I took part today in a special Environment Scrutiny meeting today, reviewing proposals for Warwickshire CC to join Coventry CC and Solihull BC in the development of a major new “Energy from Waste” plant to replace the current Coventry residual waste incinerator. The decision as to whether to proceed with an application for goverment PFI funding for the project will be taken by the WCC Cabinet on Thursday and the Full Council next week.

The meeting, which I pushed for, was held in public, and with inputs from members of the public as well as officers and supporting consultants.

The outcome of the meeting was a unanimous recommendation to increase the underlying recycling and composting assumptions behind the plan, which should reduce the required size of any future residual waste facility. It’s up to the Cabinet and Full Council now to decide whether or not to accept this recommendation.

Today’s announcement by the Government that it is to scrap all national schools tests (SATS) for 14 year olds from next year is welcome but long overdue. It seems (despite denials) that it has taken this summer’s marking fiasco to force a decision which the teaching profession has long called for.

However, it seems that national tests for 11 year olds will carry on, and presumably therefore the whole system of school league tables which is so counterproductive and divisive, and largely irrelevant to the education progress of individual pupils. Why won’t the Government listen to teachers about this as well?

The Post office announced its decision today to confirm the closure of the Albion Street, Kenilworth Post Office.

It’s a very sad day for the local community in the Albion Street area, who had demonstrated clearly its support for the current branch through survey responses, petitions, letters to the Post Office and Postwatch and attendance at the public meeting in July.

Some elderly and vulnerable residents are going to be very badly affected by this decision, which is based purely on cost-cutting rather than meeting the needs of the community.

The Post Office’s decision document released today also makes no reference whatsoever to the knock-on effects on other shops and businesses in the Albion Street area when the post office branch closes. Many local shopkeepers are very worried about this.

I have today asked county council officers to pick up the Outreach Services alternative again as a matter of urgency, to see if it could offer a solution to keeping some sort of local service to residents in the Albion Street area.

In my role as vice-chair of the Children’s, Young People & Families Overview & Scrutiny Committee, I presented the committee’s recommendations to the County Council’s meeting today. The Cabinet approved the recommendations unamended.

The issue of personal data security has become a critical one over the past year, following a number of well-publicised losses of data by both central and local government. It is essential that the county council ensures that its own processes and safeguards are as tight as they can be, and the Portfolio Holder promised that our recommendations would be fed into a review team that was already working on this.

There was wide support for our recommendation to challenge the need for central government to collect data on children, young people and families that is not anonymous. If the requirement is only for statistical analysis there is no justification for this.

The saga of the review of secondary education in Nuneaton & Bedworth took another unexpected turn at today’s meeting of the Conservative Cabinet of the county council.

After eight months of review, debate and consultation, the Cabinet had been presented with detailed proposals to renew and redevelop secondary school provision in Nuneaton & Bedworth district. The proposals were controversial but had a clear logic behind them, with the most contentious area being in East and Central Nuneaton, where declining pupil numbers argued for two schools rather than the current three. Wrapped up in all the proposals was the apparent opportunity to achive early release of BSF (Building Schools for the Future) funding from the government, and also the assertion that this would only be possible if at least one Academy was included.

At the Cabinet meeting today these proposals were unexpectedly replaced with a new set of recommendations, which ducked the contentious issue of three schools into two, and called for more analysis and discussion pending the opportunity to find out what the latest government thinking was on both BSF and Academy funding - the goverment seems to moving the goalposts yet again.

I am not in favour of Academies in principle, nor are the Liberal Democrats as a national party - nor by his own admission is the Conservative leader of the council, and many other members of all parties. Yet they are basing their whole strategy around academies on the grounds that this is what the government wants - ignoring the Conservative party’s advice yesterday to councils to stop co-operating with the Labour government on policies they don’t agree with! The only remaining question seems to be is it two Academies or only one?

In the meantime, the uncertainty hanging over Nuneaton schools - staff, pupils and parents - is allowed to continue on into the Autumn. A very sorry state of affairs.

Yesterday the Post Office announced its list of 51 branches it proposes to close acorss Birmingham, Coventry and Warwickshire.

Good news locally is that the High Street Kenilworth branch is not on the list, despite being earmarked earlier on a leaked map that was rapidly withdrawn and denied by the Post Office. A massive campaign of support for the High Street branch, a 2,000 signature petition presented to the Town Council by my colleague Cllr. Ann Blacklock, and publicity from our Lib Dem MEP Liz Lynne and prospective parliamentary candidate Nigel Rock all seem to have been successful.

Bad news is that the Post Office has simply transferred its attention to the next available branch, in Albion Street Kenilworth. This branch, based in the local One Stop shop, serves a local community with a high proportion of elderly people and low levels of car ownership - a community which very much depends on local shopping to provide its basic needs, sustaining a greengrocer, butcher and breadshop/delicatessen.

