Every little helps....................Tesco’s shareholders

Every little helps..........................................Tesco’s shareholders

The future is supermarkets Bolsover’s Labour leader Eion Watts would have us believe; Tesco’s in Clowne and Shirebrook, Morrison’s in Bolsover, he’s pushing his overfull trolley to a gleaming future. Sir Terry Leahy, the old boss of Tesco’s would agree with him he’s happy to be quoted as saying that the closures of smaller shops and businesses are a positive progression for our economy.

If Eion drives his Merc down to the Gander lane distribution depot in Barlborough he might be a little surprised that the 400 workers just made redundant by Tesco’s “re-structuring” have a rather different opinion.

This is the reality of supermarkets; they are not in it for communities. They profess ignorance when horsemeat is found in their beef burgers; drive prices so far down that diary farmers go out of business, exploit public funding for apprenticeships, require workers to be available 24/7 and then relocate their depots with the minimum consultation period.

Is this the future we really want for our towns? We do have a choice in the matter – we could have a Council that fights to protect local shops and diverse local businesses and plans for a thriving high street and busy markets; or we can elect a Council that puts its faith in the likes of Terry Leahy. The choice is ours, but remember if you play in the dirt, you get dirty.   

Value for money?

We hear a lot of wittering from Eion Watts and co about attendance at Bolsover Council meetings and I wouldn’t want anyone to be misled. So here are the facts taken from the Council's  own published records for 2011/12.  If I was the leader of his party I'd stopped pointing at other people.

 

What gets more time in a Bolsover DC meeting – M1 congestion or a proposal to tax the poorest people in the District?

If you want to see what people value look where they spend their time. At this morning’s Council meeting the members of Bolsover spent nearly an hour considering the impact of opening up the hard shoulder of the M1 to traffic. Members queued up to tell the professionals from the Highways agency what to do with their scheme.  The truth as we all know, is that without a proper transport policy whatever you do with the current roads, king car will choke them,  a reality that has eluded this government just as it eluded the last one.

Ultimately it didn’t really matter, Bolsover DC is not in charge of motorways, (just imagine), and it was only a consultation. Later on the agenda came something that Bolsover DC certainly is in charge of; deciding whether the 4,000 poorest families in the District should continue to get their Council tax paid in full. Suddenly all those strident voices had nothing to say, they meekly stared at their beautiful desks. In a re-run of the Poll Tax the Executive of this Labour-controlled Council wants everyone on benefit to pay about £85. They weren’t every dissuaded when I pointed out that the costs of collecting this at £25,000 pa was more than the revenue that the District would receive from it!

The Leader Eion Watts made some remarks about how very sorry he was, and how dreadful the government was, and then got quite annoyed that I dared to list some of the 100+ Council’s who are standing up to the Government and are not levying this tax.  He also tried to defend the Councillors highest basic allowances in the country, which I hadn’t even mentioned, but you know what a guilty mind is like.

Will they ever smell the coffee?

Amazed, astonished and baffled

All term used by Cllr Macgregor (Labour) of Bolsover DC in the six press releases issued last year regarding benefit fraud (the last one being on the 16^th January 2013). Cameron and Osborne must be delighted that by making sure the local headlines are full of terms like “benefit cheats” it is so much easier for him and his chums to slash welfare spending on “scroungers” whilst handing out tax cuts to millionaires.

The truth as Bolsover Councillors (should) know is that for every £1 lost in benefit fraud £17 goes unclaimed because people are too frightened to claim them. For comparison another £15 is lost in tax fraud and £70 in tax avoidance). But during the year not a single press release was issued to encourage benefit take-up let alone show a comparison with tax fraud.

