Ashford Future's Waste of Money

Yesterday I attended the Kennington Community Forum and the beginning we were given a presentation demonstrating where the council is spending £450,000 of our council tax money.

Ashford Future and Ashford Borough Council have contacted a not-for-profit company to run a pilot project on energy efficiency.

For "Not-for-profit company", please read "a poor excuse for a charity that feeds directly of government money and exploits the targeting system in the civil service as well as using up some of the hundreds of thousands of graduates without any jobs.

They prepared a presentation with a vast array of free stuff and explain how Ashford Future had commissioned them to look into how to make our homes more energy efficient.

To do this they would be giving away free stuff

Kennington and Bybrook wards have been selected in the pilot study which is to run until October 2010.

This pilot study will involve giving away free stuff

The team offering to conduct two surveys on properties to assess whether energy savings can be made.

From this survey you can get free stuff

This includes the Electricity Monitoring device, which retails at the price of £25. But for you, it will be free.

But Wait, There's More

Our council tax will also be used to supply "chimney balloons", "tap implants", "reflecting radiator panels" and much more.

And if that wasn't enough of a waste of our money, they will also have a sales team knocking on doors in the local community to book surveys, and, wait for it,the residents know what free stuff they are entitled to.

In addition to the free stuff, residents will also be able to find out about government subsidised cavity wall insulation, loft insulation and much more.

Don't forget the free stuff!

A Little Less Sarcastic Conclusion

The bare bones of the matter are the council tax is being wasted on yet another ludicrous project by Ashford Future's evasive and illogical partnership.

£450,000 is just the cost of the "free stuff". How much more did the project team, surveyors and consultants cost?

And this is only the pilot study. How much will it cost when it is rolled out across all wards in 2011?

Not to mention the fact that the majority of homeowners are entitled to subsidised energy-saving initiatives without such a gratuitous waste of money.

However, I know from talking to residents, that often the "subsidised part" is the small change. The "approved" companies charge consumers through the nose for the rest, and the government will only subsidise if you have the full amount done.

There are not many pensioners who could afford to pay £3000 to get £1000 of subsidiaries to have their radiators replaced.

I think that's the public services deficit for Mr Brown and Mr Darling to locate.

Failings in Future Planning

There is a significant strategic issue here too.

If companies were filling our town with Lego-brick-houses that cost too much and cost even more ecologically, we wouldn't have to have this retrospective funding in the first place.

The level of development in Ashford is one of the highest in the country, and, despite knowing about Climate change, no one is ensuring that this development consists of sustainable materials and with a low carbon footprint.

If the funding for this ludicrous project has to be allocated to ecology, then this is where it should be spent.

And if funding is allocated to ecology then it should be put towards our atrocious potholes!

ABC Admits Plans are Set Before Consultation

This evening at the Kennington Community Forum, Ashford Borough Council planning surveyor Giles Holloway openly admitted to residents that their department applied to funding and allocated plans to relevant areas before they held public consultation.

Such a lack of democratic participation has become commonplace under the current Borough Council.

Responding to the audience's disbelief, the ABC surveyor offered no comfort residents of Kennington, Bybrook, Little Burton Farm and Bockhanger by insisting that although this was the case, residents were entitled to object and that the Council could change their minds.

There are far too many "crammed in" proposals being put forward by planning in an already congested area and the Borough Council's track record of overriding public opinion has created a cynical and discontent public.

Garage Sites

Towers View and Model Road residents will be losing the garage and parking facilities to be replaced by additional council housing.

The Planning Representative stated that the sites were underused, I'm slightly and suffered from vandalism. However, residents stated that they had never been informed there was aching garages available, and if they had been then they would have applied to release them.

Councillor Marian Martin pointed out the residents are contacted her considering parking issues in the wars in relation to the garage sites.

The loss of parasites may or may not reduce antisocial behaviour, the residents will suffer as well.

Car insurance will be set to rise for residents will have to park on streets

In addition to this, if, as Councillor Martin asserts she would like to see, the council introduces parking permits and feeds the residents, resident's purses will suffer even more.

While Ashford Borough Council has a significant lack of council tenant premises, there are plenty of sites that could be used that would not leave already deprived areas with even less space and more people.

Sheltered Housing Extensions

Gerlach House, situated on Beecholme Drive, has suffered greatly in recent years, with the removal of resident wardens which have effectively created a lockdown on the social of the residents used to enjoy and are now to be subject to further extensions.

