Overall it was rather a turgid affair, Cllrs were shown a propaganda piece telling them all how wonderful the Housing Department are (true in some areas, but woefully untrue in others such as sheltered housing) and the skateboarders, no doubt urged on by ex Cllr Paul Varnsverry turned up en masse to call for action from the new Council to match the promises made to them before the election.
I expect (as we always said) slight differences of opinion on this one. It is true that £250,000 has been set aside in the capital programme towards such a facility, but the last Lib Dem and the current Conservatives expect this to pay for consultants and design costs and kick start some further match funding towards the overall project, whilst it seems the skateboarders think that the land will be given free and that the £250,000 will cover all of the initial build cost? I told them before the last election when they last wheeled into the chamber that they should take a leaf from the council oppositions ABC mantra of ACCEPT NOTHING, BELIEVE NO ONE AND CHECK EVERYTHING
There were a number of lack lustre oral contributions mainly from the old guard (worrying as they should be showing the new Cllrs the way!) The Tory new boys and girls mostly sat on their hands, the Lib Dem's haven't got any new blood, (not a lot of old blood either) but special mention must go to Labour's Gareth Eales and Elizabeth Gowen, who both put in confident and challenging contributions in what was their first meeting, if the Labour Party has a future then I believe it will be well served by letting young Cllrs like Gareth and Elizabeth off the leash as often as possible.
However the high and low point of the evenings political muse must go to Cllr John Yates, the only person in the chamber to have served in the last and the new administration, Questioned by Labours Winston Strachan on a pet subject of mine from the past, RATS, Winston informed Yatesy that an increase in the rat population had become apparent in the town centre and asked him if the Council, who sacked its rat catcher in 2009 and closed the Pest Control department soon after, would reinstate both."Let me tell the Councillor that I know all about rats" Said Yatesy "I keep chickens and they are attracted to them" and then he made the most extraordinary comment which should have been the headline in today's Chronicle and Echo when he suggested "People should do as I do and go down B&Q and buy some strong rat poison"
So there we have it, caring conservatism, the Big Society, in the absence of a town rat catcher and a rise in the rat population as a result, Northampton's hard working council tax payers should become more involved in civic matters by spending our dwindling disposable income down at our local B&Q on rat poison to chuck around the Market Square to help NBC to banish the vermin!!
A shocking response to be given to both a disturbing and very important question by the opposition, unfortunately for us all, nobody came back at him and having easily drawn out the worst side of the new administration the combined opposition let him off the ropes.
We can be wait to see if this incredulous suggestion from Northampton Conservative Group does reach the pages of the Chron in days to come.
You and your rats Mister!
ReplyDeleteI wanted to slightly pull you up on one tiny thing though... we were at the same meeting right? And even though you left before me ~ no staying power if you ask me mate! ~ but you were there for the skater guys bit...
You did hear them say they knew that £250,000 was only part of things didn't you? They did say that they were fine with getting some fundraising together to add to that amount.
But, and here is where I agree with them. How can you raise money for something that you really have no clue will actually happen or where it will be?
It is a little like us at St. John, we always need the kind folks out there (not you, I know; I got that) to dig deep and contribute to what we do. Without the nice folks who do give so generously, there would be no events (Silverstone would not be able to cope without us, nor would the Saints; the Cobblers or our great theatres) There would be no training of work first aiders etc.
Anyways, my point is that we will always need people to dig deep. BUT they know what they are digging deep for. As with our new Ambulance, people knew we needed money for that. And the "tarting up" of our Billing Rd HQ, people know what we need money etc for.
But... if we had no ambulance & no idea if we could ever have one, what would be the point in asking for money for something we had no idea about ~ make sense? (at this time of night, I shall be impressed)
The skater guys need to know where the skate & BMX park will be, they need to have an idea what they are fundraising for.
In my experience the only time anyone gives you money for any unknown services, it is usually accompanied by a copper arresting you!
Nicky, we were all at the same meeting, and like you I am supportive of the project, but my point is that NBC and the skateboard community have totally different ideas as to what is possible and how it can be delivered. And whilst the site identification is critical it is also part of the problem.
ReplyDeleteFor example, whose land? And if it is the Councils then they have to legaly get market value for it. So if the land is worth say £500,000 then the poor sisters have to find £250,000 at the least to just get ownership, unless the Council continue to own it.
And then, how much will it cost to build?, I can't see the £250,000 even scratching the surface and a quick google search will show what can and can't be done.
The skaters need a good negotiator on this one, to make sure they get a good deal, after all the Council I know will swallow up £250,000 paying consultants to manage and progress the project before a single shovel of cement has been laid.
