A Difficult Year!

The cuts in public spending have been difficult for all local authorities. The New Strategic Direction was announced in July last year by Suffolk County Council. However we had to wait until November to find out that what it meant was that many services were to be “divested” to communities or outsourced.

 For smaller parishes the costs of running services like libraries would have a major impact on the parish portion of the council tax. In my own village of Capel St. Mary there would be a 62% increase in the parish precept.

 My group put forward an amendment at the County Council’s February budget meeting this year. Here are some of the services we were proposing to save at a total cost of £6.3m:

• Libraries
• Youth Clubs and Youth provision
• Subsidies to public transport services for Sundays, evenings and Bank Holidays
• Park and Ride Service from the Bury Road, Ipswich site
• Funding for the eXplore student card, which gives half price travel on buses up to age 19
• School Crossing Patrol Service
• Keep open all Household Waste Recycling Centres, instead of reducing them from 18 to 11
• Stop the divestment of the Fire Control Function to Huntingdon 

The amount needed to fund these services was found mainly from a combination of the use of a small amount of the £105m reserves, reducing business mileage and management costs. The public are asking why the council is storing up extra reserves whilst it is making severe cuts to frontline services. Since then the council has received an additional £4.4m from the Government for road repairs following the severe winter and £8.8m extra for social care.

Household Waste site update

The waste sites at Bramford and Chelmondiston have been given a stay of execution, along with four others, until July 31^st. We are hoping that there will be a major rethink on their closure. I attended a packed public meeting in Shotley recently where an audience member said that Northumberland closed a number of sites, but had to reopen them as the amount of fly tipping increased considerably.

Traffic calming in Sproughton

I’ve been working with the parish council and the County Council to evaluate measures designed to improve safety in the centre of the village. These include modifications to the Church Lane/Lower Street junction and “gateway” treatments for the three main entrances to the village centre. I have also raised the need for a pedestrian crossing on High Street. I realise that finding a suitable location for this may be difficult, however.

We are also looking at the possibility of flashing 30mph signs on the main entrances to the villages. These would be solar powered.

Sugar Beet site allocated for Commercial and Industrial Waste incinerator

The County Council adopted the “Waste Plan” at its March 17^th meeting. The sugar beet site was named as one of the four sites for incinerators, in spite of a number of environmental concerns which were mentioned in the Inspector’s report. The other three sites were Eye and two at Great Blakenham. I voted against the adoption of the plan as I remain opposed to incineration on the former Sugar Beet site. I also believe there are better techincal alternatives. The planning application was lodged earlier this year to build the Household Waste Incinerator at Great Blakenham. A decision is expected to be made in December. 

Suffolk One

The college opened in September and is a fantastic facility. However residents’ worries about the impact of car parking by both students and staff have proved to be correct. The full impact won’t be felt until July next year, of course, when the current students will be in their second year of A level studies and will be more likely to have passed their driving test. The situation will not be helped by the cancellation of the eXplore student discount card on April 1^st. The County Council is also planning to increase the cost of bus passes for 16-18 yr olds. The parish council and I have always said that parking spaces should be provided on site for students. This already happens at a number of other schools in Suffolk. This issue clearly won’t go away. I am also pressing for some kind of footway provision for students getting on and off buses at the stops on the A1071, as it is so dangerous for them to have to walk along this busy road to the college.

Update on eXplore card

Some good news at least. The number of signatures on the petition to reinstate the eXplore card has reached the required threshold and will be discussed again at a County Council meeting. Further news on this on Caroline Page’s blog.

Improvements to Copdock Mill interchange

Work is expected to start in late May to install lights at all the junctions on the Copdock Mill roundabout. A number of the local parish councils supported the view that the slip roads should remain free running, rather than being controlled by traffic lights, but it seems the Highways Agency know best – or so they believe!! They didn’t even have up to date figures on traffic flows on the A12 and A1214 on which to model their design.

At least I did manage to avert an even worse mistake, as the original plan was to put Ipswich bound traffic on the A12 in the queue with right turning traffic to Felixstowe. This would have created even longer tailbacks and encouraged more people to avoid the roundabout altogether and travel through Copdock/Washbrook, Belstead and Sproughton.  

Consultations

The council has been carrying out a number of consultations over the last few months. These are available on the County Council website: www.suffolk.gov.uk under Council and Democracy. Some of the current consultations include:

• Libraries – until 30^th April. The council has designated 29 of its libraries as Community libraries and the other 15 as County libraries. Community libraries will close unless someone comes forward to run them. County libraries will be sold off in 2014.
• Integrated Risk Management Plan – until 5^th May. This is the document which specifies plans and savings within the Fire Service

Consultations which have closed include home to school transport, youth clubs and care homes. 

The future of care homes

The County Council went out to consultation on the future of care homes earlier this year. Three options were on offer: Sell all 16 as going concerns, close 6 and sell the rest or close all the homes. Understandably this has caused a great deal of upset for current residents and their relatives. We will now have to wait until May for a decision to be made as it was deferred by the Cabinet at their March meeting.

Bus services and concessionary fares

Buses seem to be particularly under fire as evening, Sunday and some weekday services have been cut. Details of the changes are here: http://www.suffolkonboard.com/news/changes_to_public_transport_services_april_2011

Also concessionary pass holders do not get free travel until after 9.30am, now that the County Council has taken over the running of the service. Free fares have ended completely on Park and Ride and concessionary fare holders must now pay half fare.

Applying for a new bus pass is not easy now either. No longer can you go along to Hadleigh to get your pass renewed at the District council offices. Instead the County Council has outsourced the service to a company called Euclid, who are based in Waterlooville in Hampshire. There is no information on either the County Council’s website or in the leaflet they sent out about how to renew your pass. I have already had complaints that people have had to wait several weeks for their new pass. The number to call is 02392 242954. 

National Grid and route for pylons

We are still waiting for National Grid to announce their preferred route for the new pylons. Both they and the IET have been reviewing the cost of undergrounding and we still hope that they will relent! What many people still don’t realise is that this power is being taken across Suffolk and Essex to London and the South East – so there is no benefit to local people at all!.

With more and more power being generated on or off the coast the feasibility of an offshore Supergrid becomes more of a reality. However the switching technology is still being developed, and is still at least a year away. In the meantime Scottish Power, who are building the latest windfarm off the East coast, are proposing to put their High Voltage DC cables underground from the coast to the substation at Bramford. So it can be done! Unfortunately the DC to AC converter station will be massive.

E-petitions

At the beginning of the year, the County Council launched e-petitioning. Members of the public can create, and sign petitions in order to bring an issue to the Council’s attention.

The system works on the basis that once a petition achieves 3,675 signatures the issue will have to be brought to Full Council and debated.  This had already happened with the petition to save school crossing patrols and household waste sites. Petitions can be found here: http://petitions.web-labs.co.uk/suffolkcc/public/