Sunday 31 January 2010

The North School's Farm: A Cultural and Educational Resource

I am great supporter of the Save the North School Farm protest in Ashford, attending the demonstration on Saturday and helping accrue signatures.

The North Comprehensive School has an on site farm used for educational purposes for urban children in a farming and market town. The Councils have proposed building 25 homes on the land which would sacrifice an established part of the school and local community.

There is a local media campaign through KMFM and the Kentish Express to prevent the development going ahead.

A Source of Education

The North School Farm was established in 1936 and is used as part of a students learning programme where students take exams in Animal Husbandry. For an urban community in the heart of a market town, the farm provides a valuable education for students, aspiring farmers and animal lovers alike.

Students have been showing animals yearly at county shows, learning how to love and care for them and preparing themselves for the responsibility of adulthood and potential careers by giving up their free time to help out on the farm.

As local campaigners state on their Facebook group;

“Why do the Kent County Council deem it fit to take away the education and future of these students, just so they can put houses on the land and put money in their pockets?.

The discontent with Kent County Council’s avaricious approach to removing the farm stems from the Planning application, where they state the ground is not being used and does not involve any jobs being taken. This is clearly untrue and residents in the borough have taken umbridge against such callous discontent for their children’s education

Impact on Local Community

Residents of Essella Road have opposed the proposed building of 25 extra dwellings on the site which is in the heart of a congested area and in close range of three other schools as well as the North. The entrance would be situated on a dangerous bend, choking an already heavily used area which is nearby a railway works site with on road parking.

While concerns of immediate residents focus on the safety of the area, those in the wider community are concerned about the strain of the development in Ashford on the resources such as schools and jobs.

Excessive Development

Within the grander scheme of development in Ashford, Kent, part of the“ill-considered, poorly executed development on a massive scale”, the 11 houses are an arbitrary supplement to the proposed 31,000 homes to extend Ashford’s population in the next five years.

Further to this, a recent report by the Communities and Local Government Department have revealed that as of October 2008 Ashford Borough contained more than 1000 empty dwellings.

There is a significant waste of money in building on vacant land as opposed to renovating existing empty dwellings.

"Nationally there are over 650,000 empty properties across England, no longer used as homes that can be brought back into use with some investment. In Ashford alone the figure is 1160 empty dwellings" commented Ashford Lib Dem parliamentary candidate, Chris Took.

"The average cost of bringing these homes back into use is about £10,000 whilst the cost of a new build is closer to £100,000."

As residents opposed to the North School Farm site point out;

”There are a lot of other derelict ground in Ashford which the Kent County Council own, such as the Rothlawe School site, which has been unused for nearly twenty years.”

With such augmented changes to Ashford, the town has grown beyond recognition in recent years. As discussed in my previous entry on the planning for development, there seems to be no forethought for resources such as schools or high scale jobs within the extended urbanisation.

But out of them all, the North School Farm proposal stands out as negating education and raising hackles of residents who are sick of capricious movements by the Borough and County Councils to “build, build, build” and reap in the benefits with a significant lack of democratic participation and errosion of community ownership.

Friday 22 January 2010

Ageist and Unfair Ashford

The Kent news on Age UK and tackling Ageism produces some horrific buzz words in it's entirity but tackles a subject we should all be aware of.

In 2012 there will be more people over the retirement age than under it. As a result, we have a responsibility to older people not to discriminate, not to dismiss them and not to leave them in poverty as the "working world" continues.

I am something of a champion of the rights of Older people, in both Ashford and the County. This is because I see so often in my ward and within the borough, appauling treatment of older people by all ranges of people, from their own familes through to neighbours through to local councils.

One of the worst things I come accross is indirect ageism. This is not in relation to employment, per se, as tackled by the Employment Equality Act (Age) 2006 to tackle discrimination in the workplace. Instead I see appauling cases of people without a voice, whose opinions do not matter, who are regarded as irritating and a waste of resources.