This morning I shall be outside the Albion Street branch with fellow councillors Ann Blacklock and Pat Ryan, gauging local people’s reactions to the news and gathering their comments and views as to how this proposed closure would affect their lives. We can then decide our best line of counter-attack.

This week’s meeting of the County Council Cabinet showed the ruling Conservative group in total disarray.

First they rejected their own proposals  for restructuring and reorganising the management of Youth & Community Service premises across the county. The Lib Dem group had already made it clear we would “call in” the decision for scrutiny review if it had gone through, but in the end this was not necessary.

Then they took a number of decisions about secondary education in Nuneaton & Bedworth that conflicted with or went totally against previous decisions or pronouncements - notably deciding suddenly (and with no word of explanation) to withdraw support for the co-location of two colleges in Nuneaton town centre. The knock-on effect of the new decision was to kill the project to build a new library in Nuneaton, which they had fought for vociferously against Lib Dem and Labour opposition - we had said it was not good value.

The most likely reason for the complete change of direction in Nuneaton is that the local borough council had recently been won by the Tories from Labour, and there was disagreement between the Tory borough and county groups.

What a shambles!

Despite my personal intervention in the Crewe & Nantwich by-election - i.e. spending a day pounding pavements there on Wednesday - I’m afraid the Lib Dems didn’t do as well as we hoped, suffering the classic “third party squeeze” on our vote. Travelling around the constituency it was clear that the Conservatives had won the poster battle, and this was reflected in the votes cast on the day.

A pity - we had an excellent candidate, but it seems that voters were intent on giving Gordon Brown a “kicking”, and had decided that the best way to do this was to vote Tory. By-elections always magnify trends, and this time it didn’t favour us. The next one (Henley), however, may be very different!

Yesterday I fell foul of the ”Sort It” rules governing the new recycling and waste collection rules imposed by Tory-controlled Warwick District Council!

I put out my green (garden waste) bin for collection, together with another bag of garden waste - something that previously I had done many times before. But no, under the new rules the extra bag is not allowed, and I received a stern warning notice stuck to my green bin detailing my sins!

And yet, under the new red box (household recycling) rules introduced at the same time, I would be allowed to put as many extra bags out as I wanted alongside the red box(es) -but if the extra bags were of glass bottles and jars they could not be in the purpose-designed bags provided by the council. No, these are for plastic bottles and cardboard only! The extra bags have to be plastic bags, which of course we have far fewer of now that we all take re-useable bags for supermarket shopping ………

Confused? Well I am.

Talking to one of the red box collection men out on their rounds today, I asked him if things were getting better after the first month or so of the new scheme. His “no!” answer was not a great surprise!

However, I’m lucky compared with some poor souls who have had no grey bin (residual household waste) collections at all since the new scheme started.

The message to the Tory-controlled district council is clear - “Sort It”, quickly!

Caring for older people is one of the top priorities for local councils, as the demographic changes (increasing average age of population, increasing percentages of older people with dementia etc) put massive demands on resources and current facilities.

I attended a seminar on this subject yesterday, which set out the County Council’s strategy which is due to be endorsed by the Cabinet next week. One of the key elements is the rapid introduction of an “Extra Care” accommodation option, not currently available in Warwickshire - essentially a form of sheltered accommodation allowing older people to continue to live independent lives, but with good support services on hand as and when needed. Residential homes will continue to be an important part of total provision, but increasingly specialising on care of older people with dementia.

This is a complex and emotive subject, but the issues it raises cannot be ducked. I think the senior officers responsible for the programme are on the right lines, and the strategy has my support.

Yesterday I went to a seminar to hear about the Warwickshire LINk, which is just being set up. LINks are independent of Councils and the Health Service, and are intended to provide a strong voice for local people in the planning, design and commissioning of Health and Social Care services.

The technology and facilities being set up to enable public participation are impressive - full details are on the web site www.communityvoicesonline.org.

Less clear was how the new structure would operate in overall governance terms, how it would set its priorities etc. The government’s view seems to me that this will emerge in line with local needs, but this approach risks a lot of wasted navel-gazing time in the early months. Far better would have been to have put up a standard model to begin with, and allowed each LINk to then adapt this over time as required.

On Wednesday I accompanied Nigel Rock, our Lib Dem PPC for Kenilworth & Southam constituency, to a meeting at the University of Warwick with the Registrar and the Community Relations Manager. Half of the university campus is within Warwickshire (the other half in Coventry), and within my electoral division of Kenilworth Abbey. In addition the university is a major local employer, with several hundred people in my division working there in one capacity or another.

We had an interesting wide-ranging discussion covering national and local issues. I was particularly interested to hear about the activities of the Warwick Volunteers, which unusually is run by the university rather than the students themselves, and which gets many undergraduate students directly involved in projects and activities supporting the local community.

