The Community Speed Watch (CSW) scheme which we piloted in Kenilworth has been a great success, and is now being rolled out progressively across Warwickshire. Feedback from the general public has been almost universally positive, despite the occasional offensive gestures from motorists who feels they have a divine right to speed in residential roads.

This week I went out with the Police to identify a number of new locations for CSW volunteers to operate from safely. This should give us a much better coverage of the area, and satisfy some of the large number of residents’ requests for action in their roads.

However, the rates of improvement in the waste management statistics (recycling rates etc) in 2008/09 were good, and improved targets for 2009/10 and 2010/11 were agreed at the meeting. This further reinforces the need to downsize the waste growth projections currently underpinning Project Transform (replacement of the Coventry incinerator in 2016).

I also attended my first meeting of the Project Transform Members Advisory Panel last Friday. Important undertakings were made that the ‘reference project’ (a 305,000 tonnes incinerator) is not a done deal in terms of either sizing or technology. I shall be playing an active role in overseeing this major project over the next 4 years.

Last week I attended an exhibition showcasing the achievements of pupils attending Warwickshire’s Early Intervention Service Teaching and Learning centres during the past year. Elizabeth Featherstone, Head of Service for Family and Community, showed me round the exhibition.
The work exhibited is by students who have either been reintegrated back into mainstream schools, participated in work-based learning or improved their learning behaviour through working together, or had success in GCSE exams.

Very impressive - some real talent on display.
 

Tonight I heard that Warwickshire County Council is to sign up to the national “10:10” climate change initiative launched at the Tate Modern in London last month.

As an individual I signed up on Day 1 of the campaign, and am committed to trying to reduce my personal carbon footprint by 10% by the end of 2010.

At last week’s full Council meeting I asked the Leader of the Council whether the council would sign up to the initiative. Today I heard that the decision had been taken to follow the example of other councils by joining in this nationwide campaign.

An initiative like 10:10 is an opportunity for public leadership, and momentum is all important. I’m very glad that my question has accelerated Warwickshire’s thinking and had a positive outcome. Now it needs to deliver the results!

 What hypocrites the Tories are! They have a dominant majority on the County Council, and it’s the County Council that is proposing to axe seven fire stations across Warwickshire, including that in Kenilworth.

What’s that old adage - you can’t fool all of the people all of the time? Well, they’re trying to!

Yesterday Warwickshire Fire & Rescue Service (WFRS) announced proposals to close seven of the current twenty fire stations serving the county, and to merge two others. Included in the list of planned closures is Kenilworth Fire Station, located in the heart of my county electoral division.

These proposals have been known to county councillors since a Cabinet meeting in July which approved them for consultation, but until yesterday we were unable to say anything publicly about them.

I released the following statement to local media today:-

The news of the planned closure of Kenilworth Fire Station has come as a great shock, but less of a surprise. Rumours have been circulating for a long time, and the Conservatives running the County Council have done residents a great disservice by keeping their plans and intentions secret for so long. The plan was agreed by the Cabinet in July, but it is only now that county councillors are free to talk about it.

The documents released yesterday show that Kenilworth Fire Station costs ? 95,000 a year to run, or about ? 4 a head for every man, woman and child in the area it covers. This seems remarkably good value to me, and a small price to pay for the security and peace of mind that people get from having their own local fire station based here in the town.

The Fire Service state that they can meet the County Council’s current response standards (10 minutes urban, 20 minutes rural) for the Kenilworth area from the fire station based in Leamington’s busy and congested town centre. Kenilworth residents will find that very hard to accept, especially given the traffic delays between the two towns at peak times. It seems that no allowance is being made for traffic delays, or for other unforeseen events such as road closures, flooding etc.

The plan even assumes that the whole of Burton Green, at the northern edge of my county division, will be covered from Leamington fire station, despite the fact that it adjoins the city of Coventry and is only a few minutes away from a major West Midlands fire station.

There is now a twelve week consultation period before the final version of the plan is drawn up and presented to the Cabinet in January for decision. My promise to local residents is that I will use that time to make sure that proper and effective consultation takes place, and that their voices are heard by those making the decisions. Let’s be clear though - it’s not the Fire Service who will make the ultimate decisions, but the Conservative-run County Council.