Examining the plans provided by the planning department, it appears that the extension will result in two additional flats being added to the property. This will either mean that residents will lose their gardens or the car park.

After all, Sheltered Housing is designed to encourage older people to have continued independent living, why on earth would they need gardens or car parks?

One could also enquire as to whether this is a direct saving as a result of shifting Resident Wardens to a peripatetic scheme that involves the residents now in sheltered housing only being visited once every six weeks.

I cannot see how the council can be "saving money" by building additional flats, and it is likely, given the expensive of the planning, that after they had started charging rent to these premises, they will only just be breaking even.

In Conclusion

It shows the arrogance of our current Borough Council that planning officers are quite happy to admit that there is no democratic participation when it comes to people objecting to the development in their own neighbourhoods.

Only by continuously challenging, which takes time and energy, can we overthrows such a dictatorship of a Council and the effect that it is having on our local community.

If we're subjected to a Conservative Government later this year, their current planning proposals are to remove all consultation period on planning so that Councils will be able to build and build and build without any input from the public.

Perturbing Parking Points in Question

The Kentish Express revealed this week that car parking prices are set to rise by a whacking 3.5%.

As the local paper points out, this is significantly higher than interest rates. It is also significantly higher than Council Tax rises, and one must wonder what the profit revenue is on the vast array of parking across Ashford.

Local Residents

Noted in the last paragraph, where the deliberate or not seeing is only 10% of readers of the get that far, on street parking will come into line with town centre car parks.

This is in order to "give town centre residents more chance to park nearer their homes".

What a wonderful social divide this provides-you are entitled to park nearer to your house in the event you can afford to do so.

Comparable Boroughs

The KM states;

But the costs are only catching up with the higher charges of Canterbury and Folkestone.

However, Canterbury has park-and-ride system which is significantly cheaper than the city centre car parks, and yet manages to fund an entire "every 10 minutes" bus service on these rates.

And while Folkestone might charge more for an hourly rate their residents parking permits and season tickets are significantly cheaper than ours, probably largely due to the fat that they do not have a direct line to London.

If Ashford Borough Council could justify an entire park and ride service based on an increase of 20p, which is the current rate in Canterbury for park-and-ride, I would be very impressed.

Revenue Accrued

Out of interest, I've been studying Ashford Borough Council's website on parking.

Based on the predicted price rises, ABC will accrue a whopping £1504.80 per hour.

This works out at £18,057.60 per day,
£126,403.20 per seven day week,
£547,747.20 per calendar month
and a terrifying £6,572,966.40 per year.

And yet the Welsh Assembly is able to offer free parking across the entire country.

Fields of Concrete

I must admit it has been sad to see in recent years Ashford being depleted to such a vast expanse of concrete. Elwick Road and Station Road, in particular, have slowly but surely being bulldozed, leaving open, asymmetrically lined ground instead of local businesses, community infrastructure or jobs.

I'm not against modernisation per se, but one has to question why so many additional parking spaces were needed in Ashford and why the suggestion that the Park and Ride complex were not made earlier.

Given the amount of money that the increased car park charges will be adding to Ashford Borough Council's coffers, I am amazed that it is not going through sooner.

But then again, how else could they afford a month's worth of consultancy fees on where to paint a use on the shared space initiative?

ABC's Failure to Responds to Residents

The position of Dobbies "Garden Centre" versus Bybrook Garden Centre is something of a controversial issue in the town centre.

We are struggling to retain local businesses in Ashford as it is, and is a real shame to see councillors failing to represent their local residents views when responding to planning applications.

With petitions of 4672 signatures submitted to the Council as well as objection letters, this accounts for 80% of the voters in the four wards of Bybrook, Bockhanger, Kennington and Little Burton Farm.

If you consider back in the 2007 Borough Council elections, an average of 26% of these four wards voted.

Now of course, the signatures may not all be from people within this area, but it's a highly indicative move that such a large percentage of Ashford, who cannot usually be motivated to vote in the local elections, are motivated to stick up for and defend a local business run by local people in the face of the monopoly of supermarket chain stores.

A Night to Remember: Tenterden Annual Dinner 2010

I warn you in advance that this post is going to have a distinctly personal edge.

I was invited to be one of the key speakers at the Tenterden at liberal Democrat Annual Dinner 2010 last year at the AGM. Barry Wright, our local party president requested that I talk about social networking and its use in politics and campaigning.

To my benefit, Shepway Liberal Democrat KCC Councillor Tim Prater had linked to an article via Twitter entitled Top 10 Reasons to use Social Media which gave me a starting point!

