and not mobile rates.

My new number for this is 0191 372 5880.

Anyone using the A167 past through Durham City will have got caught up in congestion caused by road works by the new Durham Johnston school. This is due to new sewer connections being installed. The sceduled time period for the work is 28 July - 13 August, but I hope it will not take as long as that. To be avoided if you can!

Readers may remembers that the promised barriers along the A167 between Merryoaks and the Cock of the North roundabout didn’t get completed because of a shortage of the right kind of steel! I have just been notified that the work is now scheduled for 4 August - 5 September.

Finally, there will be road resurfacing works on short stretches of Potters Bank and Lowes Barn Bank close to the Duke of Wellington traffic lights over the two weekends 9-10 and 16-17 August. This will close each road while the work is being done, so watch out for detours.

The first consultation event on the form of what will probably be kn own as Area Action Partnerships (AAP) took place in Durham Town Hall last night.

The meeting had around 90-100 attendees who were separated into 10 discussion groups which were asked to look at issues like what should be the geographical area covered by an AAP in Durham City, who should be involved, what activities should an AAP look at and what spending powers should it have.

My personal view thus far, although I am prepared to be influenced by a sensible debate on this, is that an AAP covering around 5 or 6 of the existing County Divisions would be about the right size.

This would put together Belmont, Elvet, Gilesgate, Neville’s Cross and Newton Hall, say, for the City - splitting the City area into two pieces grouped with other divisions to the east or west would appear illogical.

There is a reasonable question about whether Framwellgate Moor parish should be included, but if things have to be put together as amalgamations of county divisions, this would also have to bring in Witton Gilbert and bear Park too.

Add into the mix the fact that there a ward boundary review has just started, and it looks to me that any geographical boundaries would have to be temporary until after the result of that review is implemented.

The second issue I feel strongly about is how decisions for an AAP to spend money are taken.

Quite clearly the AAP has to involve lots of other representatives apart form the local councillors (police, health, parish and town councils, voluntary groups etc.)  but I am very clear that if an AAP has spending powers, then the final decision on wther or not to allocate money to some scheme must be with the councillors as we and we alone are accountable to the public through the ballot box for what we do.

The third issue that was discussed was how the new council should operate at ‘Neighbourhood’ level.

Clearly AAPs may turn out to be geographically quite large, and there need to be mechanisms to relate the work of the council and the councillors to smaller areas which might be a street, an estate or a village.

My table had quite a good discussion on this and agreed that it was necessary to have a good network of neighbourhood support officers to make this operate (Durham City currently runs a very effective structure with a team of 6 people covering the district).

So altogether an interesting couple of hours. One final point - the labour Leader of the Council stated explicitly that this was a genuine consultation and that nothing was yet decided. We shall be watchful to make sure he keeps to his word.

Many residents will have been concerned about the initial confusion and disorganisation with the new recycling scheme that started in April.

But there is good news, as I discovered yesterday, that the quantity of recycled goods has leapt by around 60% since the new green bags were introduced.

The City Council has also required the operator, Greencycle, to put in stronger management and it looks like most of the problems have now been ironed out, although I am aware that there are a few issues still to be resolved.

So keep on recycling - every extra ton saves the Council a considerable amount in landfill tax.

If there are any problems, do let me know and I will try to deal with them.

The County Council is organising a series of “Stakeholder Events” around the County in late July and August to gauage local feelings on the sizes and structures of the new Area Action Partnerships (EAP) that are to be set up from next April.

The EAPs are supposed to be the way for the new council to make decisions and consult with people in their local areas and there could be 12-14 in all across the County.

The sorts of questions that the meetings will try to address are

• What would be the most important activities for Area Action Partnerships to be involved with?
• How many partnerships do we need? Is 12 to 14 the right number?
• Which areas should the partnerships serve?
• How should the partnerships keep in touch with local people?
• How can the partnerships best involve local people and groups?

The meeting for DurhamCity is in two weeks time on Tuesday 29 July at 6 pm in Durham Town Hall. If you wish to attend then you need to book a place by 24 July.  Contact Lee Kirby, City of Durham Council, 0191 301 8898, lkirby@durhamcity.gov.uk

More details and the full list of Stakeholder Events can be viewed at

http://county.durham.gov.uk/sites/lgraks/Pages/ConsultationEvents.aspx#Events 

on the County Council web site.

This morning there was a meeting of the full County Council to appoint a new Chief Executive. He is George Garlick, currently Chief Executive of Stockton Borough Council.

The reason I am writing about this is reassure those who worry about these things that the appointment process was very rigorous and robust. A large number of very good candidates applied for what will be one of the top jobs in local government.

The final short list was top class and was put through a tough two and a half day selection process involving the leading members of all the political groups at all stages.

I am confident that we now have a top notch Chief Executive who can lead the Council through what will undoubtedly be a tough period while the new unitary gets going.

The Schools Adjudicator, Sir Philip Hunter, issues his decision yesterday on the admissions criteria for Durham Johnston.

In brief, Sir Philip decided that the criteria giving priority to associated transport from specific areas ahead of families close to the school was unfair.

 He specified that the criteria for 2009 entry should be the same as those for 2008 with distance being measured from the closer of the Crossgate and Whinney Hill sites.

He also directed the Council to review it criteria for future years in the light of this decision, pointing out that in mixed urban/rural areas arrangements involving catchment areas or feeder schools were much more common and were more acceptable.

Sir Philip also criticised the public consultation process and the confusion caused in the mind of local people by the way in which the Council has said things in the past.

I believe this is the best outcome for now. It gives the Council time to get its act together and come up with a workable solution.

One point to emerge from all the debate was the fact that the current criteria actually make no difference to the admissions of all but very few schools in the County, as in most areas there is either no alternative school or no real cometition for places.

My conclusion is that in coming up with new criteria, the Council should look very hard at the areas where there is competition and devise rules that deal fairly with these situations. My regret is that the County Council clearly has not taken this approach in the past.

You can see the full judgement at: DJ Adjudicator decision

A very well-attended meeting hosted by the Schools Adjudicator was held last night at the Crossgate Moor site to hear objections to and arguments about the admissions criteria the County Council has proposed for the school.

There were presentations by David Williams, County Director of Children’s Services, Vanessa Kind, a parent governor at St Margaret’s School and Gail McCardle a paretn from Shincliffe. The meeting was then opened up for general comment and debate. In all, the meeting  lasted more than 2 hours.

Although I arrived late (I had to host a couple of hundred people at college - graduates and their families) I did hear all the debate from the floor.

It is clear that there is a strong level of concern among families in Neville’s Cross about admissions criteria which give preference to those living at a distance over those who live close by.

While there was some evidence offered suggesting that the risk to local families of being refused admission was low, I and most local residents were not convinced. I spoke and referred to the significant increase in new houses in the area which would undoubtedly start to impact on the situation in a few years. There had been a serious problem in the mid 1990s and the likelihood of this recurring gave me grave concern.

In addition, I was told by a resident that the demographic data used by the County was well out of date and that there was academic evidence of a recent population increases in the Durham area.

One issue referred to several times was the lack of real opportunity for local people to comment on the proposals before they were agreed.

While the County Councillor for Durham South claimed that he had ‘consulted local people’ I find that hard to believe as the final proposals only emerged in Mid March when we were all getting ready for the local elections. Indeed, we had about 7 days between the committee papers being published and the meeting at which things were due to be decided (although the decisions was deferred for a few weeks because of division in the Labour Group - see an earlier posting).

In reality, the process adopted by the County Council has always effectively excluded local residents, something accepted by the Director at the end of the meeting.

Nonetheless, I hope I am enough in touch with my local people to have a pretty good idea how they feel about this issue (and it was raised on the doorstep in the local election campaign) and the minutes of the County Cabinet show that I did represent them.

So what next? The Adjudicator will consider the matter and give his decision in about 10 days. He has wide powers including setting the admission criteria himself for up to the next three years. So look out for the result here, which will be posted as soon as I have it.

The attempt by Vimac Ltd to open a lap dancing club at The Loft in North Road has at last been killed off.

Vimac had gone to the high court to ask for permission to seek judicial review of the decision of the local magistrates to refuse a licence.

The high court refusal to allow a judicual review was about as unequivocal as it gets and so we must hope that this is now the end of the matter.

While this is the outcome that the overwhelming majority of the local community wanted, there is still great concern about the difficulty of controlling this type of club under existing licensing law.

The fact that this is now recognised nationally and is being taken up on an all-party basis in parliament shows that those who tried to make local party-political mischief over the issue here in Durham should have known better.

It has been common knowledge for some time that I am retiring from my University post at the end of September this year.

Being Principal of Trevelyan College brings with it the requirement to reside in a house in the College, and with impending retirement, Susan and I will be moving out shortly to allow the place to be prepared for my successor.

From 29 June, we shall be living at 5 Harvest View, Hag House Farm, Pity Me, Durham DH1 5RN, and we shall have a new home telephone number: 0191 374 0712. The e-mail address will remain unchanged.