It is because of this I am challenging decisions made for older people, yet do not consult them or actively ignore their needs, rights and opinions.

This began with my campaign for Liberal Democrats to back Sheltered Housing UK's campaign for resident wardens in Sheltered Accomodation. Through this I have met lots of older people whose emails and telephone calls to local services are ignored or blocked, and they are labelled nuisances.

I am now supporting communities of older people in Council accomodation who have been subjected to antisocial behaviour from other tenants. When looking into these situations, I have found services that dismiss complaints from the elderly as trouble makers and where they are left to deal with often appauling situations as the councils implement policy and tick boxes in order to meet national guidelines.

As a result of my work in Ashford, I am investigating establishing a Community Forum for Older People. One that provides the residents with an authority to their voices, one that cannot be ignored and one that is not funded and therefore predjudiced by the council, councillors or politics.


If you are interested and wish to be involved with this or help me with my campaigning, please feel free to get in touch
The Liberal Policy on Older People is under review and I have submitted a policy motion to the federal conference relating to the rights of Older People in Sheltered Accomodation. This includes a review of the Supporting People policy introduced by Labour which has significantly reduced services to Sheltered Accomodation residents.

I am also an administrator for the discussion forum for Fair Deal for Older People on Lib Dem Act, the discussion forum for Liberal Democrats.

Wednesday 20 January 2010

Urban Development Plans Summary

The Urban Plans were displayed today at the Julie Rose Stadium in Ashford.

Ashford has been allocated a large amount of money from the Central Government as it is identified as a key growth area and needs more housing to sustain the population and employment.

However, as with all planning applications, you cannot gurantee everyone will be happy with the proposals.

26 sites are listed as proposed development areas. These can be roughly divided into district;

Kennington

Kennington North, a current site of arable farm land commencing behind the Towers School and going across to the A28 has caused disconsternation among residents. 600 homes will create an huge addition to Kennington, and while not many people wish to change their view from fields to houses, the development will provide more housing for the area as well as further road systems that will link to the eventual Park and Ride system.

However, the proposed development of land between Orchard Lane and East Mountian Lane is not so straight forward. The land is also arable farm land, but there is no legal access at present to the field. The Orchard Lane is a private road that is a single file gravel road maintained by legal burden of covenant and there is no easement in existence to allow access to the field.
It would be impossible to expand the road to allow a two way thoroughfare and therefore the field is effectively landlocked.

Development of land around Ashford Hockey Club and Ashford Cricket Club would also allocate another 600 homes to the far side of Kennington. However, there is no proposal to add additional schools or facilities. I am unsure Byebrook Surgery would cope with an additional 1200 residents, and although the proposed Goat Lees development is to go ahead, this will not support the amount of families likely to move to the area. I would also question whether the five secondary schools in Ashford are enough when increasing Kennington's population by another council ward. On the other hand, increased facilities at the Hockey and Cricket Clubs will be an asset to a town with growing sports potential.

I cannot say I am too eager about Eureka Park and Sandy Hurst Lane developments either. Again, this is arable land that is a familiar surround of the town. While this development is marketed as employment opportunities by creating what will be the largest business park in the country, I am all too aware of Orbital park and Cobs Wood, full of warehouses providing minimum wage manual work, where several have been vacant for years and the constant flow of businesses through the existing parks creating a constant flow of redundancy and redeployment that does not benefit the community. Those who can get jobs in London for higher wage and permenance will continue, and we will be left with concrete and glass structures surrounded by lorries avoiding paying for the lorry park.

Repton Park and Goddington

Chart Industrial Estate will be redeveloped to support the Victoria Way flyover. For existing businesses this implies a raise in the rates, and I have concern about leasing new properties in the current economic climate.

Leacon Road, linked to Chart Industrial Site will provide further 150 residences and more business premises. The same applies.

Extending Godington Park by 150 has already caused much upset for residents in the area. The arable farm land is full of footpaths and gorgeous scenary that will be lost.