So why is Cllr Macgregor all of a dither over this? Is it because in 2001 it was reported in the Guardian that he was “being investigated by fraud squad officers in Derbyshire over allegations that he used his position as head of a regeneration trust in a rundown mining area to line his own pocket”? The article went on to say “further investigations revealed that on numerous occasions between 1997 and last year, Mr MacGregor's separate expenses for representing Bolsover district council and the regeneration trust showed him to be in different parts of the country at the same time”, and that as a result he along what another person “agreed to pay £5,000 each and legal costs of £16,000 to Creswell parish council”. See: http//www.guardian.co.uk/society/2001/may/04/regeneration.communities

What is amazing, astonishing and baffling is that Councillor Macgregor still has a seat on Bolsover DC at all let alone that he has been given a Cabinet position for Corporate Efficiencies (some irony here methinks). It would be nice if he showed some empathy for those on the sharp end of the Tory cuts, but instead he, along with his colleagues, are quite content to continue to rake in the highest basic allowances of any District Councillors in the Country.

When you live in a glass house and continue to throw stones and denigrate others it is not surprising that you end up amazed, astonished and baffled.

Fair Trade - its time for Bolsover!

I have failed to get Cllr Watts leader of Bolsover DC, to express any enthusiasm for adopting the living wage so I thought I have a go at asking him to consider oppressed workers in other countries and commit the District to becoming a Fair Trade area. Here's a draft resolution I could ask him to endorse at the December council meeting - let me know if you have any comments on it.

Bolsover District Council aims to be recognised by its residents and business community, its suppliers and employees and other local authorities as a Council that actively supports and promotes the concept of Fairtrade – ensuring that producers from all countries get a fair price for their goods and labour.

The Council resolves to:

• Review the Council's own purchasing policies to ensure that the Council purchases Fairtrade where possible.
• Offer Fairtrade tea/coffee at Council meetings and in its offices and restaurants where these are currently provided.
• Work with local Fairtrade Network in its work of achieving Fairtrade County status by nominating a Council member / officer to liaise with the Steering Group on a regular basis.
• Promote awareness of Fairtrade issues, and make publicity and educational information available to local people concerning the worldwide impact of unfair trade and the opportunities that Fairtrade provides to promote sustainable development.
• Promote Fairtrade issues and practices amongst local business, and commercial and other organisations.

All Animals are Equal

The Orwellianly named “Optimisation Developments Ltd” (who are actually a subsidiary of Morrison’s) has just submitted an updated assessment along with some pretty minor revisions to both development proposals for Bolsover. I don’t know if they ever bother to check what they write but they state:

•      “In summary, the proposal will result in the demolition of an ‘Undesignated Heritage Asset’ within the Conservation Area and the development of an area of Identified Open Space. However, this will not impact on the special character and appearance of the Conservation Area and it will not prejudice the overall provision of open space in the town.

It’s the old smoke and mirrors act; here’s a green space; here’s a development on it; and....... abracadabra....... here’s a town that has not lost any green space. (Pause for applause and swooning). Who are they trying to kid? Some Councillors may be taken in but if the Secretary of State gets to appoint an Inspector he, or she, will expect to see slightly better reasoning than this desperate attempt to magic away a fundamental breach of the National Planning Policy Framework.

More interestingly in their rush to justify the sacking, sorry, development of Bolsover, they let slip that they produced designs back in December 2011 which kept both the Green and Sherwood Lodge. Obvioulsy they weren’t going to do anything so foolish as to share them with the public.

And the reason why they concluded they had to tarmac the green and demolish the lodge?......As we have said all along without their precious petrol station the site would be uneconomic. Their justification for which is on a par with the one that my children used to use.......”Tesco’s have one at Clowne”. Apparently it’s not enough that the store will be bigger than all the independent shops put together, they want their petrol sales as well. Next they’ll be demanding that the traffic is diverted to pass through the store as seems to have happened in Clay Cross I notice. Is this the society you want to live in where all the shots are called by big business and the elected Councillors simply go along with them?

However they have cleared up one little fact for us how many trees would be lost. And I’m the first to admit I got it wrong. Counting all the little circles on their map I made it 100 trees......in fact now they have been asked outright they have been forced to come clean and admit its 130. By a strange coincidence if the Caroline Spellman the former Minister is right every tree in an urban area confers £38,000 of economic and social benefits  http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/jun/15/caroline-spelman-interview-green-growing-rio20?newsfeed=true It means that far from investing in the town they are not only taking out a million pounds a year if profit for their City shareholders, and the felling of 130 trees will at a stroke take another £5Million in benefit.

