Civil Service Sports Ground - a new school?

I have written a letter to residents living around the Civil Service Sports Ground, concerning a innvotative proposals to look at having an all through School on the land.

I have reproduced my letter below. Please feel free to leave a comment on this site if you have views. If you leave your name and details then I can ensure that comments are forwarded onto the Council.


Dear Sir or Madam

Civil Service Sports Ground
I am writing in my capacity as a Freemantle ward Councillor on the subject of the Civil Service Sports Ground.
As you are perhaps aware the land has been acquired by Bovis Homes, a property developer, who are likely to seek to develop the land for residential purposes in the near future.
There is a strong feeling in the community, which I support, that the land should be kept as green space with access for the local community.

Learning Futures
The Council is currently undergoing a review of secondary school provision in Southampton, which it calls Learning Futures. This is accompanied a wide-ranging consultation with parents.
The Council is looking at creating a network of Learning Campuses. The aim is for these to be of sufficient size to be financially viable for the long term and for them to meet the needs of communities, be responsive to local priorities and be accessible to all.
The Council will be sending the parents of school children an explanatory booklet and feedback form next week.
There is a suggestion which has been discussed informally but which does not form part of the proposals, but which could very well feature in the consultation if raised by members of the community.
The idea, which has been raised, is the possibility of re-providing a new secondary school accommodation for both St Mark's Primary School and Regents Park Community College on a site comprising the current St Mark's site and the land known as the Civil Service Sports Ground.

The advantages of this idea include:
1) It is a means of providing better accommodation for two schools: including securing playing field provision for Regents Park which currently has none.
2) It would be a way of developing the "campus" concept bringing primary and secondary education together on one site in some form of strong partnership.
3) It would preserve at least a significant proportion of the Civil Service sports ground, thereby potentially satisfying local concerns about it’s redevelopment for housing.

The potential problems include:
1) No costings have been looked at, at this stage.
2) No detailed feasibility work done on how a building could be situated on the available land.
3) The agreement of a significant number of partners would be required, some of whom have not yet been involved in any formal discussions on the matter.

Find out more or make your views known
If you have views on this or are interested in learning more you can do a number of things:
1) Get in touch with me or one of your other Freemantle Councillors.
2) Make a comment on the feedback form on the Council’s Learning Futures consultation leaflet.
3) Write to the Council: Learning Futures Response Desk, Children’s Services and Learning, 4th Floor, Frobisher House, Nelson Gate, Southampton, SO15 1BZ or email learning.futures@southampton.gov.uk.
4) Contact the Freemantle and Shirley Community Association.
5) Go to one of the Learning Futures public meetings, the first of which is at Taunton’s College, Hill Lane on Tuesday 7th February between 7:30pm and 9pm.

Yours faithfully


Jeremy Moulton
Councillor For Freemantle Ward
councillor.j.moulton@southampton.gov.uk
http://www.jeremymoulton.blogspot.com/

cc Cllr Brian Parnell, Cllr Michael Ball, Andrew Hind, Southampton City Council, St Mark’s School, Freemantle and Shirley Community Association

Malmesbury Road Resurfacing?

Malmesbury Road, from Shirley Road to Charlton Road has been submitted for consideration as part of the Highways Planned Maintenance Programme for 2006/07.

A Cabinet report providing details will be on the 23 January agenda for consultation with a final decision due on 6 February.

If approved,the scheme will then be programmed for implementation sometime between April 2006 and March 2007.

I very much hope this gets approved. I have been lobbying for Malmesbury Road to be resurfaced for a number of years - particuarly the Shirley Road end.

Full Council Meeting

At the full council meeting on Wednesday the Council took the important decision to progress towards outsourcing functions to the private sector. The Council will issue invitations to tender for it's IT and customer service functions to 5 private consortiums. The Council will is also ask for prices for running other services like HR and property services.

The decision to proceed was supported unanimously by all three parties, although the final decision on whether to outsource will be taken at a future Council meeting.

The Council also had represenatation on a number of issues. We heard from the Southampton Pensioners Forum who were concerned about Council cuts that would penalise the elderly. I was pleased to confirm that the Conservative Group won't be supporting proposed increased charges for care packages or the 3/4m pound proposed cuts to care packages. I was also pleased to be able to explain that the Conservative Group has always objected to any increases in Council Tax above the rate of inflation, as such increases always hit those on fixed incomes like pensioners the worst.