I shall be easily able to pick up mail sent to the College address, at least for the next three months.

I do intend, of course, to continue as the Councillor for Neville’s Cross (City ward and County Division) subject always to the will of the electorate.

If you read the recent Countywide published by the County Council, you will have seen another telephone number, 07500 125 331.

This refers to the new mobile phone that the County has provided (and has offered to all councillor). I have been told that a local 0191 number will soon be allocated for this mobile phone. I will publicise this when I have it. Ringing this number may well be the easiest way to get me quickly.

I’ve just received copies of a load of letters from County Hall about bus stops.

Firstly, all bus stops in Durham City District are (under Part 6 of the Traffic Management Act 2004, no less) to be made “no stopping except buses”.  So, after the relevant road markings are in place, it will be an offence to park at a bus stop (unless you are a bus, of course).

Seondly, a number of currently unused bus stops will be removed as there are no longer any buses running past them. The ones I have been notifed of (in my area) are:

At Durham School, Quarryheads Lane
Opposite Durham School, Quarryheads Lane
Adjacent to 21 St Margaret’s Court, Margery Lane
Opposite 18A North End
Opposite and adjacent to Inishfree, Whitesmocks

Please let me know if there is an issue with these removals.

Colleagues among the enw councillors at County Hall have been commenting on the current apparent lack of activity, particulalry with the unitary reorganisation.

 I know that there is a lot of activity going on behind the scenes with over 30 ‘workstreams’ aimed at bringing the services of all 8 councils (7 Districts and the County) under the one umbrella, but it is worrying that so little seems to be being brought into the open at this time.

Particularly important is how the new local governance arrangements will work. We are promised some proposals for public consultation later in July, but I am concerned about how little input there has been from the elected councillors.

We really need something to get our teeth into.

The following appeared recently in my university e-mail inbox: 

With three events planned for Bike Week 2008, cyclists and would-be cyclists can meet other members of Durham University who regularly cycle to and between its colleges and departments.

They can receive handy hints and advice on cycling matters, improve their fitness and knowledge of rural Durham, join DBUG, and - if these aren’t enough incentives - get some free cake!

During national Bike Week, 14-22 June, DBUG hopes to promote cycling in Durham as a healthy, convenient, enjoyable, pollution-free way of travelling - one which can vastly reduce our carbon footprint in the city.

DBUG is inviting members of the University to two bike rides.

The first is a there-and-back excursion to Finchale Priory on 16 June, retracing the journeys of Durham Cathedral’s monks.

The second, on 21 June, is a more demanding circular loop around Esh Winning, taking in beautiful Durham countryside invisible to motorists.

In between these two events is Bike to Work Cake Day - with home-baked cake for anyone who cycles to work on Wednesday 18 June.

At all three events you can meet and chat to other Durham cyclists who can offer advice and encouragement to anyone who is interested in travelling light on two wheels.

For full details on all of these events, or to join DBUG, visit: www.durham.ac.uk/environment/durini/dbug

Or contact DBUG: bike.group@durham.ac.uk

Our Bike Week events are also listed on www.bikeweek.org.uk

The number of local parents appealing against the County admissions criteria for DJ has grown rapidly and the Schools Adjudicator has decided to hold a hearing on the issue later this month.

My information is that the Adjudicator will hold public meeting at the school on Thursday 26 June at 6 pm. This is to allow parents to make representations.

If there is more information, I will post the details.

In addition, a letter has gone out today from the parent governors of Neville’s Cross Primary School drawing attention to what is going on and letting them know how to make their view known if they have not already done so.

After three months of cones and barrier work, the A167 south of the Cock of the North roundabout down to the Honest Lawyer is complete and everything is cleared away.

On the other hand, apart from a few forgotten cones, to the north of the roundabout all that has been done is a few metres of barrier at the Merryoaks end as pictured.

Given that the spate of fatal accidents over the last couple of years were mainly on this northern stretch, this could be a cause for real concern.

Having spoken to the Northern Engineers Office on Friday, however, I have been assured that this stretch will be completed later in the summer (all being well).

The reason for the gap in the work is that the contractors ran out of the correct kind of barrier!

Apparently, the design of the barriers is non-standard because it has to be erected close to other obstructions (i.e. the trees on the central reservation) and this sort of barrier is in short supply.

This is all rather odd since you would have thought that they could have rather easily measured the total length required when they ordered the stuff in the first place.

The first meeting of the newly-elected Durham County Council met this morning. It was a lively affair.

The first business was to elect a new Chairman and say farewll to Edna Hunter who was the previous Chair and who lost her seat on 1 May. While I have been celebrating the increase in Lib Dem representation at County Hall and the slashing of the Labour majority, I am personally sad for Edna who, with her husband Roland, has been excellent ambassadors for County Durham during her year in office. She has been the first female Chairman of the Council in over 100 years and broke the male glass ceiling at County Hall with great distinction.

But then it was on to the politics.

First the political ‘balance’. As things stood at the start of this week, Labour had 67 members, Lib Dems 27, Conservatives 10 and there were three independent groups, one with 15, one with 6 and one unaffiliated individual. By this morning the independent situation was unclear, one rumoour was that it had gone to two groups 19-3, although the seating in the chamber appeared much more like 16-6. We shall see.

The relevance of the independents is that, in relation to Overview and Scrutiny and after some strong lobbying from the minority parties, Labour said they would agree to minority parties having chairs/vice chairs of some scrutiny committees.

That was the good news, the bad news was that it was only two out of 12 possible such positions (i.e. two vice chairs) and, in a snub to the Lib Dems and the larger Independent group, they would be offered to the smaller Independent group.

Not surprisingly my members were not amused and in response we decided to put forward an alternative slate for the Leader and Cabinet of the Council.

In the end we were defeated by about 66-39 (there are so many councillors now that the clerks had difficulty getting an exact count and I suspect the pro-Labour vote was higher than this). Disappointingly the Conservatives voted against us and with Labour, so now we know where their sympathies lie!

Even so, once the smoke had cleared, both the new Labour Leader and I did agree publicly to work co-operatively to create an effective structure for the new unitary council that will be in place from April 2009.

It cannot be stressed too much how important it is to get effective arrangements in place to bridge the enormous potential gap between what goes on in County Hall in Durham City and the real day-to-day needs of local communities and neighbourhoods across this great county.

Around 70 parents attended a meeting late yesterday afternoon at St Margaret’s School to discuss the change in admissions criteria for Durham Johnston.

The meeting was called by two of its governors, Vanessa Kind and Sue Lyons and I attended to try to explain the situation and how it got to where it has. Grenville Holland, the other recently elected County Councillor was also there.

After a lively discussion, Vanessa Kind, one of the two governors gave a presentation on the working of the Office of the School Adjudicator.

The meeting then agreed to submit a group objection to the Adjudicator on the change of criteria.

Here are the documents from the meeting:

My briefing note for the meeting

Presentation on Schools Adjudicator

Letter detailing the outcome of the meeting

The City Council is holding one of its periodic Residents’ Forums on Wednesday 21 May at Durham Town Hall (6.30 for 7 pm start).

The Forum is on the topic of Premises Licences and is for residents of Crossgate and Framwelgate, Elvet, Neville’s Cross, Pelaw & Gilesgate and St Nicholas wards.

Representatives will be there from the City Council and Durham Constabulary as well as local councillors.

Please do attend and have your say.

I have been getting a lot of e-mails in the past few days over the changes that were made in April to the DJ admissions criteria (see earlier postings on the subject).

In particular, I was contacted by Vanessa Kind, a Governor of St Margaret’s Primary School, who has now arranged a meeting at St Margaret’s on Tuesday 20 May for local parents to discuss the issues.

Vanessa has allowed me to re produce the letter to parents for those who want to know about the meeting.

Over the weekend (in between marking examination papers) I hope to put together a side of A4 setting out the history of the situation and where things now stand and I will post it here.

I had thought that the recent elections might put and end to the bickering and in-fighting that has been going on in the Labour Group at County Hall for the past two years, but I was clearly wrong.

The news that five of the recently-elected councillors from the Easington district had been suspended by the Labour Party over the issue of women selections means that it is business as usual in this regard.

The five include Albert Nugent, former County Labour Leader, Alan Napier current Easington District Leader and three other newcomers to County Hall, including two women.

This is a really strange collection. After all there were 24 Labour candidates and 19 were elected. What did this famous five do to be picked out? Why not the rest?

Initially Albert and Alan were reported as showing interest in being Leader at County Hall although Alan dropped out of the race early.

The conspiracy theorists might say this was a ruse to prevent Albert being elected Leader (suspension means he and the other four would technically be barred from the Labour Group).

Taking the suspension argument one step further, if these five cannot be members of the Labour Group, then the Labour Group is reduced to 62 and is in a minority of the 126 councillors.