The Warren Park and Ride will provide the ever expanding town with some good transport facilities, but only from the M20. The downside is access from Canterbury will be directly through Kennington and make the roads worse.


Town Centre

Ashford Hospital and Lower Queens Road will provide 100 new homes, while 15 flats are proposed as well.

Singleton

A gap filling 20 homes to be added to Bishops Green.

Beaver

Redeveloping Beaver Green School to provide extra housing does not bode well for schools already bursting with students accross the area.

Park Farm

Park Farm presents the highest level of expansion in the area, ground I used to walk on as foot paths is now a myriad of housing and this is set to continue. With over subscribed schools and a lack of industry, I anticipate complaints here too.


Willesborough

The William Harvey Hospital will be given access from the A20 alongside 300 new homes. This may or may not delight people who seek cheap or free parking for the Hospital, but I doubt it will delight the residents who battle to park alongside their own homes in the process. There is also no apparent plans to extend facilities in the area, and I predict further strain on the schools and medical services.

Lees Farm will become 20 additional homes. This is already an enormous area and it feels as though they are filling every available space with more housing. This also applies to Blackwall Road, Canterbury Road and Hunter Avenue.

The development of Newtown Works and the Klondyke Works have been in the pipeline for years. It will provide prime housing for rail access but will be a thorn in the residents' sides.

Summary

There is a proposed additional 2200 homes within the planning and it is likely to have a dramatic effect on social services in the area. Current growth may include a range of alleged employment opportunities with business parks, leisure parks and travel facilities, but the increase of strain to doctors, dentists, schools and Borough services will present a drain on resources unless the priorities are changed.

The plans will be shown again on Wednesday 27th January at Godington Village Hall if you wish to review them yourself.

Bear in mind if you wish to complain you must write an individual letter per person. A list of signatures in this instance will only account for one complaint when assessed by the planning committee.

Gurkha Integration School Meeting

This afternoon I had a "management meeting" for the Gurkha Integration School. (See my previous post on the Gurkha Peace Foundation)

As a way of introduction, for I forsee I will be commenting on this a lot, Andrew and Siobhan are trained CELTA teachers, Gwen is a teaching assistant, Cllr Bob Davidson is our "head master" and Bhim the founder of Gurkha Peace Foundation and orchestration agent.

I'm volunteering as a teaching assistant, but that doesn't mean I have any experience of teaching at all!

Today's meeting was geared towards working out a scheme of lessons, what the Gurkha wives want to learn and how we plan to run the pilot.

We have initial funding for a year, but it would be great to have it running for a long time. The funding is also wife specific, so we cannot, as much as we would like to, integrate the male Gurkhas at the moment.

The initial plan is to run two classes on a Saturday, of two different standards, to teach key areas of English Language and culture that is essential to living in Britain.

The current ESoL guidelines are levels 1 to 3. Each level takes one year. Once this is complete, Adult Education are able to take them on for other classes.

However, we cannot be sure of their capabilities without a period of assessment and classes.

Therefore we decided to run term time classes and meet again at Easter to review. The estimated plan is to bring the higher class up to ESoL 2 and present them with a certificate. We would then move the lower class to become the higher class and take on a separate class.

Discussions were had about volunteers, and we all seem to know people who may be willing to do some assistance, if not commit to every week.

There are key areas we need to address with teaching. While it is straightforward to say they need to know health and social care, housing, shopping etc, there may be things we just wouldnt consider because of cultural differences. For example, public toilets!

It has been proposed we use outside parties to do a lesson as a key speaker, for example, a local PCSO on community policing to help share the weight of the task at hand and teach in more depth subjects we may not have expertise in.

I am quite excited about Saturday now. I will be working with Andrew in the higher class and we have a basic lesson plan of introductions, elliciting ambitions and mingling games for three hours!

We are seeking volunteers, so please get in touch if you think you can help.

Tuesday 19 January 2010

Requesting Captions...



