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.

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the High Street Kenilworth branch is not on the list, despite being earmarked earlier on a leaked map that was rapidly withdrawn and denied by the Post Office.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.

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!

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 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.

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!

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!

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.

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.

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!