I am looking forward to speaking to the legal eagles at County Hall over this rather interesting state of affairs as it would affect the allocation of committee places in a significant way.

More importantly I shall be trying to get hold of Councillor Simon Henig who was elected Labour Group Leader yesterday to discuss the much more serious issues around moving to the new unitary authority.

County Durham Primary Care trust is holding a series of meetings across the county over the coming fortnight or so to discuss the development of plans for health and health care over the next five years.

The meeting for Durham City area takes place on Thursday 15 May at County Hall (Committee Room 2) between 6 pm and 8 pm.

All members of the public are welcome to attend.

More information is available at http://www.countydurhampct.nhs.uk/

My Colleague for the Neville’s Cross Division on the County Council and City Councillor for Crossgate and Framwelgate Councillor Grenville Holland, was yesterday elected Mayor of Durham. I wish him well for his year in office.

This morning the Northern Echo referred to Grenville as the last Mayor of Durham City. This is, of course, untrue as provision has been made by the Government for the mayoralty to continue under a Charter Trust arrangement from 1 April next year.

The Charter Trust will be controlled by the members elected to the County Council within the area of the current City Council (22 in total for the time being, 15 Lib Dem and 7 Labour) who will elect a mayor annually from among their number. All the civic dignities, such as the Mayor’s Bodyguard, the Mace Bearer and the Sword Bearer will continue along with the pomp and ceremony that goes with it.

Of course, it will cost to keep this going (I have heard the sum of £80K mentioned as the cost of ‘running’ the mayor) and a small supplementary amount will have to be added to the council tax in Durham City to cover it, but everyone I have spoken to is more than happy to pay a few pence per week to continue our centuries-old traditions.

The New 27 member Lib Dem Group met for the first time yesterday evening to have a preliminary discussion on the way forward to oppose Labour at County Hall.

I was delighted to be re-elected unanimously as the Group Leader. In accepting the position, I committed the Lib Dems to be a vigorous and constructive opposition and one which will challenge the ruling Labour Group at every turn.

The key issues in the coming year are around the transition to the new unitary which is due to start on 1 April 2009. The arrangements for working with town and parish councils and for the proposed Area Action Forums (or whatever they are to be called) will be key to making the council work effectively with local communities.

And of course, we in Durham City must get on with the process of creating a Town Council here.

Exciting times!

The count for the Neville’s Cross Division election was declared just after midnight this morning. The figures are:

Across County Durham it was a very bad night for Labour who lost the equivalent of 39 seats with the Lib Dems gaining 17, Independents gaining 16 and the Conservatives gaining 6.

The balance across the County is Labour 67, Lib Dems 27, Independents 22 and Conservatives 10. Labour now has an majority of only 8 over all other parties.

As I predicted we remain the second party and the main opposition to Labour.

The Lib Dem gains were 5 in Durham City, where we took both pairs seats in Framwellgate Moor and in Sherburn, and one of the two seats in Deerness Valley where our candidate, John Wilkinson topped the poll.

Elsewhere we gained one seat in Derwentside, two in Easington, three in Sedgefield and 6 in Wear Valley.

Some big Labour names lost their seats including a former Leader Ken Manton, a former Deputy Leader Brian Walker and the current Chairman of the Council, Edna Hunter, for whom I have particular sympathy as she was the first ever woman to be Chairman of the County Council and has been a particularly good ambassador for County Durham.

So whatever happens now, there will be a breath of fresh air running through County Hall in the coming years.

Exciting times!

I received an e-mail from Banks at 3.40 pm today informing me that they are withdrawing their current application and are not proceeding with the appeal.

This is not the end, however, as they will be putting in revised proposals ‘in due course’.

So we remain vigilant.

Here is the Banks Letter.

Well, polling day is here at last. If you are reading this before 10 pm and have not voted, please go out and vote. As the saying goes, if you don’t vote, you can’t complain.

This goes especially for the new voters who have reached 18 over the past year. Please go and make your cross. Get into the habit now and make it last a lifetime.

The Northern Echo is calling it a close election with a good chance that the County Council will end up in no overall control tomorrow.

On the ground, the Lib Dems are best placed to challenge, both in seats contested and seats currently held.

But now, dear voter, it is up to you!

I hope to get the Neville’s Cross result details posted here first thing tomorrow.

It is Sunday and the election is on Thursday. Between us, Grenville Holland and I have now knocked on around 90% on the doors in Neville’s Cross and the response has been very good overall. As usual the ‘outs’ are strongly in the lead, but a big majority are clearly appreciative of the work both he and I have done over the years.

From the canvassing, a number of things are very clear. Firstly, no-one on the doorstep is being taken in by the Tory “poll” showing them ahead of Labour with the Lib Dems in third place.

This is obviously a national poll (a fact I was able to confirm this lunchtime), but, as we know, what is the case in leafy Surrey is no way typical of the North East where the Lib Dems have been the only serious alternative to Labour for many years.

Secondly, Labour are in real trouble. We are picking up a real anger on the doorstep over the Government pushing through the new unitary Council against the clear vote by the people of the County against it.

If this is reflected in other parts of the County, Labour is going to lose lots of seats and it more than possible that they will lose overall control of the County Council.

Given our strength over wide areas and the weakness of the Tories (they won only 3 district council seats outside Teesdale last May compared with 57 for the Lib Dems) we are as certain as can be that the Lib Dems will continue to be the main opposition to Labour at County Hall.

This is because most of the Labour seats under threat are where we are already in a good second place. We are confident therefore that we will have a large group strong enough to ensure that the new Council is organised to be as responsive and accountable as possible to local communities and not remote from the people.

Which leads to the third thing: the idea of a Town Council for Durham City is going down really well on the doorstep.

Just about everyone we have discussed it with thinks it is a good idea and will help to keep the local links that make for good local government.

Once the election is over, the City Council must get on with the wider consultation process to move this project forward.

Here are some recent photos of progress with the new DJ school building

I spoke representing the Lib Dems at a small public meeting hosted by the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) in Shakespeare Hall yesterday evening. Alongside me was Albert Nugent, Labour Leader of Durham County Council. The Conservatives were invited but failed to send anyone.

In my speech I mentioned my opposition to Academy Schools and particularly those sponsored by the Emmanuel Schools Trust (funded by the Vardys and promoting whacko ideas about evolution).

This elicited a strange response from Albert. He agreed with me. He was also against Academy Schools.

Why strange? Because Durham County Council, led by him, has just decided to proceed with two Academy Schools and are still looking at a third!

No wonder things are going off the rails at County Hall.

The other thing I found out was that the County are in discussion with the Civil Service about using a building at Aykley Heads to deal with ID cards. The building concerned is the detached council block where the County Library Service used to be run from.

Apparently this could attract another 500 workers onto the County Hall site with who-knows-what impact on traffic and parking in local streets.

The thing that annoyed me is that my County Council division includes County Hall, yet no-one in the administration had the courtesy to let me know what was going on so that I could represent the serious and legitimate concerns that residents of North End already have about parking and transport issues.

Yet another cavalier example of how Labour deals with local people.

Those still exercised by the saga of the lap dancing application for The Loft in North Road might like to look at the story in today’s guardian: www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/apr/22/planning.communities

A group of MPs and peers have published a report calling on the government to change the law so that lap dancing is explicitly licensed under the ’sex-industry’ rules (that cover the likes of sex shops) rather than the normal licensing procedures.

The report points out that across the country it has proved pretty nigh impossible for the current law to prevent the spread of these places. Indeed, Durham is quoted as the only example where an application has been turned down on appeal at the magistrates court. Even that is being taken to a higher court.

So those who say that the original advice given to councillors was wrong (when they gave a restricted licence) are clearly not supported by the evidence of what is happening elsewhere in the UK. It follows that the Labour minister who told our MP that the current laws were adequate also has no idea what this is all about.

I think there is irony here. I have a strong suspicion that if the council Licensing Committee had originally turned down the application altogether, then the operators would have appealed and the group of people opposing it might not have done the additional work that I think persuaded the magistrates to do the right thing. In that scenario the magistrates may have found it hard to resist an appeal - and I say that because everywhere else, that is the way things actually turned out!

I have long been impressed bythe reman system of encouraging consumers to make their own contribution to the challenge of global warming.

In Germany there is a system of feed-in tariffs whereby a subsidy is paid to individual households who generate their own electricity by domestic wind-turbine, photovoltaic cells or whatever. This is a payment by kilowatt generated and is paid for by a small levy on all domestic energy bills (whioch amounts to around 20p a week for most households).

The effect of this has been magical. The subsidy means that the economic pay-back period for investing in the kit is reduced to a few years rather than the 20-25 years that some systems would require in the UK. This has led to a massive take-up by households and local communities which in turn has led to an explosion of manufaturing and jobs in the sector leading to big reductions in unit costs.

If ever there was a virtuous circle this is it.

