W.c. 23rd February

Monday

I found out after several phone calls this morning that Travel West Midlands have stopped using the All Saints Road, for the time being, anyway. Clearly the residents activities have hit home at last.

Later in the morning, I attended the second meeting of Druids Heath Management Board, where we discussed what had taken place, what needed completion and put together ideas for further work. I will admit, that if everything discussed does come to fruition, then we've quite an exciting time ahead of us.

At lunchtime, along with a council officer, we went up to Pound Road to try to sort out the lighting around this parade of shops. Presently there are no functioning lights in the canopy overhanging the shop entrances, closer examination and after discussions with some shop owners, we have hit upon installing another street lighting column, rather than replace the fifteen small 8 watt fluorescent lights.

The Neighbourhood Manager for Brandwood End organised a mini conference for groups based within the neighbourhood at The Cocks Moor Wood Leisure centre, to enable us all to decide what was most important for residents. This was a well attended meeting and again some good ideas came out of it, now we have to find the finances to support some of these ideas.

My evening was taken up with Labour Group activities, discussing tomorrows Council meeting.

Tuesday

Full Council day, after dealing with a few residents queries, went in to the Council House early, to follow up work and do some preparation for this afternoons debates.

There were some criticism over the fact that the Labour Group wishes to know in detail about next years spending plans. It does seem that this current administration are playing their cards far to close to their chests. Within the budget book, there is NO INFORMATION as to what each portfolio is expected to spend/cut per heading. All that the official opposition have asked for is that a breakdown of planned expenditure, both revenue and capital is made available to each scrutiny, constituency and regularity committee, before the financial year begins. This was voted against by the administration, so how on earth will we find out what they are planning to do?

Wednesday

I was planning to go to Westminster to day, hoping to have a word or two with some Labour members of Parliament over social housing, but more importantly council house building. I wasn't able too, but I did send am email to Austin Mitchell MP with some of my views.

The planned meeting with Travel West Midlands at Yardley Wood Garage was postponed at the last minute. However, I did manage to have a good discussion with a senior manager about matters and what I thought should happen. The postponement had been called after the intervention of senior officers of CENTRO and BCC and had announced that a protocol on bus route changes was needed to prevent future problems, similar to those experienced by my residents in the All Saints Road area.

Attended a short "interview" by Cub Scouts at St Nicholas's in Kings Norton, it has been some years since I was a scout leader (and for those that don't already know, my whole family, wife, two daughters and two sons are all scout/cub scout or guide leaders) and pack meeting really haven't changed. The issues they raised were, too much homework, litter, dog mess, not enough football and speeding traffic.

Immediately after "Cubs" I went to a Neighbourhood Tasking Meeting at The Brandwood Centre, where the normal issues were mentioned.

Thursday

Attended, what will probably be the penultimate meeting of a task and finish investigation in to "Housing Provision for Older People". We were given a presentation on independent living, very similar to the one we had at HUROS the previous week, but this time we all were able to quiz the officer a little more in detail. I raised yet again the lack of clarity, when it comes to older home owners and the lack of support from this council in making provision to repair their homes. The old statement, "we have Houseproud and kick-start to assist" came out again. What wasn't mentioned until I raised it AGAIN was that over £0.5million was being UNDERSPENT in a budget heading to help warm homes in the private sector. I will admit that Cllr Len Clarke asked some really probing questions and getting answers which some of his colleagues would run a mile from, he must be a Tory maverick, every party has them, but I do admire him for his stance in a number of areas, he's old school.

Found time late afternoon to deliver a leaflet to around 250 houses in the Kings Heath area over bus services and to assure residents that I was still fighting their corner, I hope that they understand the current situation a little better than before.

The evening was spent at an informal Constituency Councillors Meeting at the Selly Oak office. On the agenda this evening was the proposed PFI for roads, pavements and street lighting, less said the better on this subject.

Friday

We had a joint meeting of the Council's Audit Committee with Co-ordinating and Overview Scrutiny Committee Sub-finance group, where Sir Albert took the treasury officers and the present administration to task over "The Stalinist command economy", in particular the way that everything is done from the top and those below had to toe the line or else.

I had my say too, if the RBS bank ( which announced a £24billion losses on Monday) had used the same accounting practices then who knows they could have announced break even or possibly a small profit. Why on earth do they continue to count savings cumulatively year on year. In industry a saving is for just ONE YEAR, after that you start again, thankfully Alistair Dow agreed with me on this point. nevertheless with the present system we should be rolling in money in the next couple of years with savings in excess of £350 million. With Council tax from households bringing in £3million from a 1% increase this means householders should have a Council Tax reduction next year, possibly the year after of around 50%, if the Tory-Lib-Dem administrations figure stack up, I jest.

Saturday

I had quite a busy advice centre, with issues around homelessness and bus services in my ward, so much so that I over ran by more than thirty minutes.