Tomorrow Warwick District Council launches a major public consultation on the “Core Strategy” element of its Local Development Framework, which will set the broad framework of planning policies that will shape developments in the District up to 2026.

Within the context of the Government’s agenda of building 3 million more houses over the next 20 years, the question for Warwick District is very simple - where will all the houses go?

As a county rather than district councillor I shall be a consultee rather than a decision maker in this vital process. When I have had the opportunity to read all the papers thoroughly I will comment further.

At the Annual Meeting of the County Council yesterday, the Conservative leader announced a number of changes to his Cabinet, to serve for the next year and until the county elections in May 2009.

The most striking change was the removal of a Cabinet member specifically for Schools, with these responsibilities now being subsumed entirely within the much broader responsibilities of a single Cabinet member for Children Young People and Families.

While understanding the statutory requirement for a single lead member with Executive responsibility for Children, Young People and Families, I do not see why the Schools portfolio could not have been retained in a separate but subservient position - there are precedents in national government for this. Certainly the change could reinforce the view of many people in the Warwickshire education world that the focus on schools has been diluted in the move towards more integrated working with Children’s Social Services.

The new Cabinet seems to me to be even more unbalanced, with the two members for Adult Services and Children Services respectively responsible for the vast proportion of the County’s expenditure, while the other eight Cabinet members cover a variety of other roles, some better defined than others.

The local press ran a lead story a week ago quoting Cllr. Norman Vincett, the leader of the Conservative-controlled town council, saying that plans for a  ”showpiece” civic centre at Smalley Place in Kenilworth were in trouble. This was confirmed at the Town Assembly on Thursday evening, when Cllr. Vincett admitted that current plans were financially unacceptable and unaffordable, but that work was continuing although no timescales could be promised.

I find it unacceptable to hear such news via the press, when I am a member of a joint Steering Group of county, district and town councillors that is supposed to be co-ordinating efforts to secure this prize for the people of Kenilworth. Until last May, under the then Lib Dem/Labour administration, a senior District Council officer was driving the project hard and keeping everyone regularly informed of progress. Since the Conservatives won the District Council, project leadership has effectively transferred to the County Council (also Tory controlled), but all sense of urgency and real commitment seems to have disappeared, while non-Tory members of the joint Steering Group have been kept largely in the dark.

The Lib Dem group here in Kenilworth has been forced to go on the attack, accusing the ruling Conservatives of letting down local residents by not being prepared to put up any “new” money to make this showpiece a reality - despite having moaned for years when they were in opposition on the District Council that Kenilworth “did not get its fair share”!

I spent most of Thursday over in Harbury, helping Liberal Democrat Bev Mann in her campaign to unseat the Conservative incumbent in the Stratford District Council elections. Bev is fairly new to the Lib Dems, but very well known locally after six years as a parish councillor, and coming from a long-established local family.

The result was incredibly close, but ended up with Bev winning the seat by a margin of 11 votes (861 votes to 850). Perhaps those last few people that I “knock up” at 9 o’clock at night made all the difference!

Anyway, winning is a great feeling, especially as the Lib Dems made a total of five gains from the Tories across Stratford District as a whole. I’m off to the post-election party tonight, which will definitely be quite a celebration!

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.

Yesterday was the first day of British Summer Time and a lovely sunny day. I went for a walk with my wife along the newly-surfaced section of the Connect 2 Kenilworth Greenway route - from the Coventry Road nearly to Burton Green and back. Things still look a bit bare along the route with so much clearance of undergrowth having taken place, but things will quickly grow back. What was great was to be able to walk the whole route in normal shoes without getting our feet wet - the new walking and cycling surface is a major improvement on the previous muddy mess!

A lot of local people were out enjoying the new path as well - word is spreading quickly. We saw a lot of dog walkers of course, but also cyclists (adults and children), parents with buggies, and others like us just walking unencumbered. It was great to see that the new Greenway is proving a hit already.

It’s the last day of March today, and I haven’t posted anything to this web site for a month. What have I been doing?

Well, at the beginning of the month we took a short holiday, driving down to the Languedoc region of Southern France where we have a holiday property. Since getting back things have been pretty hectic with council business, then of course Easter intervened - with the focus switching to family and friends for a while.

So, no posts for a month, but I’m back in business now!

With a number of high profile data loss stories very much in the news recently, the spotlight has fallen on the vast quantities of personal information being routinely collected by central Government on children young people and families. Most of the data is collected and transmitted to central government by local councils, who however have no discretion in the matter - the data requirements are enshrined in law.