So why is the Government not doing this in the UK? A good idea is just that, a good idea, and we should not turn our backs on it just because it was not invented here.

I was reminded of this by the advert on the back page of the main section of today’s Guardian, where there is an advert by Friends of the Earth extolling the virtues of feed-in tariffs. They point to a web site www.solarplayoff.org where more information is available.

You can also use the site to send an e-mail to our Labour MP encouraging stand up for tougher government action on climate change.

Our MP continues to claim credit for pressing for the re-opening of the Leamside Line, but it may be useful to put this all into a little bit of context.

Firstly a bit of history: The Leamside line was originally a relief/freight line by-passing Durham City that was closed some time ago. Unlike many other line closures, however, the rails were not taken up as someone with a few extra grey cells realised it might be useful in the future.

For some of us, that particular future should have started some years ago when road traffic started to become a problem. Indeed the Belmont Park and Ride location was chosen specifically because it is adjacent to the line and the prospect of a commuter service up to Gateshead is very attractive.

So the issue of re-opening the line has been raised regularly for at least the past 5 years at meetings of the Association of North East Councils (ANEC) and has strong all-party support there, as there is for a similar line up from Newcastle via Wallsend up to Blyth.

The problem is that under the privatisation agenda of both Conservative and Labour Governments, the strategic benefit of these lines has been consistently ignored even though the East Coast Main Line is approaching capacity.

MPs in the region (Labour of course as there are none of any other kind in Tyne & Wear and Durham) belatedly took up the issue last year led by Fraser Kemp MP (Houghton & Washington East) - yes, Roberta was in the room but it by all accounts Fraser was taking the lead.

It seems that the Strategic Rail Authority (SRA) has at long last realised that this scheme might have legs (or perhaps wheels might be more appropriate) , but it has been talking about a timescale of 2020 rather than the 2014 (latest) that everyone locally wants.

So that’s the background. My issue with our MP is that she is again trying to claim everything for herself without acknowledging the fact that councils regionally have been pressing this for a long long time and that she is only one of several MPS involved, and not the lead one anyway.

Letters to ministers are no doubt welcome, but as things are arranged, the people to press are actually the SRA, and efffective lobbying of bodies like that is best done by getting all the partners working together, MPs, Councils and business leaders irrespective of party affiliation.

PS It probably isn’t important, but as a minority Vice Chair of ANEC I have often spoken at its meetings in support of opening the Leamside Line!

Cabinet discussed the recent Audit Commission report on Durham County Council at its meeting this morning. It brough forth ‘lively debate’.

Labour are, of course, celebrating the Council receiving a 4-star rating, but as usual the report resembles somewhat the curate’s egg.

There is a lot of well-deserved praise for the work that officers do in managing services and financial management is clearly good.

There are a number of criticisms, however. One relates to the County Council role in economic develpoment which is seen as being not strategiaclly well-developed.

The main brick-bats are given to councillors and particularly the council leadership.

The report states that “there are significant weaknesses in the political leadership provided by the Leader of Council and the Cabinet”, and that “strategic community leadership [by councillors] is inconsistent”.

It also states that the role of scrutiny is not well-developed and that the cabinet members are not held properly to account for their portfolios.

This last comment does not surprise me one bit. Indeed, the holding-to-account role of scrutiny is practically a joke at County Hall as all the key decisions are actually taken by the Labour Group. This means that even when something does come up for discussion the Labour members follow the party whip, do not ask the awkward and challenging questions and don’t rock the boat, however hard we in the opposition try.

Let’s hope we are there in much larger numbers after 1 May as it will then be much harder for them to treat the process with such contempt.

I had a discussion last week with the Highways Department at County Hall about a number of parking issues and they drew my attention to the fact that the two Land Registry Offices in Durham (Pity Me and Southfield Way) are to merge within the next two years and be housed at the Southfield Way site.

This may have amassive impact on parking in the area as the parking available at Southfield Way is totally inadequate for the number of staff that the office will then have to accommodate.

There are already issues with parking in a number of areas around North End, but unless something serious is done by the Land Registry to control its staff parking, I can see streets in parts of the area being swamped with commmuters cars.

If that happens, then there will have to be some decisive action by the County Council to deal with the problem. Highways are currently reluctant to extend the area of controlled (residents’) parking, but this may be the only course of action - if the problem comes to pass.

There was an extraordinary last-minute meeting of the County Council Cabinet this morning to decide the admissions policy for Durham Johnston, when it was agreed that the villages served by the school (Shincliffe, Bowburn, Park Hill etc.) would have ‘associated transport’ which takes them up the priority list for admissions.

As a governor of the school I have supported the wish of the governors to continue with the educational investment the school has made into those communities over 25 years or more.

As the elected representative of Neville’s Cross, however, I am very well aware that we are now returning to the arrangements pre-1995 when the admissions criteria together with the number of children involved ended up totally skewed and worked against families in my area.

Pupil numbers have declined significantly over the past decade, however, so I don’t think there will be a problem in the coming few years, but I did speak up strongly in the meeting to point out that there was a risk of the mid-1990s situation happening again in the future and if it did, then the current criteria would be untenable.

I also pointed out the anomaly that the ’siblink link’, criterion, which gives preference to brothers and sisters of children already in the school, was too weak and could give priority to families living a considerable distance away or those where the elder child had only been in the sixth form. Many other councils discount this. I did extract a promise from the meeting that this would be reviewed next year.

The next legal step is for the Council to advertise in the local press that the arrangements have been approved, then local residents have 6 weeks from the advert to object. If there are any objections, these are considered by the National Schools Adjudicator, who’s ruling is binding.

One final comment - it is now just three years since the rebuilding of Durham Johnstion was confirmed by the government (conveniently during the 2005 General Election campaign!), but it is only at the last minute that the Council has got this issue settled. Another example of how well Labour runs County Hall?

The Tory leaflet “independent opinion poll” figures look more than a little dodgy (and more than a little like national figures than local ones). In recent elections (i.e. last May and at the Sedgefield by-election last year) they cam miserably down the field.

The sharp-eyed will see no reference to who did the opinion poll nor where nor when, so this little morsel needs to be taken with a shed-load of salt!

A rather cavalier statement in today’s Durham Times from the Tories.

They claim that the Lib Dems cannot defeat Labour over the whole County, so therefore people should vote Conservative.  Somewhat strange logic as we have 93 candidates, they have only 70 and 64 is needed for an overall majority (half of 126 is 63). If this is the quality of their argument, no wonder people still don’t believe anything they say.

I have just spoken to the Planning Department who tell me that the public inquiry on Banks Ltd application to develop Mount Oswald will start on 10 June and is expected to last six days.

The location of the inquiry is still to be settled which is why objectors have not yet been notified, but letters should be going out soon giving us the details.

County Durham Liberal Democrats have now published their manifesto for the forthcoming elections on 1 May. It can be read (as a pdf file) via the following link

Liberal Democrat County Council Manifesto 2008

The County Council have also said they they will make it available at local libraries in the next few days.

The new green bag recycling scheme looks to be having a few teething problems. There have clearly been problems over getting the collection days right and the quantities being offered for recycling are much larger than expected.

The big increase in volume is welcome in one way, but it will probably reduce as I am sure residents have been saving waste for this new service since mid March.

A handy hint to help the collectors is to put all your plastic together in a (plastic) carrier bag as this makes it much easier for them to sort, although we are being asked to ensure that metal caps are separated out.

Another problem that  a resident shared with me yesterday was with the collectors leaving remnants in the street when they leave. I am asking the council to look into this and hopefully things will  be OK when the service settles down.

Nominations for the County Durham Council elections on 1 May closed at midday today. While final details of nominations have still to appear on the web for three of the seven districts, it looks as though we will have around 90 candidates.

Lib Dems have full slates in Durham City (22 seats) and Wear Valley (16). In Chester-le-Street (14) we have 8 candidates, Easington (24) we have 19, Derwentside (22) we have 15 and in Sedgefield (22) we have 14. The remaining 6 seats are in Teesdale where we decided not to contest for strategic reasons.

The notable change is our challenge in Easington where we are fielding a large slate for the first time in many years. Indeed, if we had not stood, there would have been 4 areas where Labour would have been elected unopposed. Indeed, so bad has it been in the past out there that in the District Elections last May around 40 Labour councillors were elected unopposed. Well now they have to fight for their seats and a good thing too.

On a grimmer matter, however, for the very first time there are BNP candidates putting up in Durham City district, a total of 8 in 5 wards. Interestingly half of them have addresses in Shildon.

While I always urge everyone to use their vote (after all if you don’t vote you cannot complain), I hope that this extreme right wing bunch will be well and truly shunned by everyone in the areas concerned.

Some Merryoaks residents may well have been surprised to see a number of mature trees felled behind the bowling green at Lowes Barn playing fields. Well so were I and my fellow City ward councillor Ron Dickie (independent) as neither of us had been warned that it was about to happen.

