A Town Council for Pontefract?

In 1974 the Borough Council was subsumed by a local government re-organisation which created WMDC.

I went to a public meeting in the Nelson Room at the Town Hall this evening where a group of people of good standing in the community are looking to bring in a Town Council under the Parish Council Rules.

I want to understand their motives and plans so listened with interest to their outline.

One thing that concerned me was that whilst they are high on the ceremonial benefits of forming and the civic pride that they will generate, over half of the budget of £327,000 pa appeared to be dedicated to administration. The other services proposed broadly depend upon the District Councils consent and ratepayers face a double charge through a precept for some of these items. (This power to impose an additional tax currently is unlimited and whilst it was pointed out that the Secretary of State has powers to cap an overspending Parish/Town Council, this has not been done since the power was enacted in the 1970s.

Also they were making a big point about the rights of consultation that they will have. Consultation is hugely important, but there are a number of other bodies that get consulted already when there are issues that can impact Pontefract. Most of the people involved are already active consultees because of that, so I am puzzled.

If this group are to succeed then they will need to gain over 2,500 signatures from registered electors in the Town so that a referendum may run, but when they explain that they will be levying an extra charge on local Council Tax payers, I suspect that this will be quite a challenge. We shall see.

UPDATE: I am hearing reports of people collecting signatures telling members of the public that it will not cost them anything. Either they have not been briefed properly and do not understand what they are doing or they find it difficult to explain what is going on.

Nearly there...

On the 15th of July we will learn how effective the consultation, with questions, concerns, arguments and thousands of representations have been to keep our local Post Office at Hardwick Road open. Our MP feels that the Conservative Councillors in Pontefract in pushing to keep Hardwick Road Post Office open are playing politics and has used the local paper to vent.

Well, we clearly have a different view to hers. The instruction from her political masters in this Labour Government telling Royal Mail to close 2500 post office branches within rigid timeframes has lead to a number of the decisions being contested. The six weeks given for consultation is seen by many including many Labour MPs as a flawed exercise, we sincerely hope that Royal Mail take consultation process seriously.

For the record Ms Cooper had an opportunity to do something about this but she chose not to. There was a vote in Parliament on the 19th March to suspend closures and to review the consultation process, this in the light of concerns about the way that consultations had been managed in the initial batch of closures already in process.


The Government defeated the motion to suspend by only 20 votes. Our 4 local Labour MP's backed the Government, and sacrificed their constituents in the process, it should be said that the public record is clear and that a number of Labour MPs took a more principled stand and voted to support constituents concerns.

So Ms Cooper criticises us for questioning her commitment to constituents over her responsibilities to the Brown NuLabour government and based on the comments from many that I have met they feel let down by her.

We appear to be seeing on her part a repeat of public declarations of concern and undertakings to lobby which residents across the area received linked to former Post Office Branches in Chequerfield, Ferrybridge and Castleford in previous years.

Saying one thing and doing another is a common political tactic which her government has deployed all too regularly over the last eleven years, I hope that she will really give this her best effort.

Just as the public will judge us by our actions, so should she be judged.

Full Council Meeting 18th June

Should be an interesting day. For the first time the leader of the council will be facing potentially an equal number of opposition Councillors, the Labour Mayor will have a casting vote but who would have thought that we would have closed the gap to this degree for the first time in 34 years of Labour control the times they are a changing.

As deputy leader of the Conservative Group I will lead the opposition.

UPDATE:

Positive session, broad consensus on Post Office closures and an acceptance that transport and highways should be incorporated into future masterplanning exercises.

You may wonder why not previously, probably because they could get away with it.

Interesting thing, the Labour Group had a maximum effort and all 32 Labour members were present. They will have to keep on their toes over coming sessions.

Do principles still have a place in politics?

Gordon won his 42 day vote by all accounts leaving a number of his members behind him.

Now David Davis is seeking a by-election to shine more light on this and other civil liberties issues that NuLabour are trying to rig.

What do you think? Personally I would back David all the way on this one.

ID Cards - MPs question Governments Motives

The multibillion-pound identity card scheme could be used to carry out surveillance on millions of people, a Commons select committee said yesterday.

Now I realise that this is not Zimbabwe and we are never likely to face a vote for this government or starve ultimatum but when the British Government wants such broad powers to track and control our data and aspects of our lives this starts to become a different sort of sinister.

I meet people who tell me that this is really not a problem if you have done no wrong. But surely this depends upon the way those in power use your personal information.

Darringfield - an update

As mentioned in earlier posts, a study was commissioned by Leeds City Region Leaders seeking a suitable site for an 'eco' town.

It emerged 3 weeks ago, that 4 sites had been identified - all in Selby District.

Those 4 are at Burn, Church Fenton, Gascoigne Wood and the ‘Willow Green’ site at Eggborough/Kellington.

On the face of it Darringfield whilst no longer mentioned has still not been ruled out by the DCLG.

There is likely to be an announcement in the next week or so which location in Selby District is to be pushed as the preffered option. At that point whilst we may seem to be off the hook, there start a host of new challenges and I believe that our neighbours in Selby District will need our support.

A new community parachuted in without sufficient thought given to infrastructure will still potentially overload our existing stretched road and infrastructure network.

More information as it becomes available.