We also heard from volunteers from Millbrook Farm who were concerned that the Council would slash their funding. Again we were able to explain that the Conservatives would not cut this.

The actual budget won't be set until February but January's Council meeting touched on some of the issues that we will be facing.

CREW Week

This week the Council has been conducting one of its CREW weeks and this week it was in Freemantle Ward. CREW stands for CRIME REDUCTION & ENVIRONMENT WEEK. It includes joint working with the Council and the Police to clean up an area and large scale.

This morning I met up with the City Council street cleaning team in Foundry Lane. They were doing a deep clean of the roads and pavements in the area. Residents were asked to move their cars beforehand and the street cleaning machines were able to get to areas that are normally clogged up with cars. It was really sucuessful and the previous day Park Road and neighbouring roads were done. The only down side was it rained and I got soaked.

BRING IT ON!

At Wednesday's Council meeting I called for a public debate between the leaders of the three political parties on the Council in advance of May's local elections. The challenge was enthuiastically accepted by the Liberals and Labour. May's elections are very important due to the fine political balance on the Council (17 Lib, 16 Con, 15 Lab).

Cleaning up Freemantle's Streets

The Council is adopting new methods for cleaning streets which are lined with parked cars.

I am meeting up with the street cleaning team next week to watch the process at work in Foundry Lane.

The process involves the Council asking residents to move their cars, coning of the road and then cleaning the roads properly. It seems to be working very well and should mean that gutters get a thorough clean, especially now the leaves are all down.

Graffiti Website

A national graffiti website has been set up to help people who have problems with graffiti. If you click on the title of this posting it will take you to a page which sets out Southampton City Council's policy for dealing with graffiti and the services it offers.

Comments in the Echo Letters Page

I have just read a letter in tonight's Echo from Labour Councillor June Bridle in which she seems to be rather mean to me!

I pointed out in a letter to the Echo a while ago (I posted a copy on this Blog) that the Council spending £300,000 on a toilet on Weston Shore was perhaps not the best use of public money. To put this in context there is talk of cutting 3/4s of a million pounds from the budget for providing home care for the elderly; something I find quite abhorent. I know which I think is a higher priority!

June was was critical as I knocked a decision of a Council of which I am a member. Well perhaps I see things differently to her. I see it as my job to promote the interests of the City and as an opposition Councillor to speak out where I disagree with decisions. I don't see it as my job to defend the Council. I suspect that this is because I got involved in poltitics because I disagreed with the way things were being run. June was part of a Labour Administration which ran the City for 20 years. I guess she has gone native.

June talks about the need for co-operation betweeen the political parties when the Council sets its budget for the year in February. Well I agree we should all work together where we can, although we are sure to disagree from time to time. I have always thought that I have put forward constructive arguments at previous budget setting debates. Indeed following discussions last February the administration took up my suggestions to have a free collection of garden waste. This helped reduce the amount we landfill and also the amount we pay in landfill tax. I would hope we can agree on other good policies this time and I have number in mind that I would like to put forward.

Anyway... there is a very good article from Linda Norris of Bassett in the 'In My View' section.

Celebrity Big Brother 4

I cannot believe George Galloway is on Big Brother! It is going very interesting to see what he has to say! I need to fix my cable so I can watch E4!

Parish of Freemantle

Tonight Michael Ball, Brian Parnell and I went to the licencing of the new Priest-In-Charge at Christ Church, Revd. Brian Cox. Had a really fun evening.

Memories of Terry Payne

A local author is writing a book on Terry Paine, legendry Saints footballer and Conservative Councillor for Bargate ward between 1969 and 1972. If you have any photos, leaflets or memories of his time in Southampton politics please let me know by email.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to you all. I have a feeling 2006 is going to be fantastic year!

Anti Skid Surfacing laid in Raymond Road

Just noticed on my way home from work that the Council has put down the anti skid surfacing on the bend in Raymond Road. It looks pretty good and its just in time for the snow!

Government plans to reinvigorate local democracy are a sham

The front page of today's Guardian carries a story about Government plans to reinvigorate local government. http://politics.guardian.co.uk/localgovernment/story/0,9061,1674724,00.html

Reading between the lines and drawing on experience of this Government's attitude towards local councils, I am deeply sceptical of their motives.

David Miliband MP, the communities and local government minister talks about devolving power and giving more power to local people and neighbourhoods.