County councillors reviewed the full extent of central government’s data requirements this week in our Scrutiny Committee - see the committee papers at:

www.warwickshire.gov.uk/AgendaManagementSheet26-2-08

Although I accept the need for central government decision making to be based on statistically sound data, what they ask for today is already overkill and yet still growing. For school children in particular, there can be no justification for the data to identify names and addresses. Each pupil is already allocated a UPN (unique pupil number) when they enter the school system, which should be quite enough.

I think our concerns about this whole system are entirely justified, and I shall be supporting strongly all efforts to get central government to change course. 

On Monday we had yet another Government initiative on ‘failing schools’, with Ed Balls threatening to put hit-squads into any school not achieving at least 30% of students with 5+ A*-C grades at GCSE including English and Maths.

As chance would have it, the very next day the WCC Childrens Young People & Families Overview & Scrutiny Committee was reviewing the Key Stage 4 (i.e. GCSE) performance of Warwickshire schools. We are fortunate to have very few schools at around the 30% achievement level or less, but those that are serve some of the most deprived communities in the county.

Has Ed Balls not heard of the ‘Contextual Value Added’ (CVA) measure of achievement, which is the main yardstick used by Ofsted and most people who understand education? Why do he and his civil servants persist in looking at raw attainment scores? CVA is the best measure we have of the real impact a school has on its pupils - i.e. is the quality of pupil they turn out better than what they take in.

The irony is that at least one Warwickshire school that might be on Ed Balls’ hit list is nearly the top-performing school in the county in terms of CVA, with an inspirational head and excellent leadership team.

I wish national goverment would just set the ground rules and leave local people to get on with the job. Some hope …… !

Last week I attended a SACRE meeting held in the Chapter House at Coventry Cathedral. The venue was wonderful of course, especially as we were given a guided tour of the cathedral before the meeting. What an inspiring place it is.

SACRE is a most interesting body, with representation from all the faith groups represented in Warwickshire schools, including Humanists and most recently Pagans. It has a number of statutory duties, advising the local authority on matters connected with religious worship and education in schools

Yesterday I took part in a large demonstration of support for the High Street Post Office in Kenilworth, which is potentially threatened with closure. My Lib Dem councillor colleagues Ann Blacklock and Pat Ryan were there as well, plus the local (Tory) M.P. and over 100 local residents. There was good press and local TV coverage of the event.

The previous week we had brought our Lib Dem West Midlands MEP Liz Lynne, plus Nigel Rock our local prospective parliamentary candidate, to meet Anne Williams the post mistress and to sign her petition.

The Post Office themselves are saying that nothing is decided yet, and in fact public consultation has been put back to June - so we must stay on our guard. I’m quite clear that all the five remaining post offices in Kenilworth provide an important service to their local communities, and we must fight attempts to close any of them.

I visited the Kenilworth Greenway yesterday to see how the works were progressing on the stretch between the Coventry Road and Hollis Lane. All of the encroaching undergrowth has been cleared and the track levelled, on which is to be constructed a 2.5 metre wide walking and cycling path with a grass verge alongside for horse riders.

This work is being funded by the County Council as part of its contribution to the overall Connect2 Kenilworth scheme, and is going ahead now while we wait for the release of the new funding from the Big Lottery Fund.

Right now it looks a bit of a mess, of course, but I am assured by the Countryside Rangers that it will soon regain its natural charm much loved of local people, but with the new path offering all year round and all-weather access.

I attended the Kenilworth Town Council meeting on Thursday evening, something I do only occasionally - partly because their meetings sometimes clash with other commitments, but also because curiously I have no real role to perform there anyway.

When I attend meetings of the parish council that covers part of my electoral division - i.e. Burton Green and the University - I have a regular slot on the agenda and the opportunity to speak and contribute on any item under discussion. At town council meetings, however, I am effectively a member of the public. This can be frustrating when the town council is discussing a subject that I know a lot about, and where a shortage of real facts is apparent!

The problem is that county and district councillors are usually also town councillors, and the town council doesn’t really know how to interface with them if (like me) they are not. This issue is not unique to Kenilworth - county councillor colleagues from other towns in Warwickshire tell me they experience similar issues.

I think there’s often too much formality surrounding council proceedings anyway. At our Area Committee meetings at the County Council we’ve managed to strip away most of this, to good effect I think, and made ourselves more accessible to the general public as a result.

Spotted in Burton Green during my ‘Focus’ delivery round today - lots of brand new green bins being delivered to householders ahead of the new recycling service which commences in April. This helps to address a long standing grievance of Burton Green residents, that they were left out when the original green bin scheme was rolled out to Kenilworth and other areas some years ago.

It will also help alleviate the problems experienced by a number of Burton Green residents who have contacted me, that they are banned from taking garden waste to the Kenilworth recycling centre because they drive the wrong sort of vehicle - namely a pick-up. In a quite arbitrary ruling, these are treated as “vans” (and therefore carrying chargeable trade waste), while a large closed-in 4×4 is treated as a car! I have tried my best to get this ruling overturned by the County Council, but officers and the Conservative Cabinet member for the Environment have refused to budge.