The reasons for the felling are a combination of the trees’ old age and problems that the bowls club were having with dampness and fungal growth on their green.

Expert arboriculturalist advice said that the trees should go and some were indeed cut down last year, with the remaining ones this week. New trees have been planted in their place, slightly further away from the green and of a less tall-growing variety.

I discovered all this today after speaking to a committee member of the bowls club and to the City Council Environmental Officer, who also apologised for not having informed the local ward councillors what was going on.

We were called to a meeting with the Director of Young People’s Services yesterday to discuss the DJ admissions situation.

The key thing that we got clear is that by the criteria that the Council use, Gilesgate Comp is closer to Shincliffe and Bowburn than Durham Johnston - not by road (see earlier posting on this) but by ‘walking route’.

It appears that walking routes allow for the use of any road and any public footpath. This means that going across country via Bent House Lane brings Gilesgate 0.36 miles closer than the Johnston. The fact that no parent with any serious consideration for the safety of their child would allow them to use that route on a dark winter afternoon is not a consideration it seems!

The rest of the discussion then revolved around bussing arrangements and the duty of the authority to provide for transport for any child whose parents selected the closest school, together with the fact that families on free school meals or family tax credit will necessarily have their transport costs covered to any school between 2 and 6 miles.

Basically the whole thing is a mess so I wait with anticipation for the Council Cabinet meeting which will make the decision (due on 14 April).

One futher thing about the meeting that I was not happy with.

It was scheduled for 10 and as we Lib Dem Councillors arrived, the local Labour members accompanied by our MP (who appears to have turned up without a direct invitation) left the Director’s office.

I told the Director and Councillor Vasey, the responsible cabinet member, that I was not impressed by there being separate meetings, especially as no-one had told me that this was the case. But that’s how things get done at County Hall.

An interesting news item appeared in today’s Northern Echo about the chaos there has been in Easington with the selection of candidates for the elections on 1 May.

A representative of the local Labour party was openly discussing the prospect of losing control of the County Council if things went pear-shaped in that part of the County.

Three years ago at the last county elections, this would have been unthinkable.

Now it is thinkable - for the first time in 90 years the tectonic plates of politics in County Durham are starting to shift - there can be a political earthquake on 1 May, all the electors have to do is vote for it!

A meeting is being held on Monday morning (31 March) with the Director of Children’s Services, Councillor Vasey (Cabinet member with the education portfolio) and several Durham City County Councillors (including yours truly) to discuss the way forward. I will report back after.

In the meantime I have been doing some research on the issue of whether Shincliffe and Bowburn are closer (by road) to the Crossgate Moor DJ site or to Gilesgate Comp.

Logically, as all shortest journeys would have to pass the junction on the A177 just along from The Rose Tree, the answer to which is the shorter will be the same for everyone irrespective of the particular house they live in.

So try the following: go to the AA journey planner web site and find the distance between DH1 2YJ (Telford Close in High Shincliffe) and DH1 4SU (Crossgate Moor DJ site) and the distance from DH1 2YJ to DH1 1HN (Gilesgate Comp).

When I did this they both came to 4.03 miles! [But please tell me if I got this wrong - although I did do it twice]

Now I have to issue a word of caution here, since the AA routes may not be the ’shortest safe route’ as defined by the County Council, but this does explain why families in both Bowburn and Shincliffe are confused and upset over the future admissions arrangements.

The current county bussing policy talks about conveying children to the closest appropriate school, and no-one at County Hall has bothered to tell people in that area which this is, even though all that has to be done is to measure the shortest difference from the junction mentioned above.

Forgive me if I go on further about this. Suppose, for the sake of argument that it turns out that Gilesgate is closer and that the County sticks to its policy as stated. Then families can still apply to DJ and may well get a place on the final distance criteria, but then they will have either to drive their children over (great for the environment!) or to pay for bus fares. Either way this disadvantages familes with fewer resources to spare.

DJ Governors repeated their view yesterday at their latest governing body meeting that they wish to maintain their commitment and association with the villages concerned, and indeed this was promised by Councillor Vasey’s Labour Cabinet predecessor in public less than nine months before approval for the new building was finally given. 

There is a way out for the Council, though. The actual admissions criteria that the Cabinet want to adopt also mentions a phrase like ‘economic efficiency’ in relation to bussing arrangements, so they have the chance to decide to retain the existing bus arrangements on economic grounds.

But this all shows how useless Labour are at getting things right. One reason this has blown up is because the local county council members have not been properly consulted as the decision making process has gone on. Now, at the eleventh hour, after a massive rumpus, at last we are.

Do they deserve to be relected in May?

The new green recycling bags have been distributed around much of the area and if yours has not arrived it should do so soon. The new scheme starts next week (1 April), so please do not try to use them before that.

There are some answers to “frequently asked questions” in the following file (which also appeared in a posting on this subject on 3 March):

Recycling Questions and Answers

A copy of the recycling scheme leaflet (which should be inside the bag when delivered) which explains what you can and can’t put in the new green bags (paper, cardboard and plastic) and also what can go in the green box (glass and cans) is here:

Recycling Scheme Leaflet

I’m sure the collection teams will be working hard to make sure that everything runs smoothly. Please let me know if any issues arise. Hopefully we can double recycling rates on the back of this scheme.

The Neville’s Cross Community Centre steering committee met this evening and agreed to move forward with a feasibility study for building a Centre at Neville’s Cross Primary School.

The study, which should be under way within a few weeks, is being funded by a grant from the Durham City Council Flourishing Communities Fund for which the Committee was very grateful.

I received an e-mail yesterday from the public transport co-ordinator at County Hall to say that the District Councils should have posted out all the new national bus passes by last night.

Mine did not arrive today, so I guess they are going out second class!

Remember - unless you have told the City Council otherwise, your replacement will be sent out to the address you gave when you first got yours.

Also, the new bus pass is only valid from 1 April, so keep using the existing one until then.

The row over post office closures rumbles on with  many rural offices identified for closure in spite of loud local protests.

Not so long ago, the Neville’ Cross County Division had two, one on Neville’s Cross Bank and the other on Fieldhouse Lane. Both are now closed leaving us as one of the only county divisions in the whole of County Durham without a post office.

In fact I suspect we are the only such division, although we won’t be for long as things stand.

At Cabinet on Thursday, there was a small detail on one report about the closures in the south of the County, with a recommendation to look at ways of using County Council facilities to fill the gap.

This sees to be an approach that lots of councils around the UK are now looking at and I welcome it and hope that the Post Office as an organisation will co-operate.

Another small note in the press on the subject - our Labour MP, Roberta Blackman-Woods, voted against a motion in parliament condemning post office closures, so I guess we can assume she doesn’t mind them happening.

Governors of DJ have just had a progress note on the new building. Apparently the high winds have slowed some things, but construction is still well on target.

Residents can also expect the Orange mast to be removed during the Easter holiday.

Many will remember the Durham Cobbler who helped expose the Labour administration of the City councils prior to 2001 [when the Lib Dems won and took over].

Now a web site has appeared with equally acid comments about the County Council. The ‘cobblers’ name is there, but it is not clear who is behind the site.

Take a look at cobblers2dcc.blogspot.com.

At the monthly Cabinet meeting at County Hall yesterday, the decision on the admissions criteria for Durham Johnston was deferred to a special meeting to be held early next month.

In a somewhat acrimonious debate, the Labour portfolio holder for Children’s Services, Claire Vasey, asked the Cabinet to make the admissions criteria the same for Durham Johnston as everywhere else.

This would mean that children living more than 2 miles away who were assigned to the school by the County bussing policy would take priority over local Neville’s Cross children living closer to the school.

I pointed out that in the mid 1990s this approach had led to a position where children living perhaps a few hundred yards from the school were in real danger of being denied a place, and that if the criteria reverted to the old ones, then there was a real risk of this happening again.

I also pointed out the the ’sibling link’ criterion which gives preference to brothers and sisters of children already in the school had also created anomalies because of the popularity and success of the DJ sixth form [Durham Johnston is in the best literal handful of true comprehensives in the country for A-level results].

There had been occasions in the past when students had come into the school just for the sixth form from up to 20 miles away and the families had then claimed priority for an eleven year old on the basis of sibling link.

This is clearly unfair to local children. The governors got a special rule inserted into the DJ criteria some years ago to prevent this, but the proposals on the table would take that protection away.

Add to the mix the fact that the Mac Williams, Labour councillor for the area covering Shincliffe and Bowburn, complained bitterly that he had not been consulted at any stage (neither had I, although I contributed to the debates on the school governing body), and the Cabinet suddenly split on the issue.

Claire Vasey was supported by the Deputy Leader Clive Robson, only for the Leader, Albert Nugent, to move that the decision be deferred for further discussion.

There was a vote and for the first time in public in my 23 years at County Hall, the ruling Labour leadership split. The vote went 7 - 3 in favour of deferring the issue for more consultation with the interested parties.