My nearly husband works in the Nursing College at Canterbury Christchurch University. When he tweeted to say that this morning he had found the Archbishop of Canterbury giving a dummy CPR, I demanded a photo!

Monday 18 January 2010

Debatable Shopping Paradise

County Square had record number of visitors in 2009?!

Really? I assume most of them, like me, were wandering around trying to understand exactly how the five new shops cost £65 million.

And while County Square may have expanded in 2009, I would be surprised if they met their targets, given that River Island began with two floors and then reduced it's trading to one floor only.

This would imply the stores which Executives in Ashford were so proud to add to the list of Modernity Ashford proclaims are finding it extremely hard to make a significant profit on top of what must be high rent for such a dynamic building.

My other complaints about County Square include the complete lack of ATM machines, the ludicrous music pounding from each open face store as you walk down, the excessive 300 watt lighting which makes living with Irlens Syndome very difficult, the lack of affordable coffee (£1.80 is excessive) and the sporadic seating and stalls in the centre of the gangways, which makes mobility difficult when dealing with several pushchairs and families on busy days.

However, I suppose it is only comparable to shopping on a flood plain in the freezing cold under a structure that is comparable to a circus tent filled with junk food outlets and trainers. Which, if you don't know, is the Designer Outlet.

Saturday 16 January 2010

Gurkha Association School Launch

I have spent this afternoon with the Gurkha Peace Foundation in Ashford.

As a Trustee for Volunteering Ashford I was interested to receive an email before Christmas asking for Volunteers to help with the Gurkha Association to support wives of retired Gurkha soldiers in Ashford to learn English, traditions and customs of British people.

I was keen to participate and contacted members of the Liberal Democrat Party in Ashford to see if anyone else was available to help.

Bhimraj Tumbahangphe is the founding member of the Gurkha Peace Foundation and a good friend of the party. He announced in the Kentish Express they were looking for volunteers and would be holding a press conference Saturday 16th January. Having spoken to Bhim, I agreed to attend with a variety of other members.

Many other people attended, including Kent County Councillor and fellow lib dem George Kowaree, Leader of the Ashford Borough Council Lib DemsBob Davidson, His Worshipful The Mayor John Holland, Liberal Democrat PPC for Maidstone Peter Carrol and Canterbury City Councillor
Brian Staley.

The basis for the class was, as Bhim told in his speech, when a fellow Gurkha died in Folkestone because his wife could not use the telephone.

In order to prevent this reoccuring, the Gurkha Association have established classes to teach the wives English and citizenship.

The Mayor lit candles to commence the classes and all present to support the initiatives were honoured with sashes.

George Kowaree pledged £750 towards to the classes and we hope to recieve more support as it develops.

Having been served tea and coffee and chatted, the visitors left and those who were volunteering and learning got down to business.

With over 40 Gurkha women to teach, the task is daunting but not impossible.

I am volunteering to help with the classes and with three qualified teachers, we tested the women and assessed their levels of knowledge.

Classes are to be held on Saturdays and Sundays in International House and we hope to accrue more volunteers and funding with time.

Please contact me if you would like to know more.

Wednesday 13 January 2010

Petrol

Grrr.

Not an original moan, I am afraid.

The VAT reversal means petrol has jumped in price again.

Current research has BP at 113.9 per litre, Tescos (Park Farm) at 112.9 per litre, Shell (Chamber's Garage) is 111.9 per litre and Sainsburies at 111.9 per litre.

I have got into the habit of driving to Canterbury (yes, Canterbury!) as Morrisons and Esso are 107.9 per litre. But 17 miles is a long way to go.

Rant over

Saturday 9 January 2010

"Ashford Voice" Analysis Part I

During the heavy duty Christmas season I had the opportunity to peruse the Ashford Voice.

A free magazine "full of features on living, working and enjoying life in Ashford and surrounding communities".

Also known as council propaganda.

Let's do a break down by contents headline;

News in Brief

An overview of various council schemes with persuasive language.

For example, The Parking Services Annual Report, where the article states "proposed future initiatives include an innovative system which could see motorists paying for parking with mobile phones".