I’m very excited by the challenge of my new role, because it encompasses many of the big issues and challenges facing the council. Not least of these is “Project Transform”, a joint project between the County Council and neighbouring authorities in Coventry and Solihull to build a major new facility to process residual municipal waste, to replace the current Coventry incinerator.

This is a huge project, costing over £1 billion over the lifetime of the proposed facility, and it is vital that the right decisions are taken on financial, technical and environmental grounds.

I have been appointed to a Members Advisory Panel for Project Transform, made up of three elected members from each of the three local authority partners, and our first meeting is next week on 25th September. Watch this space …..

Anyway, I’m back blogging again now, and not before time - there’s a lot going on at the moment!

Anyway, I’m extremely grateful to everyone who voted for me, and I look forward to an interesting four more years on what will be a very different County Council. The Conservatives now have overall control with 39 of the 62 seats, and two net Liberal Democrat gains put us on 12 seats ahead of Labour’s 10 - so we are now the official opposition.

The new Lib Dem county group has an initial meeting tomorrow, and then the first full council meeting on 23rd June will establish the shape and structure of the new council. Will the Tories rejig the committees, and will they grab all the chair positions? We’ll have to wait and see …..

I helped to launch the Children In Care Council at Warwickshire County Council yesterday, and to sign the ‘Warwickshire Pledge’ which sets out our promises and commitments to looked after children and young people. It was a great event compered by ‘Dreadlockalien’ (aka poet Richard Grant),, and with graffiti artist Richard Inwood helping the young people create their new logo in a giant graffiti mural.

Coincidently, the launch happened on the same day as the publication of the MPs’ Select Committee report into children in care, which highlighted the extent to which our society is still failing so many of these vulnerable children and young people. The Warwickshire Pledge is a good set of words backed by a lot of good intentions, but it will be actions and results by which it will be judged in the end.

Yesterday I went to collect the nomination forms for the County Council elections on 4th June and to receive a briefing from the local Electoral Services officers. Although the formal notice of poll is not until 28th April, getting the forms in my hands made it all seem suddenly very real!

This year’s county campaign is a month later than usual, and of longer duration, due to the Euro elections being held at the same time. In recent years the County elections have coincided with parliamentary elections, so it will be interesting to see how things are different this time.

Yesterday I met the Cycleways K2L action group, who are trying to raise the profile again of this long-running campaign for improvements for cyclists on the route between Kenilworth and Leamington. The route has a number of major obstacles and hazards for cyclists, including the Thickthorn Island over the A46, the Chesford cross roads and the narrow bridge over the Avon. The whole route lacks any cycle lane provision (on or off road) over its entire length.

The key problem is that while K2L is included in Warwickshire’s Local Transport Plan, it is an “aspiration” rather than a firm commitment. Funds are concentrated in the main on developing cycle routes in towns rather than between towns, unless they form part of the Sustrans Nation Cycle Network - which K2L doesn’t at present.

And yet, there is plenty of evidence as to how popular a safe K2L route would be. Petitions and surveys have been held in the past, plus rallies and mass cycle events on the route.

I’ve agreed to help the K2L group all I can, both as a local county councillor and also in my role as Warwick District cycle champion. Already I’ve got commitments from county council officers that the planned traffic signalisation of the Thickthorn Island (to meet increased traffic flows from Stoneleigh Park) will be adapted to help cyclists traverse in safety.

At the weekend I went to a very interesting meeting organised by Action21’s Renewable Energy Club in conjunction with KICC (Kenilworth Initiative for Climate Change). Two Kenilworth residents, David Searle and George Martin, gave talks about their recent experiences of building zero or low carbon homes.

David’s house was a new build, and he has succeeded in achieving the ultimate goal of a zero carbon home, through the use of the right materials and equipment and meticulous attention to detail. George’s project was the conversion of a Grade2-listed part 17th century cottage, and while it was impossible to get to a zero carbon home with this he succeeded in getting a very long way towards this.