What is more, the Deputy Leader voted against the Leader!

So, if you have got this far, you will perhaps agree with me that it is a good job there are elections in 6 weeks time so we can get rid of this divided and ineffective lot.

County Durham and Darlington Acute Hospitals Foundation Trust, for which I was recently elected a public governor,  is carrying out a review of its services to help develop a strategic vision for the next five years called “Seizing The Future”.

Public involvement is being actively encouraged, so if you want to know more about the process and/or feed in your own views, then click on seizingthefuture.hub.uk.com to get to the web pages dedicated to the process.

The University produces an information leaflet for residents (students and otherwise) that should be widely distributed in areas where there is a significant student population.

From discussion at a meeting of the University City Liaison Committee last week, it appears that it did not get out as much as it should have. So if you either did not receive it or have lost it, here it is (courtesy of the University):

University Community Liaison Leaflet 

One important piece of information contained in it is the Community Hotline number, Durham 334 2222, where residents can ring in to report student-related issues or problems that are affecting their area.

The University Community Patrol is willing to investigate nuisance issues and try to resolve them amicably - they are usually successful. Remember though that serious incidents involving crime or public disorder should always be reported to the police.

[The University City Liaison Committee meets once each term to look at issues involving students in the community. Around the table are university officials, local councillors, representatives of community associations, students and the police.]

A paper is going to the County Council Cabinet on 20 March proposing to change the admissions criteria for Durham Johnston.

Many local residents will remember the crisis around 12 years ago when children being bussed in from Bowburn and Brandon were taking priority over those living a few hundred metres from the school.

After a concerted campaign by parents, supported by me, the then Education Committee agreed to change the criteria to give priority to “pupils for whom Durham Johnston is the nearest suitable school”. Distance was measured from the closer of the Whinney Hill and Crossgate Moor sites.

This sorted the problem with most children from the villages still getting a place, but as the school is moving to a single site next year (another successful campaign) things had to be reviewed as the “closest school” for Shincliffe, for example, will no longer be Durham Johnston.

The proposal on 20 March is to revert to the previous regime where bussing arrangements take priority over sibling links with distance last.

The argument is that the criteria for all schools in the County should be the same, but I am really concerned that the problems that we had 12 years ago might return.

There is another issue to do with sibling links.

Durham Johnston has a fantastic sixth form with recent results placing it in the top handful (literally) of truly comprehensive schools in the whole of the England. Many students choose to come to its sixth form from other schools, often from a considerable distance.

The sibling link criterion means that a family living 25 miles away can get a child into the sixth form and then claim priority over a local family for a second child at age 11.

This did indeed happen a few times in the past and the governors asked for this loophole to be closed - and it was. Now it is going to be re-opened again.

Maybe falling numbers of children will mean that the risks to local families of not getting a place are very low, but we are told that the birthrate is now rising again, so the risks will also rise.

There are questions that need to be answered here. How over-subscribed is Durham Johnston? What are the risks? How have they been assessed?

Perhaps the main question is - why does it have to be “one size fits all”?

A new telephone service to deal with the full range of Revenues and Benefits enquiries (e.g. council tax, housing benefit, business rates) goes live on Friday 14 March. It will be available 24 hours a day 365 days a year. The number will be

0845 9400 820

The new service will be quicker (no waiting- it is supposed to respond in less than three rings).

Leaflets on it will be available in all city info units in the near future; a copy of the Leaflet can be seen here.

On Friday evening last, BBC North East put out a programme making allegations against Premier Waste in relation to the disposal of Compost Like Waste (CLO) at the Todhills Landfill Site and the operations of the company’s aerobic digestors at Thornley.

I had been sent an e-mail by Councillor Albert Nugent, Leader of the Council earlier last week alerting me to the fact that the programme was to be screened adn responding to some of the allegations, although at that point the Council had not seen what the BBC was to screen on Friday.

Now Premier Waste is an arms-length company owned by the County Council. The Council is its one and only shareholder and I think that as its shareholder, the Council should investigate these allegations properly, and there is a formal way to do this using the Overview and Scrutiny (O & S) Committee.

So I am writing today to the Chair of O & S Committee, and the Chair and Vice Chair of the “Looking after the Environment” Scrutiny Subcommittee asking for an investigative panel to be set up as a matter of urgency to deal with this.

I will let you know their response as soon as I have it.

There is to be a new (and I hope much improved) recycling scheme from 1 April. Durham City Council has gone into partnership with Chester-le-Street, Easington and Sedgefield Councils for a new contract which will make it easier for residents to recycle a much wider range of items in future.

A leaflet explaining the changes will drop through residents’ letterboxes in the next week or ten days.

The current green box scheme allows  everyone to recycle newspapers, bottles and cans; some areas can also have  purple plastic sacks for carboard and plastic, but not everywhere.

The new contract (with a firm called Greencycle) will given everyone a sturdy large sack for cardboard and plastic.

In the meantime here is a file of kerbside recycling Frequently Asked Questions which should help residents get an idea of what is involved and the scope of the scheme.

The English National Concessionary Bus Travel Scheme comes into force on 1 April 2008.

The County Council has produced a leaflet which I have managed to manufacture as a pdf-file and can be viewed below.

County Durham Travel - National Bus Pass Leaflet

Some key points are:

• Existing passholders will automatically be sent a new pass in the post before 1 April (so if you do not get one by then contact the City Council straight away - you should not use the old one after 1 April).
• It follows that anyone who has changed address since they got their current pass may need to contact the City Council now to ensure their replacement gets to them in time.
• Travel rules with the County remain the same, but elsewhere the new pass cannot be used before 9.30 am or after 11 pm Monday - Friday, nor in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man or the Channel Islands.
• Similarly the new pass cannot be used on long distance coach services such as National Express or private coach excursions and tours.

The contact telephone number for Durham City Council is 0191 301 8499 or you can do so on the City web site via www.durhamcity.gov.uk/ContactUs

Local Council elections take place on 1st May. This will be your opportunity to vote for two representatives on the new unitary council for County
Durham.

You can only vote in elections if your name is on the Register of Electors and I am aware that there are a lot of houses in the area with no-one registered.

In addition, some residents may have moved into the area since the new register came into force on 1 December last year.

Moved home? Coming up to 18? Just not on the register?

If you’ve moved since the Register was compiled or have been missed off, you can get your details amended. All you have to do is to fill in a Voter Registration Form which you must sign yourself, someone else cannot do it for you.

Registration forms are available from the City Council’s office at 17 Claypath. Alternatively, print off the registration form below:-

Voter Registration Form

Applications must be signed by the elector and returned to the Electoral Registration Office, Durham City Council, 17 Claypath, Durham DH1 1RH.

Anyone may apply for a postal vote at an election. Or you can apply for someone else to vote for you if, for example, you are blind or disabled, or if you will be away from home during an election. Contact the Electoral Registration Office at 17 Claypath for the forms (or see below).

There is a deadline of 5 pm. eleven working days before the day of an election for the receipt of new postal vote applications and six working days before the day of election for the receipt of new proxy vote applications.

Forms to apply for a Postal Vote or a Proxy Vote can be downloaded from the following links:-

Postal Vote Application Form

Proxy Vote Application Form

Again they must be returned to the 17 Claypath address.

After what appears much behind-the-scenes negotiation, the Police Authority set its council tax rate yesterday evening.

It came in at £142.47 for a Band D property, a rise of 4.97%.

this means that the total Band D council tax for people in Neville’s Cross will be £1,436.09, a rise of just under 3% from last year.

I received on Wednesday to tell me that I had been re-elected to the Governing Council of the County Durham and Darlington Acute Hospitals Foundation Trust for a three year term.

Many thanks to those who supported me.

The voting figures were:

I remain very concerned about the small number of residents who have ‘joined’ the trust and so are able to take part in the election.

I do encourage as many people to join as possible to make public accountability more effective.

Details of how to do this are in my earlier “manifesto” posting on the subject.

The County and City Councils both held their budget meetings yesterday.

In the morning at County Hall, the controlling Labour group pushed through a 2.9% increase. As Leader of the Lib Dem opposition I moved an amendment to reduce the increase to 1.9%, but we naturally lost the vote.

The County seems awash with cash this year. It had a much larger than expected increase in Government grant (over 7% up) and also failed to spend the money it raised last year (otherwise known as savings). Our lower proposal was eminently affordable without any cuts in services.

On the other hand the Lib Dem controlled City Council , later the same day, voted for a 1.9% increase in spite of having a miserly increase in Government grant (just over 1% up). When I look back to the parlous state of the City finances that we inherited from the previous Labour administration in 2003, we have done a really good job to get things so well under control (well I would say that I suppose…)

So the headline Band D rate for the County will be £1,024.38 next year, and for the City £186.62.

The Fire Authority met last week and have agreed a rate of £82.62 (a 2.9% increase).

