Last year I took part in an in-depth review of the Demand for School Meals in Warwickshire, which resulted in the acceptance by the county council Cabinet of a wide range of recommendations to improve school meals and promote healthy eating. The background to this was of course the Jamie Oliver programmes on TV, that had had the unfortunate consequence of putting people off school meals across the country, so that demand was down and many local authorities school meals services had been pushed into deficit.

Yesterday at the Children Young People & Families Overview & Scrutiny Committee we had our first review of how our recommendations had been followed through in practice. There has been limited but real progress in some areas, and the good news is that demand is creeping back up again and deficits are reducing. A lot more remains to be done, though, and we shall review progress again in another six months.

I have long been a supporter of the K2L cycle route between Kenilworth & Leamington, and have been frustrated that it has not yet been able to gain funding priority within the county’s Local Transport Plan - although it is highlighted as an opportunity to pursue if and when funding becomes available. My colleague Cllr. Eithne Goode (Liberal Democrat, Leamington North) is a long time advocate of the scheme on the county council, and has been instrumental in at least getting street lighting improvements over the Chesford Bridge along the route.

A plan came to the county council Cabinet today to install traffic signals on the Thickthorn Roundabout over the A46, one of the current obstacles to cyclists on the K2L route, and I was pleased to obtain assurances that provision for cyclists will be considered during the design phase of the project, and that any changes will not compromise future cycleway plans. I hope that in practice we can do better than this, as the signalisation project offers the opportunity to improve matters for cyclists seeking to negotiate this difficult roundabout.

I am a governor at St. John’s Primary School and Nursery in Mortimer Road, Kenilworth. The road is part of the diversionary route for buses and other vehicles during the 25 week closure of the Warwick Road which commenced yesterday morning.

It was therefore the worst possible morning for the usual school crossing patrol person to be away ill, as traffic volumes were much higher than normal. Conditions were so difficult for children and parents crossing that the headteacher ended up going out and stopping the traffic personally - far from an ideal state of affairs.

Luckily in the afternoon the local police Safer Neighbourhoods team were able to respond with a PCSO on duty, and this morning the sergeant did the honours, for which the school was extremely grateful. Hopefully our usual crossing person will be back on Monday.

What this demonstrated was that there is no back-up available in the system at all, not even in such exceptional circumstances. The county council’s Road Safety Unit, who manage the school crossing service, could provide absolutely no one to cover on an emergency basis. While the legal position is clear, that parents are responsible for their children’s safety until they reach the school gate, the reality is that many families come to depend on the school crossing service to enable their children to walk to and from school unaccompanied.

I plan to take this matter up with Cllr. Martin Heatley, the county council’s Cabinet Member responsible for the Environment. While I know resources are tight, the safety of our school-age children must be a paramount concern for all elected members.

The final and most disruptive stage of the Severn Trent sewerage replacement scheme started in Kenilworth on Thursday morning, with the closure of the Warwick Road to through traffic for a period of up to 25 weeks. The first morning was inevitably a little difficult as motorists found they way through the various diversion routes, but already today things seem a bit better. It’s amazing how quickly people adapt.

In the meantime the work on the new Waitrose store and carpark is advancing well, slightly ahead of schedule at present, and the re-vamp of the Talisman Square shopping precinct is also in progress. Next month the works commence on the various road layout changes necessary to to support these developments.

So it’s all happening in Kenilworth at the moment, and most people recognise the need for a bit of “pain” for a lot of future “gain”. The town centre shops and businesses are facing a tough time just now of course, and deserve the support of local residents to ensure they are there for the future.

The Kenilworth Town Centre Partnership, on which I represent the County Council, this week launched a “Count on Kenilworth” campaign to promote the town and local shops/businesses and a wide range of activities going on in the town over the next few months. The message is that Kenilworth is still very much open for business!

Although I am a strong believer in the realities of global warming and its impact on our planet, the year to year vagaries of our British weather never fail to amaze.

This was the scene we woke up to this morning, a thick blanket of snow. On the equivalent Sunday last year, Easter Sunday as it happened, we had a family barbecue in the garden on a lovely warm day - not today I think!

I had confirmation today that county council officers are pushing ahead with preliminary design work for a pelican crossing at Beehive Hill, Kenilworth - good news that I was able to share with the St. Augustine’s School parents’ action group and headmistess, who have been campaigning with me to make the case for a crossing on this difficult and dangerous road for school children.

We must of course be patient while the necessary processes of consultaion and final design work are completed, but I am very hopeful that the crossing will be in place before the end of the year. If this is achieved, it will have been one of the fastest (successful) crossing campaigns in Warwickshire’s history!

Fantastic news today! The County Council announced that it had reached agreement with Arriva CrossCountry, the new train operator of rail services thorugh the town, to  become partners in the development of a business case for a station in Kenilworth.

The Liberal Democrats have always been strong advocates of a station for Kenilworth, right back since the early 1970’s when my predecessor Haydn Thomas first started raising the issue at council. The local Conservatives have been rather lukewarm on this issue in the past, but more recently have supported the case also. The people of Kenilworth, when asked, have always come out strongly in favour - as we found in 2006, when the Lib Dems raised a 521-signature petitition to send to the Department of Transport (DfT). This petition was specifically mentioned in the documentation subsequently sent out by the DfT to potential train operators, and I would like to think helped contribute to today’s good news.

The outline business case produced by the county council in 2006 showed a good potential return, and I am confident that the detailed work now starting will confirm and strengthen the argument. I shall certainly carry on doing everything I can to support the scheme going forward.