Today I attended the Youth Parliament Election Results event at Kenilworth’s De Montfort Hotel. 29 young people from across Warwickshire had put themselves forward for election for 8 positions - 4 members and 4 substitutes. After a record number of votes, up 19% on last year, the winning candidates were chosen. I congratulated the new members personally and gave certificates and thank you gifts to the outgoing members.

An early task for the new members will be to meet the Young People’s Concessionary Travel review panel next month, and to give us their perspective on the needs of young people in Warwickshire. The Youth Parliament has been campaigning on this issue for three years now, so I was delighted that we could announce a major step forward for them today.

One of the key objectives of the Kenilworth Town Centre Partnership is to improve the pedestrian links between the castle and the town centre. Kenilworth Castle is a major tourist attraction, with visitor numbers likely to grow this year as the wonderful Elizabethan garden project nears completion. We want to encourage visitors to the castle to also visit the town, its shops, restaurants and other facilities.

Yesterday I met with two county officers at the castle to explore all the possible options for better pedestrian access, and in particular how to cross the busy Castle Road. It’s not easy, otherwise it would have been done a long time ago! However, we’re working closely with English Heritage on this, and I’m hopeful that between us we can come up with an acceptable and affordable solution.

Last year the Liberal Democrat group on the County Council won all-party support for a motion backing the importance of concessionary travel schemes for young people and urging action at national and local level.

I have been asked to chair an all-party panel of councillors to review this subject in depth, and to report our recommendations back to the Council. The panel held its first meeting yesterday to scope the work and establish our work plan.

An important input to our work will be the voices of young people themselves. Members of the Youth Parliament have already been campaigning on this issues nationally and locally, so we shall certainly want to hear from them, plus as wide a cross-section of other young people’s views as possible.

Yesterday brought new developments in the campaign to win a pelican crossing on Beehive Hill, Kenilworth on behalf of pupils and parents of St. Augustine’s School and Beehive Nursery and local residents.

I arranged a meeting between county officers and representatives of the School Crossing Action Group, with the opportunity for the officers to witness at first hand the problems and dangers for pedestrians - in this case at school finishing time. I feel that the meeting went some considerable way to convincing officers of the need for action.

We agreed a number of next steps, with the objective of bringing matters to a conclusion within the next month. This is a fight which I am determined to win!

Although Warwickshire didn’t suffer as badly as our neighbours Gloucestershire in last Summer’s catastrophic floods, we had it pretty bad in parts of the county. Since then, a lot of effort has gone into analying what happened and why, what measures should be taken to prevent or mitigate flooding, and how the various agencies involved can work better together.

As part of this effort, the Environment Overview & Scrutiny Committee has been looking at the subject in depth, and yesterday I met with Severn Trent and county officers to understand in particular the issues around surface water and drainage.

Good news is that in Tuesday’s budget debate the County council voted for an extra £1 million spending over 2 years on highway drainage - the Liberal Democrats voted with the Conservatives to get this agreed in the face of Labour opposition. The additional funding is a big increase on current spending levels, and should both tackle the backlog of regular maintenance activities (gulley flushing etc) plus new measures to deal with known “hot spots” around the county.

It was also clear to me how much scope there is for better co-ordination of activities and communications between agencies. This was highlighted in the interim Pitt Report (commissioned by the government), and will be a major focus of the final report due this Summer.

Well, the County Council has today agreed its budget for 2008/09, but not without a few surprises along the way!

For reasons only known to themselves, the Labour group chose not to release its proposals until 25 minutes before the start of the budget debate! This forced an unnecessary first adjournment to give time to take in the details. However, it was soon clear that Labour did not intend to compromise with anyone, so the rest of the day was spent with the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives hammering out a revised budget that both parties were willing to support - with Labour voting against.

Next year’s council tax increase will be 3.9%, but more importantly the Liberal Democrats succeeded in getting every single one of our budget proposals into the final agreement, albeit with some adjustments to amounts allocated in some cases.

An excellent day for the Lib Dem group, who demonstrated that we know how to play grown-up politics in a “hung council” situation even if Labour don’t!

The local Steering Group, set up as a result of a public meeting last month, held its first meeting this evening, to discuss the wide range of issues raised during that meeting and to start to formulate a local action plan.

We agreed on a snappy name - KICC - and some immediate tasks to pursue. We will meet again in three weeks time to push things along further.

One of my personal highlights last year was the opportunity to lead the Kenilworth Connect2 Steering Group, as we campaigned locally for public support and helped Sustrans Connect2 win an amazing £50 million prize from the Big Lottery Fund. The result was announced just before Christmas.