He talks of empowering "people through a national neighbourhoods framework, local neighbourhood charters, a rules of the road for local behaviour, and a range of options for neighbourhood action". I am not really sure what this means but I suspect it means more quangos, more pointless partnerships, more bureaucracy, more sidelining of locally elected politicians and more confusion amongst the electorate about who is in fact responsible for the delivery of local services.

What is needed is devolution of power from Westminster to local councils and less targets and less ring fenced funding. Also the Government needs to address the funding of local councils. Currently 3 quarters of funding comes from Government and only 1 quarter is raised locally. This balance needs reversing. This way local politicians can truly be accountable for local services and it will be seen as worthwhile for the majority of people to bother to vote.

Unfortunately I think what lies behind the Governments proposals is an agenda to further weaken and sideline local government. The Government aim is to break up the County Councils (most of which are Tory controlled). Hampshire and Kent (two excellent Conservative controlled Shires) are surely to be the first to be attacked.

I can't imagine that this Government that has gone more to micro manage from Whitehall every aspect of life in this country, that has done all it can to weaken the democratic role of Parliament, that has politicised the civil service and done all it can to castrate local democracy, is now having a change of heart.

New Eco-loo a waste of money

The Daily Echo carried an article on 28th December about the new £300,000 eco-loo that the Council has built on Weston Shore. It strikes me that £300,000 is rather a lot of money to spend on a toilet, however nice it might be. It does seem odd given all the other areas that need investment in the City, for example the poor state of some of our Council housing or the terrible state of our roads and pavements. I wonder if our Council has its priorities right.

Civil Service Sports Ground Update

I thought i'd post an update on this as i've received a few questions by email.

The land has been bought by Bovis who are a property developer. They will want to build houses/flats on the land.

The Council's position is that the land is 100% green space and should remain so. The Council has produced a document called the open space audit and it's local planning plan is due for publication in the next few weeks. These documents clearly set out the Council's planning position.

Various discussions are being had about the land by the local residents association, the City Council and St Marks school.

The Council has set aside £110,000 in its stratgic reserves to spend on the land. The Conservative budget proposals will include this money next year and I would be very suprised if it doesn't stay in next year's budget.

Residents Parking

Southampton Conservatives want to see more residents parking schemes around the City where they are requested by residents. Areas where there are particular problems are round the hospitals, ordanance survey, univeristy etc.

In Freemantle ward I am continuing to push for a scheme for Cawte Road and will be raising the matter again with the Council at a meeting on Monday. I am also looking at a number of other roads where people have contacted me about schemes being introduced.

Parking is a huge problem in Freemantle Ward and all 3 of your Councillors are really pushing for measures to improve things.

Various Updates...

I haven't had a chance to update the blog with anything meaningful for a while. Here are few things i've been up to:

2nd December - went to a dinner at the football club to celebrate the contributions that fosters carers make. Really interesting evening. Had a chance to talk to a few couples about their experiences.

5th December - Freemantle Community Centre AGM. This was the first time I have been to their AGM. Everyone there is really nice and very dedicated. The local community warden came along and talked about the work he was doing to improve they area. There was also an update from the Council about Social Service's plans to build onto the centre. I'll do a posting on this soon. It's rather complicated.

12th December - Resources Scrutiny Panel Meeting. We looked at various financial matters including plans for the Council to work in partnership with private sector firms to deliver improved customer services.

w/c 12th and w/c 19th - Budget meetings. The Council will set its annual budget in February next year. I have been working on the Conservative Group budget which we will present in February. This will include where we will spend money. Our priorities are improved social services, education, waste collection and recycling, and reducing crime. Our budget will include a variety of proposals to improve these things.

14th December (tonight) - Southampton Test constituency Christmas dinner. This is being held at the municpal golf club and should be excellent fun.

Free Bus Passes

Next year the Council will be introducing free bus passes for pensioners. This follows the Government's announcement at the last budget. Conservatives nationally backed the proposal at the General Election. Locally we have been calling for free bus passes in Southampton for years and are delighted it's now going to happen.

Conservatives had the free bus pass when we last ran the Council (which was back in the early 1980s). Since then the concessionary fares have been slowly eaten away.

Extra Government money will mean their reintroduction. On the face of it the extra funding the City Council receives may be enough, however it will all depend on what the take up is by bus users as to whether it impacts the Council Tax payer.

Spectator Blog

The Spectator has just launched a new blog which is worth a look:

http://www.spectator.co.uk/blog/