Common to both their experiences was the difficulty in finding UK manufacturers of the materials or equipment needed for their projects, from insulation materials through to biomass boilers and rainwater harvesting equipment. Also they both found a general lack of knowledge in the building trade of the specialist techniques needed to construct zero or low carbon homes, although in both cases they found builders willing to learn with them.

What a massive opportunity for UK manufacturing is being thrown away at present! The materials and equipment required are not having to be imported from cheap sources in the Far East, but from hi-tech manufacturers in European countries such as Germany, Austria and Denmark. Why doesn’t the British government invest heavily in promoting UK manufacturing of products for the ‘green revolution’, as the Liberal Democrats have proposed? Far better than the temporary small VAT cut, which has cost billions and achieved very little.

I was delighted to win the backing of the Cabinet today for the County Council to commission an external study of the feasibility and costs of introducing a concessionary travel scheme for young people in Warwickshire. The work will now be done in time to inform decision making at the time of the next County Council budget next year.

Over the last year or so I have led a cross-party group looking at this subject, and we did a lot of work with officers and with young people, and also looked at experience in other part of the country. This matter has been a major campaign issue for the UK Youth Parliament over the past couple of years, and it was important that Warwickshire responded positively and constructively.

The changing patterns of education for 14-19 year old young people are putting increasing strain on existing transport provision to and from school and college, which are becoming less fit for purpose. Also we want to encourage young people to particpiate in sport and other leisure activities, but the costs of public transport are often a barrier to this.

Introducing such a scheme will not be cheap or easy, so it’s vital that we have the best possible data on which to make informed decisions. Today’s decision to commission the work necessary to achieve this is an important step.

Yesterday we held the last meeting of the County Council’s Children & Young People Overview & Scrutiny Committee before the elections on the 4th June. I have been a member of the Committee for the last 4 years, the Lib Dem spokesperson for the last 3, and the vice-chairman of the Committee for the last 2 years.

As always it was a full and interesting meeting, with an agenda ranging over a wide range of important issues - future Early Years funding (of nurseries, nursery classes and private/voluntary providers); inclusion strategy (how to keep “problem” children in schol and reduce exclusions); the anti-bulling strategy; child poverty; demand for school meals.

I have greatly enjoyed this aspect of my work as a county councillor, and if re-elected on the 4th June would hope to be able to continue in my current role. The Committee is unusual in that includes not only councillors but also school representatives, so that the knowledge of subject matter is good and the quality of debate usually high.

On Tuesday I and other local councillors met senior Gas Alliance managers, who accepted fully the problems that the town has suffered and committed to put things right as soon as possible. A new manager will take over the Kenilworth project from next week, and I and a few others will work with him to thrash out a programme to complete the current works as soon as possible, and then to come back in the quieter period of the summer holidays to tackle the rest of the original project.

We also were given preliminary details of another major project to replace the gas mains between Leamington and Kenilworth, which is already in progress at the Leamington end and will impact on the southern end of our town later in the year. At least we’re being given advance warning this time! Watch this space …..

This sort of thing does not normally happen in Burton Green! It was quite a shock when I was alerted by the local police. It just goes to show that nowhere can ever be totally immune. I congratulate the sharp-eyed neighbours who had the confidence to report their concerns to the Police.

The first day of British Summer Time and the sun shining, so what better way for my wife and I to spend the afternoon than walking along the Kenilworth to Berkeswell Greenway, part of the Connect2 Kenilworth walking and cycling route?

It was great to see so many people out enjoying themselves, including lots of children on bikes with their parents. This is exactly what safe off-road cycling is all about. I can’t wait to see the whole of the rest of the route completed.

Up towards Burton Green we looked out over the fields towards the boundary of Coventry, and saw all the new houses along Westwood Heath Road massed like an army poised to invade our precious green belt. Warwick District Council is soon to publish its “Core Strategy” as part of its Local Development Framework, and I am very fearful that this area will be identified as a key target for future housing growth.

I attended a fund-raising dinner in Dunchurch on Friday evening, where the guest speaker was Baroness Ros Scott, who became national President of the Liberal Democrat party in January 2009.

What an inspiring person she is! Having left school at sixteen and married young she got into local politics as a young mother, got elected to first the district council and then the county council in Suffolk, and rose to become group leader during the period of joint control with Labour until 2005. She was made a life peer in 2000.