Today I met with Stuart Ikeringill (the county officer who will manage the local Connect2 project implementation) and Edward Healey of Sustrans to discuss next steps and the ongoing role of the Steering Group.

There’s a lot to be done, some of which will take some time to bring about, but some things can be started quite quickly. In fact, work to upgrade part of the existing Kenilworth Greenway started today!

I attended a regular management committee meeting of Warwickshire’s Pupil Reintegration Unit yesterday evening. The “PRU” operates county-wide as a single entity, out of five centres, and is there to help and educate pupils who have been excluded from school, with the objective of reintegrating them back into mainstream education as rapidly as possible. The PRU staff are a skilled and dedicated team, working with some often very troubled young people and achieving fantastic results.

In the past it has sometimes proved hard to get excluded pupils accepted back into mainstream schools, but much closer working with school heads under the county’s overall Behaviour Strategy is starting to break down these barriers. The objective for the PRU must be to see it as a “revolving door” - with the great majority of its pupils getting back into mainstream schooling as quickly as possible.

It’s Budget time again at the County Council! Yesterday we received the details of the budget proposed by the Conservative administration, and put the finishing touches to the budget proposals of the Liberal Democrat group. The full Council debate on the Budget is next Tuesday.

Because Warwickshire is a “hung” council with no overall majority for any political group, the reality of the budget process is usually that some form of agreement has to be hammered out between at least two of the parties. Last year’s budget was jointly agreed between Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Labour, but I think that the same is  unlikely to happen again this time.

As usual, it will probably be a long day next Tuesday ….. !

Youth Development Grants are awarded to voluntary organisations working with 11-25 year olds, and are managed and awarded at a district level. I have joined a new Panel of three councillors and six young people (from the local Youth Forum) which will meet regularly to agree how the grants should be awarded in future -some £50,000 a year in total for Warwick district.

We held our first meeting at Kenilworth Youth & Community Centre this evening, and will meet again in March. It is quite a responsibility that the young people involved are being asked to take on - it will be interesting to see how well they deal with it.

I attended an Extended Services conference in Warwick today. Extended Services is what used to be called Extended Schools, and is all about providing a range of services to children, young people and familes that “wrap around” the normal school day - using both school and other community facilities.

Schools have been grouped in “clusters” (e.g. a single cluster for Kenilworth), each with a cluster co-ordinator appointed to pull things together. In many cases it’s about better “sign-posting” of activities already in place within the schools or the community, but in some cases may lead to the development of new activities.

Early days, but I shall follow developments with interest.

I was consulted today about local government plans to establish “localities” at a level below current district areas - so that the three Kenilworth county divisions would consist of a single locality, for example. National government has been making a big thing about the localities agenda, but as usual it’s up to local government to try to make sense of the latest Whitehall idea!

The principle of trying to devolve power and decision-making closer to local communities is sound, but there are many pitfalls - in particular the risk of adding to existing structures rather than replacing them.

I’m still listening, but I remain to be convinced!

It was great to see the “Bold on Ice” skating rink in Abbey End, Kenilworth over the weekend. Local children (and some brave parents) seemed to be having a great time on it, plus the nearby trampolines.

Well done to the organisers for having the courage to try something new like this. It reminded me what a valuable public space Abbey End is, and how the town would benefit if better use were made of it.

This afternoon I attended the memorial service at Coventry Cathedral for the four firefighters who died in the warehouse blaze at Atherstone-on-Stour on the 2nd November 2007. It was a deeply impressive and moving occasion, attended by nearly 2,000 people and with representation from Fire & Rescue Services across the UK.

All county councillors are jointly responsible for Warwickshire Fire & Rescue Service, although my own focus and responsibilities on the council are in other activities.

The Executive of the local Liberal Democrat party (covering the new constituency of Kenilworth & Southam) held its first meeting of 2008 last night. Our prospective parliamentary candidate Nigel Rock was there.

The new constituency is an amalgam of parts of Warwick district, Stratford district and Rugby borough, and is mostly rural. For Kenilworth voters it will mark a big change from the previous Rugby & Kenilworth constituency. Firstly, Kenilworth is now the largest town by some margin. Secondly, the Liberal Democrats are the clear challengers to the Conservatives across the whole constituency - there is not a single Labour councillor in any ward.

More details of the local party and the new constituency can be found on the constituency party’s web site www.kandslibdems.org.uk.

The Schools Forum is a statutory body to be consulted by the County Council on matters of schools finance and funding, and with specific decision making powers. It is made up of headteachers, governors and other non-school representatives. As the Liberal Democrats’ spokesperson I attend in a non-voting capacity.

