… 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.