Massive Expansion of Nursery Provision Planned for Southampton

The trade unions in Southampton are deliberately misleading and trying to frighten local residents ahead of the local elections on 3rd May. Unions have flooded the city with bill boards suggesting that nurseries are under threat. These bill boards have only been put up in Southampton, Birmingham and London and are part of the union campaign to unseat the current Conservative Council locally and buy an election victory for the Labour Party.


In Southampton nursery provision is NOT under threat and is in fact due to expand dramatically in the coming years to meet the demand resulting from the rising local birth rate and to provide extra support for 2 year olds from disadvantaged families.


Local Conservatives are pledging to create an extra 1,800 nursery places for 2 year olds by 2014 and have pledged to protect all 14 local Sure Start Centres.


We continue to work actively to sustain existing, good quality childcare and assist nurseries to expand, where appropriate to meet this demand, including the nurseries directly managed by the Council.


In the Conservative February Council budget we made revenue provision for expanding places for 2 year olds for 2012/13 and the city received a capital grant from the Department of Education of £3.9M recently which may be used to support the provision of additional places.


The unions should be ashamed of themselves for these despicable tactics. The Conservatives are massively expanding nursery provision in the city and so for the unions to suggest that nurseries are under threat is totally false. They are needlessly worrying local families for their own political ends. Their strikes last year disrupted our bin collections and caused misery for local residents and now they are playing politics with vital services to young children and families.

Conservative Action All Year Round

Our Work This Year Alone...


April 2012
Freemantle Spring Clean underway. Attending local residents' association meetings promoting our new No Cold Calling Zones. Meeting with the police to discuss the problem of street drinking.


March 2012
Secretary of State for Education officially opens Freemantle Academy's new Junior School building. Funding secured for improvements to the Civil Service Sports Ground. Residents updated on Helius' latest Biomass plans. New planning rules for Houses in Multiple Occupation come into force.


February 2012
Civil Service Sports Ground saved from development. Council Tax frozen once again. New Play Park for Albany Road announced. Conservative action with a campaign to tackle Dog Mess on our streets.


January 2012
Banister School rebuild given the green light. Residents updated about Southern Water upgrade to Waste Water Treatment works in the docks.

Street Drinking Crackdown

Your local Councillors have met with the police to highlight the growing problem of street drinking along Shirley Road and Shirley High Street and the roads that branch off them.


Some time ago we passed a city wide ban on street drinking. We feel that this needs to be enforced in Shirley. 


We are very pleased that the police agreed to do more to tackle the problem and we are ensuring that signs go up to make it clear that it is not allowed.


If you have a problem with street drinking where you live please let us know so that we can address it.


- Cllrs Jeremy Moulton, Michael Ball and Brian Parnell

Universities Minister Backs Our Local Scholarship Scheme

David Willetts MP (right) with Cllrs Royston Smith, David Fuller, Matthew Claisse 

and Portswood Candidate Linda Norris

We were very pleased to welcome Universities Minister, David Willetts, to Southampton at the weekend to officially give his seal of approval to our ambitious new University Scholarship Scheme.

The new scheme is targeted at young people on low incomes progressing to higher education and is partnership between Southampton City Council, Southampton Solent University and the University of Southampton.

The scheme offers practical help in the form of fee waivers and bursaries. Eligible young people will be Southampton residents, have a household income of below £20,000, and attending Foundation degrees either Southampton Solent University or the University of Southampton. 

Both Universities will offer fee waivers in line with newly negotiated admissions policies costing each institution around £100,000. The Council funding will provide £45,000 p.a to each of the universities for bursaries for initially a total of 45 young people to support learning materials, travel and subsistence.

It was superb to receiving the backing of Mr Willetts who was full of praise for the initiative!

New HMO Planning Rules

Over the last few days I have had quite a few queries from local residents who are keen to understand the specifics of the new HMO (House In Multiple Occupation) planning rules that were introduced on 23rd March this year. 


Questions about these new planning rules also came up at the Highfield Residents Association AGM last week. 


The City Council have produced a very helpful section on their website with all the details. Click HERE for this. Also HERE is an article I wrote back in January setting out our thinking behind the changes.

Operation Spring Clean

Southampton Conservatives have launched Operation Spring Clean, a major exercise to clean up the city ahead of the Diamond Jubilee and the Olympic Torch coming to Southampton. The city wide clean up will also deal with the after affects of the Labour sponsored bin strikes last year.