At yesterday’s meeting we had confirmation from the Conservative cabinet member that the proposals to change the schools funding formula - which caused huge controvery last year but were suddenly withdrawn without reason - were now dead. As schools are now being required to draw up budgets for the next 3 years, the opportunity to change the current formula (which everyone accepts is flawed) has gone - probably for a long time.

What a huge effort for nothing, and what a wasted opportunity!

At yesterday’s Environment Overview & Scrutiny Committee we reviewed progress made by Warwickshire County Council against its own Green Transport Plan originally produced in 1999 and updated in 2004.

The report made sorry reading! Lots of good intentions, but no real shift in the travel behaviour of council staff. Much ‘harder’ measures need to be taken, but will the Conservative administration and senior officers be prepared to show the leadership required? Watch this space ………..

I chaired a meeting of the Finance sub-committee of school governors last night. We’ve recently received the “pack” from the local authority for us to produce a 3-year budget for the school.

Uncertainties abound! Just before Christmas there was an almighty row going on about proposed changes in the schools funding formula in Warwickshire, but the Conservative administration suddenly withdrew these so leaving the status quo in place for now - but for how long? Also, as a primary school with a nursery class, we’ve been told that the funding formula for early years provision will change for 2009/10, but no details as to how this might affect us. Yet the school is asked to produce detailed line-by-line budgets covering the next 3 years. Can this really make sense?

A key role for opposition councillors on the County Council is Overview & Scrutiny. A number of Overview & Scrutiny Committees (OSC’s) exist to scrutinise and challenge the Conservative administration’s running of the council’s activities, and these are chaired by opposition councillors.

I am vice-chair of the Children’s, Young People & Families OSC (CYPF OSC), and also a member of the Environment OSC.

Today’s meeting of the CYPF OSC was a very good one. The highlight was a presentation of a review of bullying carried out by members of the County Youth Panel, culminating in a large number of recommendations that were backed by the committee and recommended to Cabinet for approval. We also finalised a review of Child Poverty and passed this on for Cabinet approval and action.

Both of these reports highlighted the fact that the work of OSCs is about policy development as much as scrutiny of others’ activities.

The Warwick Area Committee is made up of all the county councillors whose electoral divisions fall within Warwick district, and its role is to give a more local focus to certain aspects of county council decision-making - including local transport issues, maintenance and safety engineering.

Last night’s meeting was very long (nearly 4 hours), preceded by a seminar, but partly this is a problem of success - public awareness of and attendance at Area Committees is greater than any other aspect of the county council’s activities.

I was pleased to win support for two street lighting improvement projects within Kenilworth Abbey division - in The Blundells and in Henry Street. I also presented a residents’ petition in support of a pelican crossing in Beehive Hill, to support further the St. Augustine’s school parents’ petition presented at the last meeting. Officers are reluctant at the moment to accept the case for this crossing, but I am determined to win this battle on behalf of the school and the local community.

This morning I participated in a strategic conference with a number of primary and secondary headteachers from across Warwickshire, together with senior county officers and county councillors. The focus of the conference was on the changing agenda for schools within the national and local agenda for children’s services, and the development of a shared vision for the future.

Many of the messages coming back from the headteachers were common - a frustration with too much bureaucracy and regulation, a desire for partnership with and involvement with the local authority, and a willingness for strong leadership from the county to address national priorities in a local context. My party is in opposition on the county council, but I shall be looking to see how and if the Conservative administration responds to the very clear messages we heard this morning.

Last night I was at a very well-attended public meeting called by the town mayor, fellow Liberal Democrat Cllr. Pat Ryan, on the subject of Climate Change and what we as a local community could do to address it. The main speaker was George Martin, a local resident, but also an expert on sustainable development in construction.

It was an excellent meeting with good participation from all those attending, and a shared determination that as a local community we could and must take action. I volunteered to join a steering group to carry the ideas forward and develop a local action plan.

Yesterday I attended a briefing about the Joint Area Review for Warwickshire which will take place this summer. The “JAR” (as it is affectionately known!) is a massive central government inspection by Ofsted of local services for children, young people and families, covering not only the county council but also all of its partner agencies.

While recognising that central government has a need and right to monitor the quality of local services, I can’t help wonder whether the huge amount of effort, time and money that goes into these inspection processes is really worth it! Do they really affect positively the outcomes for children, young people and families in Warwickshire? I doubt it.

Yesterday evening I attended a meeting of the Kenilworth Town Centre Partnership, which I have been a member of since its inception in 2006. The Partnership brings together local business and community representatives together with elected county/district/town councillors , and provides a co-ordinated approach to the development and improvement of Kenilworth as a place to work and live.

As the sole county councillor on the Partnership, my role is important because the County Council controls some of the key activities and decisions that the Partnership seeks to influence - for example traffic and transport issues.