Getting There
However, I had to actually get to the dinner first. If you'd asked me prior to leaving yesterday, I would have said that driving to Tenterden was no problem.

I collected the other key speaker, Parliamentary Candidate Chris Took, and we set off in the dark with a relatively vague idea of where the restaurant The Station was.

It seems that my biggest mistake was attempting to turn round after I missed the restaurant! My rather lovely car hit a kerb and got lodged with the front wheels up in the air. because of my disability, I drive an automatic and this is also a front wheel drive. Moving the car proved to be very difficult! it was further hindered by the fact I've collected 4,000 freshly printed leaflets that afternoon that were in my boot! we ground to a halt at quarter past seven, the dinner was at half past seven, we finally arrived to a round of applause at half past eight!

The Dinner

The Station Restaurant is a wonderful cafe bar based at Tenterden Station, part of the Kent and East Sussex Railway and is staffed almost entirely by volunteers. Their service and food was impeccable and I would recommend anyone go there, irrespective of your interest in steam trains!

The Speech
Explaining social media to people that are not computer literate is a difficult subject to the best of times!

I began by revealing that myself and my partner tend to sit at either end of our three seater sofa with a laptop each and talk to each other on various networking sites. We do get ridiculed for this, but it is a growing trend in couples in their 20s. As I said to the audience, if myself and Dan are doing this and we are in our late 20s, imagine how teenagers are utilising social networking to communicate.

I then addressed Moores Law. while this concept applies to computer hardware, it can also be applied to social media and Internet software. Things are moving so quickly within digital technology and it is important to maintain a level of understanding and a level of strategic development within this market.

When I joined the Ashford Liberal Democrats last year, I largely took up the role of managing our Internet media. This included setting up a Face Book group (Ashford Liberal Democrat), a twitter accountband keeping actively involved with the local community online.

I tend to use social networking in campaigning not only to maintain communications, but also a former publication to get the message of our campaigns, news and policies to a wider audience.

When I knew I would be attending the Tenterden Annual Dinner, I could post that on Twitter, which informed 200 odd people. I could then post a link on the Ashford Face Book sites, which would inform a further 6000 people. I can then take the information and send out to every single Ashford community group Face Book site, from the Remembering Ashford The Way It Was to the Ashford R&B appreciation Society. By doing this I can probably hit an additional 5000 people.

Having such phenomenal power to communicate with so many people by doing something that is essentially free and takes a few minutes is a superb position to be in.

The Liberal Democrats suffer from being ignored by the major press and put on the back pages and latter paragraphs. However, by having a presence elsewhere, we can get our message across.

I also spoke about the various demographics that use Internet communications. While yes, the majority of people online are young, I have seen an increasing trend in older people and pensioners taking up the Internet. Not only do fantastic campaigns by Age UK assist in "getting people online", but these people often have more time to access the Internet for whatever reason.

There is also an interesting growth in people with disabilities using the Internet for further communication. A user of voice recognition software myself, I appreciate that the Internet is utilised by a variety of people who have difficulty communicating in other ways. For people with mobility difficulties, it may be their prime source of community as they are unable to get out and about as freely as other people. In that respect, I think the Internet is fantastic.

I also raised the issue of social media allowing campaigning and communications to remain local and personal. If I have something to say about Ashford, I can add a hash tag on Twitter, or I can make sure that I target specific groups. one brilliant example with face book that I utilised with the ability to see when people having celebrations. Therefore I knew that it was Barry Wright's birthday and brought along a card. By being aware of local issues and having a continuous stream of promotions and events, it has enabled the Liberal Democrats, not only in Ashford, but also across the country to become more involved with the local communities and raise their own profiles.

There is a wealth of ideas through which you can use Internet campaigning. Simply for acquiring signatures on petitions, raising money for charity events or providing people with posters that they can present themselves to advertise your events that they're interested in, it is a world that we need to be involved in in order to move politics into the 21st century.

The End

Chris Took provided a wonderful speech engineered to "whip the local group into a frenzy" with a great deal of focus on preparing for his second election as a PPC and raising the profile of Ashford Liberal Democrats across the entire constituency.

All in all a very successful evening, even if it did start somewhat badly in relation to my poor car!

Southeastern Failure to Support Disabled People

Following my open letter to the Kentish Express in February on the removal of safety critical staff, a news report on the BBC was brought to my attention.

Mrs Clearly was informed by Southeastern Trains that she would have to make a 45 minute round trip to Ashford station in order to access the side of the platform so that she could leave the station in Staplehurst.