Mr Clarke ..... The skateboard community have no respect for you or your pitiful comments. Did you not hear the initial comments re political alignment of the skateboard group ............ We are not pawns in someones game, your comment re P Varnsverry shows your total 100% ignorance of us as a group and insults us as individuals.
ReplyDeleteRe your 2nd comment re location of site, your naiveness and ignorance again shows that you have zero knowledge of any follow up from this meeting that has already taken place.
Thirdly ref consultancy you again are unaware of the progress that has been made since and before, please do your homework.
Ref fundraising please dewax your ears, the comments made very clearly stated that we are making headway re fundraising, but need the location confirmed and the initial 250k was for phase1 of the project and match funding would go to phase 2 of the project (please research Hereford Skatepark)
Re how much to build and 250k not scratching the surface AGAIN shows your total ignorance, we have already had meetings with park builders and 250K buys a SUBSTANTIAL SIZE PIECE OF CONCRETE.
Ref land and cost to us ....... please do your research ref how this process works (particularly nominal rent)
MR CLARKE YOUR IGNORANCE OF US AND THE GROUP AND THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE SUBJECT IS QUITE FRIGHTENING, WE DO NOT APPROACH YOU AS QUITE OBVIOUSLY A TUBE OF SUN TAN CREAM HAS MORE KNOWLEDGE ON THE SUBJECT THAN YOU EVER WILL.
Our park will happen, and with ZERO help from you thanks .... so please find something else to write about thank you as your knowledge shows you are really not worthy of commenting on the subject.
I look forward to standing you on a board and pushing you into the deepest bowl ONCE this is completed.
And ref good negotiators !!! Between us we have Lawyers, Accountants, University Lecturers and Company Director ....... do you think we need an unemployed guy with only a blog site to help !!!
ReplyDeleteHa ref Your ABC ..... Absolute Bulls**t Clarke.
ReplyDeleteGary,
ReplyDeleteGiven the above comments, I am against the skate board park!
HOW RUDE! I suggest you find some good PR people to add to your negotiaters, accountants and company directors!
ReplyDeleteAnd to think I actually support the project!!
But I bow to your superior skate based knowledge and will dewax my ears and and keep my pitiful comments to myself in future.
Crikey, I also read that I am unemployed! Don't tell the missus or the bank, or the taxman they think that I currently have 5 different jobs on the go!
So good luck my angry skater, but please accept that my knowledge of local government is fairly well honed and that I worry for all the right reasons over ensuring that any community wheeled or not does not get the wool pulled over their eyes over what ringfenced capital programme monies can and cannot provide, and also the difference between a politicians verbal intent (irespective of party) and Councils eventual actions.
I'm off into the attic to dust down my old wooden SIMS tail deck board (with added riser pads underneath and emery cloth paper stuck on the top) with gullwing trucks and Krypto wheels, in the hope that I survive my dumping in the bowl!
Damn... what the hell just happened?
ReplyDeleteI popped off to get a duty in and I come back to, well I'm not actually sure what.
One doesn't really know where to look.
Tony, I was going to say I understood what you are saying; but still feel that it is the current administration we need to be hard on.
I am (sometimes for my sins) in aggrement with the previous Liberal Democrat administration when it comes to the skatepark, I think it is a great idea and I hope it happens.
BUT... Anon at the top must be careful of false promises from the Tories. They are good at them. And it is my sad belief that this could be the case now. I truely hope I am wrong.
I think that the Tories got elected partly thanks to some election promises that I am unsure they can or will keep.
Opening up Abington Street was one, as was an hrs free parking. Not to mention the skatepark and of course my favourite topic of late; the Saints and the Cobbers...
It is my belief that some, if not all of these promises will fail; I hope that I am wrong.
However, I will finish on one final thing. A little while back I had some issues with Tony and took them up with him, I risked my friendship (and more, but that's another matter) with him because of my beliefs.
As you can tell we are alright now, but I got "pulled over the coals" by various people for having a view. A voice. An opinion.
Which is wrong. Brave men and women in the services have given their lives for me so that I can have a voice, a view and so that I can air them; when and where I choose to do so.
For Anon at the top to attack Tony is one thing, though why he has to be so rude about it I struggle to see. (but each to their own) He is quite within his right to do that, and Tony can fight his own battles.
However, Tony is also within his right to write about whatever he likes. As you are all (how many Anon's can you have on one posting?) within your right to comment too.
Surely we are not in the relms of telling people what they can and cannot talk about now?
It is a free country with freedom of speech, surely as adults we can all have an opinion and respect each other for it?
Those skateboarders are a bit angry aren't they!
ReplyDeleteGet more exercise I say. Bit rough on Mr Clarke as well I think. Like him or not Skateboarders of Northampton, his experience on these things is worth having.