A key focus for the Parnership is how to improve the linkages between Kenilworth Castle and the town centre. The castle is a major visitor attraction: we want to encourage those visitors to use the many other facilities the town has to offer.

Yesterday I substituted for Cllr Jerry Roodhouse, Liberal Democrat group leader on the County Council, at a Leaders’ Liaison Group meeting.

Warwickshire County Council is a “hung council”, i.e. no political group has overall control. There is a minority Conservative administration, with a 10-person Cabinet. Labour and Liberal Democrats make up the chairs and vice-chairs of the various Overview & Scrutiny Committees that monitor and review all aspects of the council’s activities.

The Leaders’ Liaison Group comprises the leaders and deputy leaders of the three political groups, and provides a regular opportunity for information sharing between the groups.

I attended a meeting of St. John’s school governors this evening. I’ve been a governor there since 2003, and am currently vice-chair and chair of Finance. I also have a grandson who is at the school, and a second grandson who will start at the nursery this term.

We had big excitement this weekend when the new childrens’ centre building was lifted on to the school site by a giant crane! It’s a prefabricated building, which will be brick-clad to tone in with its surroundings. The new centre will be opening in April, and will offer a wide range of services and activities for children 0-5, their parents and families. 

In my new role as chair of the management committee, I visited Kenilworth Youth & Community Centre today to discuss some ideas and issues with Andy the youth centre manager and Carol the bursar, and also to meet the local newspaper editor who is doing a feature on the Centre.

We are very fortunate in Kenilworth to have such a wonderful new facility, paid for as a direct result of the Waitrose supermarket development. The task for the Management Committee is to help develop further the range of positive activities offered to young people, and to maximise the wider community use of and enjoyment of this excellent resource.

I met with other members of the Kenilworth Safer Neighbourhoods Panel last night, to discuss the public feedback and response we had received at a well-attended public meeting in November and to agree our top three priorities for the coming year.

Although experience elsewhere has been mixed, overall I feel the Safer Neighbourhoods idea is working well in Kenilworth. The local police have been fully engaged, together with local councillors and community representatives.

The three top priorities for the 2008 Action Plan are:

1. Positive activities for young people.
2. Criminal damage and vandalism (incl. graffiti).
3. Speeding traffic.

Yesterday I attended a major conference organised by the County Council at the Ricoh Arena in Coventry, attended by about 150 people representing a wide range of organisations involved in the provision of services for children, young people and families in Warwickshire - spanning education, social services, health, police, the voluntary sector etc. The aim of the conference was to develop priorities for the new Children & Young People Plan for Warwickshire.

The day demonstrated both the opportunities and difficulties for partnership working across so many different bodies in trying to deliver “joined-up” services, working together to avoid duplication of effort and resources. This principle is of course right in principle, but making it work in practice is not easy!

This week I attended the North of England Education Conference in my role as Lib Dem county spokeperson for Children Young People & Families. Despite the conference’s name it was held in Cardiff! This is the third year running that I have attended what is the premier Education conference in the UK.

Although overall I felt this year’s conference was less good than the previous two, I nonetheless came away with some good ideas. In Wales they are introducing a completely new 4-7 play-based curriculum, moving away from formal learning in this foundation phase. This is a bold move, based on international best practice, and it will be interesting to see how it develops. I was also impressed with the rigour that the Welsh system demands in transition planning for pupils moving between primary and secondary schools. We could definitely learn from this.

As 2007 comes to an end, it’s a good time to reflect on the past year and to look forward to the challenges of the next one.

It was a busy but rewarding year for me personally as a county councillor. The highlight has to be chairing the Kenilworth Connect2 Steering Group, and running an active and successful campaign to get local people behind the Sustrans-backed bid for a £50 million prize from the Big Lottery Fund. The elation on 12th December, when we heard we had won, was a wonderful feeling! The task in 2008 is now to push forward with implementing the local scheme as quickly as possible.

Other campaigns I am involved with include the fight for a pelican crossing in Beehive Hill, Kenilworth, in particular to provide a safe route to school for pupils attending St. Augustine’s School. Together with the parents’ action group we have petitioned the County Council, and look forward to a positive response in the New Year.

I am also working to get the Safer Routes to School scheme implemented in Burton Green early in 2008, and to conclude the Village Speed Review there also.

At a national level, I am very excited about the election of Nick Clegg as the new leader of the Liberal Democrats. As it happened I voted for him, but like many other party members found it very hard to choose between two excellent candidates. I have heard Nick speak on several occasions, and each time was impressed by his clarity and sincerity. As the electorate at large gets to know him better, I am convinced that both he and the party will prosper.

Unless a by-election happens we have no elections locally in 2008, and probably no General Election either, although no doubt I shall be helping colleagues in other parts of Kenilworth and Southam constituency who have local elections in May.

Overall I look forward to an exciting and eventful 2008!