This is an excellent example of why Southeast in Trains have made a grave error in removing platform staff.

One key issue to me in the removal of Safety Critical Staff is disability access to and from domestic stations across the county.

I think that the current guidelines provided by Southeastern Trains that the disabled passenger ought to notify and pre-book assistance on the service is absolutely diabolical and is a classic example of discrimination against disabled people.

It is unfathomable in the 21st century that our train service, which is rated one of the worst in the European Union when compared to other services, is allowed to get away with making disabled passengers' journeys more difficult, complicated and more lengthily than anyone else's.

Mrs Clearly stated "I was astonished. Angry, at the fact that they'd spent all that money making this station accessible and it wasn't.

A vast amount of money is spent on making properties accessible on a regular basis. This should not mean that in spite of millions being spent, a person in a wheelchair should have to get her family to carry her down the stairs.

Given that Councillor Claughton considered that the removal of Safety Critical Staff from Southeastern was not an issue, I would like to invite his response now it is clear that it will cause significant issues for disabled people.

Shared Space Financial Farce

The much debated Shared Space in Ashford is to undergo consultation to define parking.

Surely to have a predefined area for parking negates the very premise of a shared space?!

Not to mention another enormous waste of money on consultation fees.

Consultation on the amendments begin on 1st April and will end on 23rd April.

Consultancy fees are very much an open market based on what a company are prepared to pay. Doing a small bit of research on the Internet, I discovered that it is very difficult to apportion an hourly rate for a highways consultant, but they can generally expect to earn circa £750 per hour.

This is where our council tax goes.

The shared space is contentious primarily because of its cost. 13 million is already a phenomenal amount of money when we're experiencing severe issues with potholes, apparently a lack of finances to maintain a "green waste" collection service not to mention significant drops in policing services.

I'm not saying whether I am pro or anti the shared space, but I find the kids doing parcour across Bank Street on a Saturday morning quite amusing and also find the multilayered parking on Sundays up the sides of Bank Street just as entertaining.

But I do resent the vast amount that I invest in our councils and public services being shipped out to consultants to debate the design of parking spaces on an already extortionate shared space initiative over 21 days.

I'm sure that there are a number of the unemployed in Ashford who could quite easily point out where parking bays could be marked on the road and would do the whole lot for £750.

Controversy on Immigration on the Highstreet

Today I was on the Highstreet in Ashford talking to local people about the forthcoming election.

Being in Kent, one subject comes up again and again and I feel I ought to address the issue here.

Eastern Europeans.

People enquired what the Liberal Democrats were going to do about immigration.

But what they actually meant was what were we going to do about migration.

There is a simple distinction between the two that I find the public, predominately Daily Mail and Tabloid readers, get confused.

In the UK Immigration is the term used to describe those moving from another country to the UK and the EU to live and claim residence. The predominate nature of migration is assylum seekers and refugees.

However, the term Migration refers to people who move within the European Union and are entitled to work and live within any EU country and come and go as they please.

Ultimately, no party in power is going to prevent economic migration, whether Eastern or Western European, as it would be going against European Legislation.

As the corridor to Europe, Kent suffers from a flow of both migrants and immigrants. The latter is now dispersed accross the country following the UK Borders Act 2007 and subsequent legislation surrounding the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009 and UK Borders Agency.

However, when chatting, canvassing or debating with residents, I often find they confuse the issues.

Comments and sound bites are generally thrown at me such as "British Jobs for British Workers" and "floodgates had been opened to mass immigration".

If someone is generally talking about immigration, my favourite response is "do you know any immigrants?". I generally find that the response is "well it is all in the papers". The answer is clearly no, and they are responding to a media pandemic of scaremongering and illogical concepts.

The paticular incident today was about European Migration and the people cited a number of local incidents of assaults in Ashford.


Whether Eastern Europeans were responsible or not is not the issue to me. The issue is, we do not have enough police on the streets.

It would be interesting to see a demographic study of crime in Ashford and see if there are predominate migration issues, but I would hazard a guess that it is an irrelevant issue.

The issues that come with migration are tackled by other areas. If there are assaults, then it is police. And the Liberal Democrats are the only party to pledge an increase in police numbers and a dedication to preventing crime.

The Unfathomable Treatment We Subject the Elderly to

Further to my article in Demographic Discursive at the weekend, a fellow campaigner with Sheltered Housing UK forwarded this news report to me.