Anyway - I'm more interested in the rats. Surely we should be encouraging people to deal with it themselves?
Long gone are the days of 'Big' Government - didnt a young liberal President once talk about asking not what your council can do for you but what can you do for your council.
If I have a problem with rats or a wasps nest I dont automatically think thats a Council issue. I get it sorted myself.
Rights and responsibilities and all that.
Tony writes:
ReplyDelete“Cllrs were shown a propaganda piece telling them all how wonderful the Housing Department are (true in some areas, but woefully untrue in others such as sheltered housing)”
Total agreement with Tony on this, Goebbels would have been pleased to put his name to being the producer .
Perhaps the comments from Residents 4 Residents (a group for people living in Northamptons Sheltered Housing) sums it up:
Some things we need to discuss at our next meeting:
· What was the production cost
· From what account
· What venues or meetings do NBC expect to use it
Unlike local authorities we can't dip into the Housing Revenue Account and use tenants rents to campaign and produce propaganda.
We will find it very offensive if Housing Revenue Account money as been used for this video, we can come up with a number of things that could and should be done for the benefit of Sheltered Housing Tenants.
We will be putting out feelers over the next few days, and report back to a meeting on the following:
· Can we produce a video and fund it?
· Can we produce one of high quality
CWM & Norman; you guys make me smile! (that's a good thing)
ReplyDeleteI slightly agree with you CWM on the rats thing; but having said that, if I was in a council house etc and/or could not afford to sort it myself; I'd want help with the problem.
Isn't that the point of the council? They are there to help everyone when they cannot help themselves? (or is that just me being over simplefied?)
Who owns the rats on the Market? Or in the sewers? Or running up Abington Street in increasing numbers?who should pay to get rid of them?
ReplyDeleteAnd why do I pay my council tax? No street lights, my rubbish is picked when they feel like it, leaving more mess behind than when they arrived, and the street I live in has 5 foot weeds growing out of the ground!.
But at least we have Northampton in Bloom!
Didn't I just say that?
ReplyDeleteWho owns the market? And the sewers? And Abington Street? I guess they own the rats... though I don't think those rats ARE owned Tony ~ if you catch one ask it... failing that, I have a pied pipe if you want it?
Lights ~ don't get me started, we have the same too! (Blame the COUNTY COUNCIL ~ aren't you on that?)
Rubbish ~ Mine is okay. But then we do have bins and not bags etc. Maybe you need to talk with the councillor in your area?
Weeds ~ unless it is the kind I can smoke, I cannot help.
scrap Northampton in Bloom (we are in a recession you know), get people to cut the grass outside their own home (I do, I know its not 'mine' but its about civic pride and doing your bit) and maybe we will have some money left for weeds on the street and enough to kill the rats on the town centre.
ReplyDeleteRats come to the market square because of the fruit and veg so surely the market traders pay for thier removal with their pitch fee?
Miss A Nobody - the council is not about helping people when they cant help themselves. I think thats why the public sector got into the mess it did in the first place.
CWM
CWM we are in a recession of our own making, and the current governments austerity measures are stifling growth to the point that by the next election we will be borrowing more than we were at the last, but spending our borrowed cash on increased unemployment benifit and the deficit in tax income from those no longer in work.
ReplyDeleteThat is why some of us have always advocated a larger public sector not a smaller one, more people in work paying more taxes spending more in the shops and encouraging growth in the economy.
That way we can have rat catchers, flowers, the weeds cleared and get value for the money we pay in local Council Tax.
The Market Traders, the town centre traders, and us the Council tax payer all pay through the nose, we even pay increased amounts to the water companies who control the sewers and river beds, but still the rats are allowed a free run!
There is no recession if your a rat in Northampton, quite the opposite, they have never had it so good. They are indeed the epithany of ......
THE BOOMTOWN RATS or should that be THE BLOOMTOWN RATS?
Loving the 'Bloomtown Rats' - I expect to see it on your next newsletter Tony.
ReplyDeleteAre you serious about the public sector? Bigger? So we have less money, but we spend a larger proportion of it on civil servants so they can spend it in the shops?
Thats a Monty Python approach to economics. The answer to coming out of recession is the growth in small and medium sized business not the public sector.
I also went out the front gate tonight and used some weedol on the weeds in front of my house. £1.99 for three sachets from Wilkinsons. Hardly broke the bank, makes my bit of the street look nicer and somewhere less for the rats to hide.
Civic pride isn't a financially driven. It is behaviour driven. For £1.99 (weedol) and £2.99 (rat poison) I have used under a fiver to make my bit of the street nice.
Sod the civil servants, I want more gardeners, and sheltered housing wardens and of course rat catchers!