Ros gave us all great encouragement as we look forward to the County Council and European elections in June, and to the General Election probably next year. Although most people want to see the back of the Labour government, a lot of public opinion about the Conservatives and their policies is distinctly lukewarm - so there is everything for the Liberal Democrats to play for!

On Thursday I attended a meeting with Warwickshire Police and County Council officers, to agree the basis of a new joint “Community Speedwatch” scheme to be piloted in Kenilworth and Nuneaton from 1st May. If the pilot is successful it will be rolled out across Warwickshire. Details will be announced shortly.

I chair the local Safer Neighbourhoods sub-group that has been focusing on speeding issues in our area, and we have been active over recent months in gathering evidence and data in order to prioritise the locations to concentrate on. As soon as we have had the necessary training therefore we will be ready to go.

If anyone is interested in becoming a Community Speed Watch volunteer please contact me.

On Wednesday I arranged a walk along part of the route of the new Connect2 Kenilworth walking and cycling route which is currently under construction, supported by Sustrans and the Big Lottery. The local press reporter and photographer came along together with Sustrans representatives and a number of local Steering Group members.

It was really good to see progress being made along a number of stages of the route, although it is still early days in the project of course. There has been a lot of coverage in the local press over recent weeks, and although some of it has been a bit negative the overwhelming response I still get from most people is solid support and encouragement to see it completed as soon as possible.

The programme has not met its original timetable due to a number of unforeseen problems. What we discussed in outline was the completion of the current phase of works in March and early April, and then a gap of a few months before the Gas Alliance come back to complete the works during the summer school holiday period and into September. The Town Centre Manager will provide the Gas Alliance with the dates of all key events taking place over the summer, such as the Kenilworth Carnival, so that disruption is kept to a minimum.

I think we all recognise that replacement of gas mains is essential safety work for everyone’s benefit, and that some disruption is inevitable. Good liaison between the local community and the Gas Alliance people can help it to run as smoothly as possible.

£13,000 has been allocated to upgrade the lighting on the popular Blundells footway running betwwen Priory Road and Southbank Road, and between Southbank Road and Abbey End car park. This follows the work carried out at the St Nicholas School end of the Blundells in 2008/09.

I set a high priority on good street lighting, which brings benefits in terms of both community safety and road safety - and also modern lighting is more energy efficient than most of the old lighting stock.

I think this scheme has been a great success. In my area, the grants went to three very different groups serving different parts of the local community: Kenilworth Teapot - a drop in group for older residents; Spring Playgroup, and the Kenilworth Allotment Tenants Association.

I hope very much that the scheme can continue next year, despite the overall 8% cut in overall Area Committee grant budgets - which the Lib Dems opposed, by the way!

Over the past few weeks the local Sustrans Connect2 scheme has been ’sniped at’ in the local press by Kenilworth Conservative town councillors, although they won’t come clean as to whether they want to oppose the scheme outright or not.

 As chairman of the local Connect2 Steering Group, I have been defending the scheme vigorously in the local media, as have other non-councillor members of the Steering Group. The accusations of failure to communicate or consult properly with local residents and councillors are a nonsense, but so far numerous attempts to set the record straight have failed the stop the weekly drip of “concerns” in the local press.

One is left with the clear feeling that the Tories want to play politics with this issue in the run-up to the County Council elections on the 3rd June. What I say is - let them try! The level of local support for the Connect2 scheme was and remains high, I have no doubt of that.

It seems that the’SPARK’ public transport scheme for Warwick District is a dead duck. Launched in a fanfare of publicity by the County Council 3 years ago, it succeeded in winning potential government funding of nearly £13 million to deliver a “step-change in the quality of public transport in Warwick District”.

Now, because of the failure of the Stratford Park & Ride scheme to stem operating losses, a similar scheme for Warwick District is being dropped, and with it the whole of the SPARK scheme.

The Conservative Cabinet tried to slip a decision through without discussion back in October, but at my insistence and with the support of other Liberal Democrat and Labour members the matter received a proper public airing at the Warwick Area Committee last night.

It’s been a costly exercise to achieve nothing - some £300,000 to put together the winning bid to government, and then another £50,000 on consultants’ fees etc in deciding to drop it!