The clean is now well under way and includes the following:

• A major clean up of the city’s main gateways, arterial routes and link roads including jet washing of street furniture, directional signage and utility boxes and the removal of litter and graffiti.
• The cleaning of gum and grime from areas of pavement and precinct along the QE2 mile.
• The removal of litter and debris from ‘hard to reach’ areas such as busy traffic junctions, islands and central reservations, with most of this work programmed from sunrise on Sunday mornings to minimise traffic disruption.

Full details can be found HERE on the City Council's website.

The following roads in Freemantle have just recently been swept and we are getting good feedback from residents:

Albany Road, Dyer Road, Firgrove Road, Grove Road, Nelson Road, Nightingale Road, Trafalgar Road, Wolseley Road.

As your councillors, Michael Ball, Brian Parnell and I are also busy reporting problems in the area, such as over flowing bins outside some rented properties (like this one pictured to the right), buildings waste and materials that have been left in driveways and fly tipping on the pavement. 

Please get in touch if we can help or visit the fixmystreet website.

Fire In The Western Docks

Pictures of the docks fire taken at lunch time today

A fire at a scrap metal site in the docks has been blazing all day with smoke and fumes covering much of nearby area. The smell from the fire has been terrible and you could taste the fumes in the air earlier today. Thankfully late this afternoon the wind changed direction and blew some of the fumes away from houses but it is still impacting massively on local residents. Click HERE for the Southern Daily Echo report on the fire.


Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service (HFRS) have been battling the blaze and hopefully will have it under control very soon. The City Council has published a statement from HFRS on its website. 


The site of the fire is right by the proposed site for the Helius wood burning biomass power station. It is ironic that the fire started on the same day that Southampton City Council's Planning and Rights of Way Panel was considering the Statement of Community Consultation from Helius for the their proposed biomass power station.


Following the biomass fire at Tilbury recently, fire safety is a key concern of local people and of those campaigning against this proposed development. The fire in the docks today will only serve to underline these very real concerns.

Southampton's Conservative Councillors on May 3rd

Details of Conservative candidates can be found HERE and a full list of candidates for this May's local elections can be found HERE on Southampton City Council's website.

Southampton Secures £3.9M from Government for local Schools

Great news for Southampton Schools! £3.89M of extra government funding is coming to Southampton to help meet the growing demand new primary school places in the city.


Southampton's Conservative Councillors already have a detailed plan to expand primary school provision, including rebuilding both Banister School and Wordsworth School in 2013 and remodelling Moorlands School. 


This extra money will help ensure we get the best possible outcomes for local primary children. 


We have published our manifesto for schools and young people as we approach the local elections on 3rd May. Click HERE for more details.

Labour Plans to Scrap the Weekly Bin Collections

Cllr Michael Ball, the Conservative Candidate for Freemantle promises to protect the weekly bin collections & to work to raise recycling

The front page of today's Southern Daily Echo features plans by Southampton's Labour group to scrap weekly bin collections if they win the local elections in May.

I have long campaigned to keep the weekly collections in Southampton and as a Freemantle Ward councillor I know they are essential to many of the residents I represent. Bi Weekly collections have been implemented in some parts of the country but in cities like Southampton and areas like Freemantle it simply wouldn't work. Many of my constituents live in terraced housing with very small front gardens. Often the wheelie bins are stored just outside the front door and the prospect of having the bins left there stinking for 2 weeks does not bear thinking about.

After seeing the effects of the Labour backed bin strikes last summer, the last thing we want next is cuts to our bin collection services. It also seems like a kick in the teeth from Labour; first encouraging the bin strikes and now proposing that 1 in 10 bin men be axed.

Locally the Conservatives are committed to the weekly collections and we have submitted a bid to government to look at new ways to improve the waste collection service. If successful this bid will mean we will have the funds to introduce a new door step collection of glass.

No Cold Calling Zones

Launch of No Cold Calling Zones with North East Bassett Residents Association

Southampton Conservatives are setting up No Cold Calling Zones in the city where residents associations want them.

I am really pleased by number of residents associations in the Freemantle Ward which are in the process of setting them up.

An area with a No Cold Calling Zone has signs on lamp posts and stickers in residents’ windows which aim to discourage nuisance callers and to give residents the confidence to turn unwanted visitors away. Hampshire Constabulary are supporting the scheme and they have advised that they are helpful in reducing burglary in the area.

More information can be found HERE, and by emailing: NCCZ@southampton.gov.uk

No Cold Calling Zones are part of a package of Community Safety policies announced by local Conservatives as we approach the local elections next month. Our full manifesto and other Community Safety policies can be found HERE.