I would hazard a guess that the translation: parking will be increasingly monitored through mobile phone payments plus they can review the potential for congestion charges and the integral and unreasonably conspiratorial "Future Core Team" of Ashford development.

Victoria Way Green Light.

Brilliant, another road to congest Ashford's over subscribed traffic and town centre. And it is costing 17 million pounds. I am sure this is a further example of ringfenced monies, but perhaps the council can explain to residents of sheltered accomodation why they can build a new road but cannot provide wardens? Or perhaps they can inform the residents of the Churchyard why they cannot afford lighting to remove the threats of ASB or a new CCTV camera? I could go on.

Council to Build Afforable Homes.

Where? Oh, on the site of a Sheltered Accommodation unit in Kennignton, while squeezing some more residents into the over populated expanse of Willesborough. And the council tenants awaiting housing who have to live in hostels and B&Bs? Oh no, ABC have a conception of rich young families moving from London to get the Hitachi line to work wanting affordable housing. Dear ABC, please quanitfy “affordable” while in the same magazine you write an article on how the Salvation Army protect and aid those who are homeless at Christmas. Oh, look, there is no available report on Ashford's performance.

Now, other than the news that the new high speed rail line is up and running in Ashford, every other piece of Ashford News is council related. What about the news that our custody suite is being rendered useless? What about the State of the Borough Debate and the highlighted issues? What about the various charities running fundraising initiatives around the borough?

It is clear Ashford Borough Council do not want people's opinions and concerns to matter, just continuous promotion of their alleged good services.

Part II Coming Very Soon

Ashford, Kent and Asylum Seekers

Your Ashford published a rather inflammatory article on the costs of asylum seekers.

It appears to be geared directly to Daily Mail readers, certainly judging by the number of responses with the words "sponge off our country".

It also seems to have absolutely no information whatsoever and I would question what the journalists that Your Ashford actually do.

The only information that seems to be little relevant in this article is the council tax is set to rise under Kent County Council and part of this is due to asylum seekers.

Reading beyond what appears to be a deliberate incitement of racial hatred, I'm sure you cannot blame me for asking "what costs?"

Any benefits that asylum seekers receive is lower than any other recipient of benefits in the country.

Benefits are paid by central government, therefore Kent County Council do not incur this cost.

The police and the UK Border Agency deal with all immigrants coming across the border. this includes keeping them in converted cells until accommodation can be found, electronically tagging them while their asylum claims are assessed, and then pushing them through to relevant training centres in camps across the country (no longer housed in Kent). Therefore, Kent County Council did not incur the cost.

There is currently a two-year waiting list to get a house in Ashford, and I doubt that there is any immediate Housing opportunities in social housing across the county. In the event that councils are housing refugees and asylum seekers (as opposed to letting them live in "camps" which is is a diabolical abuse of human rights), this costs it incurred by the Borough Council, not by the County Council.

In fact, the only costs that I can see that Kent County Council may bear for asylum seekers is to support unaccompanied children while their claims are assessed.

I cannot genuinely believe that this has gone up by 0.71%. Given that an awful lot of charities work in partnership with the Kent County Council, I would also assume that the weight of responsibility is not on Kent County Council and instead rests with the Refugee and Migrant Justice centre in Ashford, not to mention other charities across the county.

So what on earth is Your Ashford playing at, not to mention this extremely dubious press release by Councillor Paul Carter?

And I'm sure that you can ultimately deduce from these facts and your own research that asylum seekers and refugees are not "sponging off our country"

Greetings


Welcome to a new blog for comment and observation on matters affecting residents of Ashford, Kent and the South East Region.

I will use this to comment on local issues, provide a commentary of what I have been up to in and on behalf of my local community and to raise awareness about Ashford Liberal Democrats.

Feel free to drop me a message.

You can follow me on;

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and on my other blog reserved now primarily for National issues,

disconcertediscursives.blogspot.com/



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