The Police authority also met last week but failed to agreed a rate. The situation is peculiar since it is necessary both for a majority of the members to vote for it and a majority of the Councillor members. It seems that the overall majority wanted one thing but the Labour Councillors (excluding the member from Darlington) wanted something else and blocked will of the majority.

They meet again tonight (Wednesday) - more fun and games in the Labour Group at County Hall no doubt.

There is a public meeting on THURSDAY 28 FEBRUARY to hear about what a Town Council for Durham City might mean for our area.

The meeting is in the Alington House Community Centre on North Bailey at 7pm and should last about an hour. The mayor will chair the meeting.

I believe that with the new, very big, unitary County Council looming, we need a really local council in Durham. So come along and find out what is involved - and make your own mind up.

I have just received a letter from the Planning Department to let me know that Banks are going to appeal on their planning application for Mount Oswald.

This will mean that a public inquiry will take place later this year.

From the letter, it looks like all those who formally objected have been notified, but if you did object and have not heard from the Planning Department, do let me know.

The details of the appeal are deposited at Byland Lodge. any further representations have to be submitted to the Planning Inspectorate (details later) by 21 March.

I want to consult with colleagues first, but objectors will need to get together to organise the opposition as effectively as possible.

I will post some suggestions for co-ordinating our action in a few days.

Residents may have read a piece in the local papers about the Miners’ Heritage Group that has an exhibition above the Neville’s Cross Club on Crossgate Peth. While the Group are having some problems over the future of their collection, what was less clear was the good work they are doing to create an educational resource for local schools on Durham’s mining heritage.

While it is difficult for me to support the group financially in regard to their accommodation problems, I am going to give a small grant to them to help with the educational work as it is important that the young people in our schools are aware of what the mining industry meant for County Durham.

I was expecting a decision from the City Licensing Committee yesterday on the Buzz Barr application (see other posts on this subject on 11 Jan and 6 Feb), but the hearing was abandoned when it turned out that the application for the stop at Rainton Gate had not been properly advertised.

This has some good and some bad aspects. It is good that the people who live nearby as well as the County Scout and Guide Association are now aware and can make representations in time if a new application comes in.

Not so good is the prospect of the applications being renewed for sites at stops along the A167 through Neville’s Cross.

I have had a number of people contact me over this issue in the last month, and no-one has anything good to say about the idea. needless to say I shall be keeping a weather eye out for this one if it rears its head again.

One other issue has arisen out of this affair - the inadequacy of the process for consulting the public over licence applications, particularly the way in which people living nearby are not notified directly (as is the case with planning applications).

I have done some checking and the current procedure operated by the Council is what is recommended by Government (an advert in the press together with a notice on site). From what I can tell, most other councils operate in the same way, but there are a small number that go against Government advice and also send a letter to neighbouring residents.

Clearly this would be an added cost, but personally, I think that most residents would see that as being a good use of their local taxes (although please do feel free to disagree). It is an issue I shall be taking up with the Council in the coming weeks.

Do let me know whether or not you agree.

With the end of the financial year approaching I have been allocating my remaining “local initiative” money from County Hall and have ben pleased to make a grant of £300 to the Friends of Flass Vale to help purchase nesting boxes for the Vale.

This is a good present for them and will add to their celebration of the creation of the formal nature reserve in the area in 10 days time.

The Welfare Rights Section at County Hall is running a campaign on Free School Meals and Family Tax Credits.

There is information here on the County Council web site.

I also have leaflets available. E-mail me and I will send you one.

Flass Vale will be formally declared an official Nature Reserve on Monday 25 February in the presence of local councillor and Mayor Boy Wynn.

This is a great tribute to the efforts of the Friend of Flass Vale over the years to improve the area and preserve it as a natural place for the enjoyment of the public.

I have just discovered that The Friends have a web site (www.fofv.org.uk) , which at the moment is just s photograph of the area. They are asking for help with developing the site, so if anyone is prepared to volunteer to assist, do drop an e-mail to them at contact@fofv.org.uk

I am up for re-election as a Public Governor of County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust (CDDFT) to represent the Durham City District.

It is very difficult to communicate with the (500 or so) electors as candidates only had 100 words to promote themselves on the ballot information that is being sent out today.

So if you are an elector and are reading this, I hope you will see from this web site that I am a campaigning local councillor who knows how to call people to account. [For details about how to become an elector, se the end of this posting.]

I was elected as the third of three representatives for Durham City a year ago. Since then I have attended every meeting of the Governors and of the two committees I am on. I have been Chair of the Audit Committee which is responsible for appointing the Trust Auditors and for reporting back to Governors on the financial arrangements of the Trust.

I have also been a member of the Advisory Committee, which has done a lot of work in the first year of the Foundation Trust in sorting out important (if not very exciting) procedural issues.

Foundation trusts have a very different relationship with local communities and with government compared to non-foundation trusts. They have to operate in a more ‘commercial’ fashion and are more susceptible to changing relationships with primary care trusts (PCTs) and GP services.

The new Chief Executive has started a new initiative called “Seizing the Future” which will do a fundamental review of services. There is information about this at a link on the web page http://www.cddft.nhs.uk/. Governors will be fully involved in the process.

In my view we have to ensure that hospital services remain accessible to the communities they serve. That will be my main focus if I am re-elected.

We all know that public transport services have deteriorated over the past 20 years, so I will aim to use my links with the County Council to lobby for a joined up approach by the Trust and the Council to provide the sort of service we all expect.

My other focus will be on the financial side where my long experience of holding to account those who spend public money will be valuable.

I am particularly concerned to look closely at the various privatised services to see whether they do the job we expect and whether we get value for money. I hope that if you are able to vote, you will give me your support.

Joining the trust

If you are not an elector (or ‘member of the Trust’ as it is properly described) but are over 16 and live within the area served by the trust, may I encourage you and your family members to join. Here is a membership application form.

Click on http://www.cddft.nhs.uk/About+Us/FoundationTrustStatus/Home.htm to find out more - you cannot vote in this election, but if you join, you will be able to vote or stand as a candidate in your area in the future.

I was notified today that work is to start very soon (possibly next week) to install crash barriers on the central reservation of the A167 north and south of the Cock of the North roundabout where there have beeen several fatal accidents over the past three years.

North of the roundabout there will be a barrier only on the southbound side (where the accidents have been).  The work will take around 8 weeks or so.

This work will not stop accidents, however. If people drive too fast, the danger will persist, although we can hope that the outcomes may be less severe.

Thanks to everyone who contacted me to express their concern (which I share) about the proposed Buzz Barr that would have had a series of Neville’s Cross bus stops licenced for drinking alcohol!

 The parts of the application that refer to the bus stops on the A167 have now been withdrawn (for now) leaving only the lay by on the A690 Sunderland Road on the left just below Rainton Gate.

The law that specifies how licence applications are to be advertised leaves much to be desired - neither the residents next to the lay-by nor the County Scout and Guides who have their main camp site adjacent to the lay-by knew anything of the matter until after the period for representations was over.

In the event that the licence is granted, the application for the A167 bus stops may re-appear. I shall be vigilant.

… and the Lib Dem Group at County Hall are trying to persuade the ruling Labour Group to keep the council tax rise down as much as possible.

This morning, the County Council cabinet agreed a recommendation of a 2.9% increase to be meade to a meeting of the full council on 26 February.

We are convinced that there is scope to do better than this as council has underspent its 2007-8 budget and has had a much bigger than expected government grant.

Government nationally is talking about wage rises being kept to around 2% (or 1.9% if you are a policeman) and we shall be proposing a rate much closer to that come budget making day.

Many local people have been alarmed by the suggestion that the Lord Londonderry statue and his companion Neptune should be moved from the Market Place in the City.

For myself I am totally against this proposal which has been made by one of the council officers and has not come from the controlling Lib Dem Group.

The statues are a feature of the city centre and the steps around Lord Londonderry’s plinth are a favourite place for people to meet and rest.

I hope the public reaction will see this idea quickly thrown out.

Local Lib Dems held a selection meeting on Sunday to choose their candidates for the elections for the new unitary council due to be held on 1 May 2008.

I am pleased to report that I was re-selected to stand in the Neville’s Cross Division (covering the Neville’s Cross and  Crossgate and Framwellgate City Council wards).

With the re-organisation of the Council, there will be two councillors elected and my fellow candidate will be Grenville Holland, currently a City Council for Crossgate and Framwellgate and Deputy Mayor of the City (due to become Mayor in May).

Grenville has been an active City Councillor since 1987 and was a geology Lecturer at the University.  He also has a strong connection with the game of cricket having been President of the University Cricket Club for over 30 years and a strong voice for university cricket at national level.

We look forward for local support in May.

- because the Labour County Council has, over the years, cut spending on Youth Services to the bone.

The measure used to compare councils is spending per pupil. Durham County Council is spending £36 per pupil in 2007-08. against an average of £45 per pupil for shire counties, £56  for our’statistical neighbours’ and a government recommended level of £100 per pupil.