The article can be found here

Reported on the front page of the Torbay Herald Express yesterday:

"Police were called to a Sheltered Housing unit in the Cecil Road area of Paignton after a 79-year old was found dead by his carer at 9:20AM.

Undertakers could not remove the body, because a disabled buggy was blocking the doorway.

When police officers went to ask the neighbour if he could move the buggy, they found that he was also dead.

It was believed that younger man may have been dead for a couple of days.

The reporter, Paul James, does not mention a word about whether or not the Sheltered Housing scheme had warden coverage, but if this is how often people were checked, it seems safe to assume that it did not. Can you imagine how the other residents of that building must be feeling? THIS is Sheltered Housing?"

I cannot even begin to express my dismay.

I may have only been campaigning for six months with SHUK, but this is why I continue to do so.

In 2012 we will have more people over 50 than under.

One quarter of those people reside in Sheltered Housing.

And our government has allowed wardens to be removed and the unthinkable happen.

Anne (Secretary of SHUK) stated:

"How many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?
How many deaths will it take 'til he knows
That too many people have died?"

I will be joining the protest with the UK Pensioners Strategy Group and Sheltered Housing UK on Monday 22nd March to protest and demand the government brings back wardens in Sheltered Housing.

Join me if you can.

Alarming Bribery in Councils (Made Off II)

The BBC reports that Councils are paying off all number of CEOs in immense "severence deals".

Communities and Local Government Secretary John Denham states in this article;

"The Audit Commission report shows that too many chief executives are being dismissed because they have fallen out with council leaders - this can cost as much as £500,000 in some cases and is all too often seen as a quick-fix solution."

So what we seeing here is effectively blackmail.

This is not the first item I have seen which indicates one rule for councils and another for the rest of the country. Fraud is apparently rife within our democratically elected councils.

Not to mention the furore over expenses in central government.

The Russians have a saying for corruption which I consider wonderfully apt. The fish rots from the head down.

If, as the soundbites say, Britain is Broken, then it is the current government regimes and extreme forms of power they hold that is the problem and has filtered down.


Local Impact

Kent County Council's Chief Executive Peter Gilroy was given a shocking £200,000 as he left this year.

Interestingly, he is not the only member of KCC to be extortionately rewarded for leaving his job. Kent Online goes on to say;

"Only last month, we reported how two former senior directors at Kent County Council earned £670,000 between them in a single year after receiving six-figure pay-offs when they left their jobs."

The Conservatives criticise the report, stating "the pay-offs were an "affront" and that councils had to provide "clearer guidance".

Yet the last three payoffs in KCC were made by the Tory Council.

As the BBC reports,

"The commission found competent chief executives had been laid off needlessly and those not up to the job were being paid off when they should have been sacked.

This is simply underlines it as a form of blackmail.

We should not be allowing our councils and governments to get away with crime. The only power we have to change this is our vote.

So maybe we need to re-engage with politics again and stop voting for party dominance and start voting for people we know, with integrity and morals.

Gaining Ground for Sheltered Housing

Back from a Liberal Democrat Conference, which was superb.

As many of you know, I am an active campaigner for Sheltered Housing UK campaign to restore resident wardens to sheltered accommodation.

To Recap
It came to my attention that Barnett Council, attempted to remove resident wardens and were prevented by the High Court which has created a landmark case inspiring other residents to take up the fight.

In Ashford our resident wardens were removed in 2007 in favour of a peripatetic system which has rendered them vulnerable and assailable in their own homes.

This system is slowly being implemented across the country by various regional councils and often without consultation with residents, or done in such a way they are unaware of the negative effects until after it has occurred.

Sheltered Housing UK Association have been running a petition for some time nationally to prevent councils removing resident wardens and to reinstate those that have been removed already.

Having coordinated the campaign on behalf of Chris Took PPC in Kent, we took the campaign as a policy motion to the South East Regional Conference and it was passed, accruing wide ranging support. We then submitted a policy motion for the federal conference. Due to a variety of issues, this was rejected, but I did attend the conference with the campaign in mind.

My current results in Lobbying are Chris Huhne MP, Sarah Teather MP, Adrian Sanders MP, John Leech MP, Steve Webb MP and Catherine Bearder MEP.

As a result of the conference I am now able to add Jo Swinson to the campaign.

In addition to this, I gained wide ranging support from local officers I spoke with, and am continuing to campaign to restore resident wardens.

Indeed, Chris Took has listed Fairness for the Elderly as his number one pledge for Ashford and we are continuing to champion the campaign.

Please feel free to contact me with regards to this campaign.