ReplyDeleteAs for the B&Q society believe it or not a lot of the unemployed residents of Spring Boroughs are spending their last fiver on tins of beans and long life bread rather than weedol and rat poison.
But then isn't THAT what a council is for?
ReplyDeleteI don't understand why you'd have a council if they are not there to help people who cannot help themselves?
We are, I guess lucky because we can afford to own our home & live fairly well. Not everyone can, I get that - surely they need our help most?
Its just that you make Councils sound like a charity Miss A Nobody.
ReplyDeleteThey are there to provide services to all taxpayers I agree but the welfare state is their to help the poorest and the neediest. I think I am slightly tarred living in Northampton as I can't see or recall one bit of service provision by NBC that is or was not run badly, cost too much, or could not have been done better by the private sector. Could you help me out?
I take Tony's point about beans and bread. I am passionate about helping the unemployed get back into work.
How about to make sure the unemployed don't get 'de-skilled' while out of work the Council get them to do the weeding of the streets for them. The it wouldn't cost anything, would keep the unemployed in the skills market and keep the streets clean and tidy.
Now that would be the sort of local council helping people to help themselves.
CWM you are getting there slowly, but how about the Council get them (the unemployed) to do the weeding for them as employees!
ReplyDeleteThat way they wouldn't be unemployed and they would be paying tax, and spending their disposal income within the local economy keeping even more people in work.
I am getting there slowly Tony but feel rather than me getting one step ahead you are getting one step behind ....
ReplyDelete... the council can't employ them because there is no money left! That't the whole point.
That's the reason why we are in a recession. It is not a paper exercise and I hate to use a Tory line but the UK plc credit card is maxed out. Money doesn't grow on trees (or in weeds) you cant just print more when you need it.
What would really impress me is if the Council approach B&Q and appealed to their CSR strategy. B&Q provide rat poison / weed killer (F)C) as part of their committment to the town and local residents use it in their streets as their committment to civic pride.
How's that for empowering people.
I dunno about charity, but I maybe I am all for those who are meant to be there to serve their community doing just that.
ReplyDeleteIt may just be the area's we live in CWM, I am in New Duston and have fairly little trouble in any form. That makes me very lucky, I am aware of that. Our bin collections seem to have been just fine, we don't have that much trouble when it comes to weeds and stuff; most people look after their own bits and the park bit is taken care of.
Maybe that is because we are "generally" in amongst privatly owned properties, or maybe the two Tories are doing their jobs; I don't know.
I would personally like to see everyone with all that they need/want to make their lives better, they should have access to the best care and support avaliable; isn't that just what every human being is worth? I hope that is what any decent human being would want for their fellow man, woman and child?
Maybe "they" are right Tony, maybe I am just "too" nice to be a councillor?
Maybe my ideal is that people like Tony, and those still there; became councillors to help everyone that needed it... Maybe that is the problem for me?
I also agree with your point CWM, with no money; I can assure you Tony no one but no one will do the weeding! And I hate to include myself in that; but if the job is not going to pay me AT LEAST why I am getting now, I cannot even think about taking on the job.
That's the sad reality of all this, if I cannot find work that gives me at least what I am getting now (after tax etc has been taken away) I simply cannot afford to even considered the job. And that sucks ass!
I was always told that the problems with "Tories" (generalising there) is that they were full of "sleeze" And the trouble with "Labour" is that they were all for the "borrowing" culture. And that does not work either, as we can clearly see! You simply cannot live beyond your means, someone always pays in the end... maybe your grand children Tony?
Miss A - I think to some degree you are right. Owner occupiers do tend to have more pride in their homes and surroundings which you can see when former council houses are bought by people.
ReplyDeleteI have always voted Labour and always will. When the party was set up years ago, the pit workers did so not so their sons could also go down the mines but so they had the opportunity to do better for themselves - and for me that is the key; helping people to help themselves not doing it all for them.
Until we get away from the view, which I think Tony is pushing, that Local Authorities are the agents of change, then we will hold people back.
I love living in Castle Ward but what is clear is that the law abiding and civic minded citizens can not (and should not) be measured by their income or employment status. It is a state of mind and an attitude and relying on the state for change is misguided and more importantly proven not to work.
Thank you CWM, you have just done what Tony, John Dickie and a host of other local "heavies" have not been able to do!
ReplyDeleteExplain true Labour values to me ~ I am in your debt.
I also agree with you, a council should be there to serve all ~ just like its councillors.
Everyone might not be the same, but I guess the point is that we should all be treated the same? (unless you are a banker, Rupert Murdoch or obscenly rich ~ I might make an exception if the last one is single and open to suggestions!)