Labour is raising the level to £43 per pupil next year, but this is still woefully short of what is needed to provide the sort of activities that will provide youngsters with constructive and sociable things to do and make us all feel safer on the streets. 

A flier has just been issued by the County Council asking community groups to suggest places for expenditure on footpath improvements. There is a deadline of 15 February 2008 for suggestions to be submitted.

A cut-down versionof the Local Transport Plan footpath funding flier can be seen here (I had to remove the pictures to make the file small enough to upload onto the blog site).

Remember, this is for suggestions from community groups, not individuals. If you have a particular concern yourself, please contact me directly.

Of course it would help if we had a proper community centre in Neville’s Cross, but that is still “work in progress”.

A meeting of the County Council Overview and Scrutiny Committee heard today that the Council is in a much easier financial position than it had thought 2 months ago.

In fact things look so good that a number of planned service cuts that were highlighted in the so-called “Have Your Say” public consultation before Christmas have been reversed, and almost £6M that was to be taken from reserves to keep the council tax down is no longer needed. On top of that, the council looks to be heading for a considerable underspend this financial year, the number of properties that make up the council tax “base” has increased so that each pound of the Band D tax rate raises more cash for the council, and higher interest rates have increased interest earned on balances more than expected.

In the 22+ years I have been on the council, I have never seen the finances so awash with cash.

The government has still to confirm its grant settlement to the council, but if things turn out like I suspect then I and the Lib Dem Group will be pressing for a very low council tax increase this year.

At this morning’s meeting, an increase of 2.9% was being talked about, but even with the added costs of the forthcoming election and the doubling of the number of councillors after 1 May, there must surely be scope to do bette than that.

The school had a wonderful two days on Friday and Saturday with several hundred former pupils, families and friends visiting the school.

The Mayor, Councillor Bob Wynn with Mayoress Nora Fisher visited the school on the Saturday afternoon and were escorted round the various displays of memorabilia by Hannah (shown above) who is herself the granddaughter of a former Mayor of Durham City.

There were many records of the past to be seen (did you know the original school had cost £4,500 to build when it opened in January 1908?), as well as displays of work done by the present pupils relating to the many changes that had taken place over 100 years.

Councillor Wynn, who is himself a governor of the school, congratulated everyone connected with the school for the hard work that had gone in to make the event a resounding success, before partaking of tea and cakes provided by the Neville’s Cross WI.

I am hoping that it will be possible to upgrade Mill Hill Lane to allow cyclists to use it legally.

Mill Hill Lane is a very well used path from Merryoaks to the Colleges on South Road and down into the city. Over the years I have been able to get the pathway upgraded, flooding has been dealt with and extra lighting has been put in - but it remains technically just a footpath and there are signs prohibiting cycling.

Following a request from a local resident, County are now actively looking at ways to improve the route for cyclists. The main work needed is to increase the width of the path to provide separation of cyclists and pedestrians.

There are two main issues involved, the first is getting permission from the various landowners (and who they are does not seem very clear) and then putting the funding together for the work.

So it won’t happen overnight, but it will undoubtedly be a benefit for the area so I have given my backing to the project.

There was a meeting this afternoon between some city centre councillors, county council officers and the Secretary of the County Association of Town and Parish Councils to discuss issues around forming a Town Council for Durham City when the unitary County Council is set up.

A Town Council for the City (i.e. the area covered by the old City Council pre-1974) would have the same powers as a parish council (like Belmont or Framwellgate Moor parishes).

I am keen to support this idea as it will help to counter the “remote county council” fears that many people have for the new unitary council. Indeed several areas elsewhere in County Durham have recently gone through the process to set up a town or parish council where none existed before because they see the advantage of being “local”.

The next stage will be public meetings to discuss the issues involved and to get public support for the idea. Watch out for the dates when they are announced.

I met a constituent at the planning meeting last night who drew my attention to a strange licence application for something called the BUZZ BARR.

Apparently this is an application for a drinks licence for a bus that will ride around the streets of Durham at night. I am told, however, that it is now illegal to serve alcohol on a moving bus (although you can drink while it moves), so the cunning wheeze is for the bus to stop at designated sites (normally bus stops) while drinks are dispensed.

This is where it gets very strange, as to make this legal, the operator has to licence the ‘premises’ where this happens. But premises cannot be mobile, so it is the bus lay by that is the licensed location.

So an application has gone in to licence a number of these locations for the bus to stop in, including several on the A167 through Neville’s Cross.

My initial reaction is ‘you cannot be serious’ to quote a certain tennis player, but I would love to know what my constituents think about it, so please do get in touch.

The meeting of the Durham City Development Control Committee last night was packed out as it considered the application by Banks Ltd to develop Mount Oswald.

Following a summary of the (damning) planning officer’s report, two local residents spoke against it and then so did I as the local ward councillor. Here is my speech to the Planning Committee.

In the end there was little real discussion by the members of the Committee as the report and its recommendations were so clear cut. The application was refused by a unanimous vote.

But this is probably not the end of the matter. Banks have already tried to appeal once on the grounds that the Council delayed the decision too long. That was rejected out-of-hand by the government inspectorate - Banks had got their facts wrong (along with so much else in this case).

No doubt they will now try to appeal to the Secretary of State in spite of the opposition from the Highways Agency, One North East, the North East Assembly, the County Council and just about anyone else too.

The strange thing is how Banks have failed to attempt any discussion or negotiation with the Council over the issues that the application raised. They must have spent well over £100K on this application which looks as though it was doomed to failure from the start because it was deficient in almost every department.

 Is something else going on? We shall have to wait and see - and remain vigilant.

Many residents have expressed concern about how the local council deals with the issue of converting family houses into HMOs.

At the moment, councils in England have almost no powers to consider such a change of use under planning laws, unlike in Northern Ireland where they can.

After much pressure (and, it has to be said, from MPs of all parties), the Government is now consulting on changing the law in England to give local councils stronger powers in this area.

It was good, therefore, that the City Council passed a unanimous motion last night to add its weight behind the pressure for change.

There was a lively meeting of the City Council at the Gala Theatre last night when a Labour Councillor put a motion accusing the Chair of the Council Licensing Committee of ignorance and failure to guide her committee properly when it considered the infamous Loft Application (see earlier posting for all the details).

I spoke at the meeting to say that I thought it was party politicking of the basest kind to use a personal attack on another Councillor (who has formal qualifications in the area and chaired the committee advised by legally qualified council staff), when the real problem was the inadequacy of the Licensing Act.

I was not surpised when several of his own Labour Group failed to support him in the final vote that defeated the motion.

Nevilles Cross Primary School celebrates its 100^th birthday in 2008. As part of the centenary celebrations, the school is holding Open Days on Friday 18 January (1.30 - 3pm) and Saturday 19 January (11am – 3pm) when visitors will be welcome.

On the Saturday, Merryoaks W.I. will provide refreshments in the style of an Edwardian Tea Shop in the school hall; some of the children will be helping to serve. The W.I. group celebrate their 40^th birthday this year and have met at the school for virtually all those years.

The Mayor, Councillor Bob Wynn and Lady Mayoress, Mrs Nora Fisher will visit at 2pm on Saturday. Bob is a longstanding friend of the school and serves in the Governing Body.

The school would love to see former pupils and staff so please talk to your neighbours and friends and encourage them to go along and share the celebrations.

It looks as though Mark Lloyd, the Chief Executive of Durham County Council will be leaving the North East for a similar post at the head of Cambridgeshire County Council. His appointment is on the agenda for a Cambridgeshire County Council meeting on 10 January 2008.

Although Mark has been a driving force behind the move to unitary local government in County Durham, I have always found him a top class officer who has worked hard for the County and who has always played fair with the minority groups while, of course, having to implement the policies of the ruling Labour group. I certainly wish him well in his future career.

The down side of this move is that Durham County Council will be left without a Chief Executive at a time when the extremely complex move to unitary status is taking place [subject to the judicial review appeal that is due to be heard in a few weeks time].

No doubt the existing senior officers at County Hall will work hard to cover all the bases, but the priority must now be to get a new Chief Executive appointed as soon as possible, especially as the leadership of the Labour Group has been looking so flaky in recent weeks.

As expected, the planners at Durham City Council have recommended refusal of the Banks planning application for Mount Oswald.

The matter is on the agenda for the City Council Development Control Committee on Thursday 10 January 2008 (5.30 pm at The Studio, Gala Theatre, Durham City).

The report (which you can see here: Banks Mount Oswald Planning report ) is scathing about the application and has virtually nothing good to say about it. Indeed the Highways Agency has gone so far as to issue a directive to the Council to refuse the application because it does not address properly the impact of the development on the strategic road network around Durham City.

So the application will be refused which is excellent news for the hundreds of local people who have supported the campaign against this montrous proposal.

Nonetheless, I hope lots of people will turn up to the meeting to show their support for having this application tossed out.