The matter now goes back to the Cabinet for final decision, but the outcome is clear. The Conservatives claim that the intended benefits of SPARK are being or will be delivered in other ways, and at no greater cost to WCC council taxpayers, but I and other opposition members are left feeling that a great opportunity has been squandered.

Liberal Democrat and Labour members of the committee supported the officers’ recommendations in line with current policies, as did one of the Conservatives - to her credit as she clearly came under pressure from her colleagues. The vote was tied, and then decided in favour of current policies on the casting vote of the Lib Dem chair.

 I wonder what the Cabinet Member for the Environment will make of the indiscipline of his Conservative colleagues?

The latest report from the County Council shows that the Kenilworth Station project is making some good progress.

The first key task is to decide the “Joint Promoter and Funder” - i.e. the private sector company that the Council will work with to bring this project to a successful conclusion. The tender documents were completed last month, and a contract notice published on the 28th November, for expressions of interest by no later than 13th February 2009. Invitations to tender will be issued in March, with the contract to be awarded in May 2009.

Discussions with train operating companies are in progress, and the original outline business case has been reviewed and is still showing a very positive return for this project. The aim is to deliver the new station by March 2012, and a possible bid for new regional funding may assist this further.

I continue to be a strong supporter of and advocate for a station for Kenilworth, and will do everything in my power to help bring this venture to a successful conclusion.

This year’s budget decisions will be much tougher than usual. The financial settlement from central government takes little or no heed of the real cost pressures facing local government (energy bills, an ageing population, increased demand on children’s services etc). Also 2009 is an election year for county councils, so cross-party agreements may be much more difficult to achieve. As ever the Liberal Democrats will seek to act as a responsible opposition, promoting our clear and consistent priorities for local services in line with our manifesto commitments.

Last Friday was the first anniversary of the Big Lottery Win by Sustrans Connect2, which secured £50 million of lottery funding (and at least the same again of matched funding) for 79 walking and cycling projects up and down the country. I was very pleased to have led the local Connect2 Kenilworth campaign, and have continued to chair the local Steering Group as we push forward our local project to link Kenilworth town centre with the Greenway and the University of Warwick.

On 4th November the Kenilworth scheme became only the second Connect2 project in the country to have its formal agreement signed, to allow the release of lottery funding as the various stages of work are completed over the next three years.

In April, surfacing and improvement work was completed on the first section of the Greenway route out of Kenilworth towards Burton Green, opening up this part of the route for all-year recreational use. Throughout the year, a lot of planning and preparation has gone involving Sustrans and the County Council, together with its partners Warwick District Council and the University of Warwick.

The original Steering Group for the project has been strengthened with additional representatives from the Town Council, the University and local resident groups. It meets every two months to ensure that the local community is involved in all stages of the project through to final completion.

Later this month, tree works will commence along the track of the old railway line at the rear of Woodland Road and on the edge of Kenilworth Common. This work will be guided by the results of a detailed ecological survey carried out earlier in the year, and will aim to preserve and enhance the natural habitat for reptiles and other wildlife. All residents in the immediate area were informed of these works by letter last week.

Other works due to start soon are to widen and resurface the existing walking/cycling path from Bridge Street to Manor Road, and to widen the existing footbridge leading from Forge Road on to the Common. Preliminary design options for a new bridge over the Coventry Road have been commissioned.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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!

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!

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.

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.

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’m really sorry that Boris won, and I’m sure Londoners will regret it eventually. However, what was really interesting in the results last night was the way the second preference votes worked out. Boris had the most first preferences of course - that was to be expected - but there more were more than enough second preference votes available to have defeated him if Ken Livingstone had been successful in his “Stop Boris” strategy.

In the event the second preferences split pretty evenly between the two of them, and so Boris won. If we assume that most of the Greens followed their leader’s advice to give Ken their second preference, and most BNP went for Boris, then the great majority of Lib Dems in London didn’t go for either of them!

Perhaps, collectively, London Lib Dems came up with the perfect strategy to unmask the “new” Tory party. Give them something real to run, and see what a mess they make of it!

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!

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.

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.