As for the other minor amendments it’s a little like being told, we’re going to shoot you, but we’ve heard that you don’t feel very good about it so we thought we’d consult you over the design of the gun we’re going to use. It makes very little difference

At the end of the day just like the banks Morrison’s are simply trying to make as much money as they can and to tilt the pitch completely in their direction. The purpose of an elected Council is to balance their interests with those of the residents and traders in the town and to avoid all the problems that occurred with the banks from being replayed here in Bolsover. However for some people, as Orwell observed, “To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.”

One rule for you......

I understand that following my blog revealing Bolsover Council's decision to splash the cash on a new civic car for the Chairman it has now been decided that other Councillors can book the car to attend their meetings as well.

Curiously the idea of providing pool cars is nearly what I proposed at a recent Council meeting when it was rejected out of hand. I say "nearly", because I proposed a fleet of high efficiency, low emission cars that could be used by staff not one 7 seat luxury car for Councillors. Spot the difference?

I'll keep working on it.....

Tale of two towns

This is a letter I have sent to the Derbyshire Times.

A tale of two towns.

Cllr Watts, leader of Bolsover DC says he hopes to turn Bolsover into the Bakewell of North Derbyshire. Well it’s fine to have a dream, but the real world is shaped by hard decisions and the simple truth is that better ones are being made by Derbyshire Dales Council.

That Council is opening, not closing, public toilets in Bakewell and they fund a ten day long arts festival in the town, (instead of our excellent, but limited, two day festival held in Shirebrook). We can only be envious of Bakewell’s swimming pool, Fairtrade status, funding for a hydro-electric scheme and better recycling record. However it is the relationships of the Council to its local business that is most enlightening. In Bakewell traders have told the Council that a new supermarket would not benefit their town, where-as in Bolsover, even before a planning application has been submitted, the Deputy Leader is “delighted” to announce that Morrison’s are coming without any apparent regard for the impact on traders.

Derbyshire Dales is far from perfect but at least they seemed to have grasped that the purpose of a Council is to work with, not against, local people. It’s no surprise that their Councillors accepted independent advice and take a basic allowance of £4,100pa, not the £10,000pa that the Labour group in Bolsover pushed through.

Since I was elected I have tried to encourage ordinary people to get involved in Bolsover Council meetings. It’s not easy, and Tim Levers was just the latest to experience the indifference and hostility shown to anyone who tries to engage the labour group in debate. However Tim was, and is, absolutely right to point out that public toilets are not a nicety but an essential service for the most vulnerable in our community. As the only Councillor to vote against closure I’m pleased to offer what support I can and am full of admiration for Tim’s actions. He is not alone, BADGL are also challenging the Council’s proposals to allow green space to be developed. All these people give their own free time, without any payment or expenses because they simply want to build a better Bolsover may-be that’s why the letters pages are so supportive of them. If we really want to become the Bakewell of the North the Labour group have to learn to listen, put all the information they hold in the public domain and engage residents in a proper debate before making decisions.

Cllr Duncan Kerr, Green Party

High hopes for Shirebrook

Getting Green Councillors elected to District Councils normally takes years of hard work, building local support and explaining green party policies. My own election in Whitwell was very unusual as I only decided to stand a couple of months before the election was due however I know that my work for Whitwell against Alkane was a very significant factor in getting me elected.

On the 25th August there is a by-election in Shirebrook and the Green Party is delighted to be able to field one of the hardest working and dedicated candidates I have ever met:  Ian Musgrove. However there is no "Alkane" factor but we still finding that residents are genuinely impressed by Ian's refreshing approach and trust him to deliver for Shirebrook.

One green victory deep in Labour territory can be put down to chance, two victories however starts to feel like something more significant. We are all working very hard to make the 25th August a great night for the Green Party in Shirebrook, Bolsover and Derbyshire.