Public Conveniences – Are they Fit for Purpose?

Being born and bred in Shrewsbury I know and speak to many local residents every day, and one of the most regular topics to come up is the state of Shrewsbury’s public conveniences. A good range of well presented and maintained public toilets is a key part of any enjoyable visit to our town centre. Sadly the position is not all it should be.

Regularly I am told the standard of equipment and presentation is below what our residents and visitors have a right to expect.  The image of Shrewsbury they portray to visitors is one of not caring  whether they have a comfortable and  relaxed visit at all.  It is vital for the economic health of Shrewsbury that we make the most of the opportunities and income well planned tourism offers.
The current provision of public toilets in Shrewsbury is just not doing that.

What a massive shame it is that our Tory led Borough and County Councils instead chose to waste some £750,000 on the Darwin “celebrations” and the hugely costly Quantum Leap slinky sculpture.

Investing wisely in our basic facilities in my view would have been the sensible course, and would be far more likely to bring the repeat visits the Darwin fiasco has so conspicuously failed to produce.

Abbots Wood Day Centre is the Way Forward

Despite the doom- laden view of some commentators on the moral state of the country, there is much good work going on, if we just take the trouble to look. The article in the Chronicle of 4th February about the Abbots Wood Day Centre is just one example.  This wonderful community facility is located at Eskdale Road, Telford Estate, Monkmoor.

It offers a community based day service for adults with learning disabilities which enables individuals to take part in social and leisure opportunities in the community and to experience new opportunities. But unlike the old days of separate services, Abbots Wood is open to the local community to use. Local people can make use of an IT suite with internet access, meeting rooms for hire by community groups, a physiotherapy suite available for hire and a café open to the public.

Abbots Wood has close working relationships with Severnside Housing and West Mercia Police and as reported in the Chronicle is now an official Hate Crime reporting station. That means anyone witnessing or suffering discrimination or hate crime can report it confidentially to staff at the centre, who will pass the information on to the Police. I am very heartened that as a community we have invested in this Shropshire Council run facility, where the whole community can meet and learn from each other. Surely it is so much better for us to concentrate on working together, rather than looking for reasons to divide us?

Free VAT Open Day for Businesses

Free VAT advice open day for businesses

Shropshire Council and HM Revenue & Customs will be holding a free advisory day in Shrewsbury on 11 March to help explain to newly-registered businesses the importance of filing their VAT returns online.

Under government proposals it will become compulsory from April 2010 for VAT registered business to complete VAT returns online and pay any VAT due electronically.

Shropshire businesses affected by this change are being invited to the exhibition and seminar programme at the Prostar Stadium on Thursday 11 March to meet experts from government department agencies, and to find out more about help and support to start, survive or grow in business today.

Jill Poole, from HM Revenue and Customs Business Liaison Team, said: “I am pleased to be able to invite businesses to this event which offers a wide range of advice for small and medium sized businesses. In addition, we will be offering assistance to VAT registered businesses for the VAT Online service.”

Councillor David Roberts, Shropshire Council’s Cabinet member for local environment and economy said: “I’m pleased that we are able to support this important event which I would urge businesses to attend. One of the main aims for the Shropshire Business Board is to work with partners and other organisations to simplify the information available to businesses and to make it easier for them to access existing support services. This event will help to meet this aim.”

For more information about the event, call 01682 755214 or 01743 252531

School Places Solution Vital

The problem of surplus school places in Shropshire is back on the front page (Shropshire Star 2nd Feb). Now the spotlight has moved on to our secondary schools, which are reported to be facing large reductions in pupil numbers over the next 5-6 years.  This issue has been central to school funding in our County in recent years. To be fair to the controlling Tory group on the former County Council, they did recently attempt to tackle surplus numbers in the primary sector.  Sadly, rank and file Tory Councillors when faced with the inevitable angry protests buckled under the pressure, and appeared more concerned with the approaching unitary elections than with making progress on the matter.

Well, the problem has not gone away. I fully appreciate, and sympathise, with village residents concerned about the risk of closure to their school. On top of the loss of the local shop, pub and bus service this can seem like the last straw. But we must all accept small rural schools cannot be considered in isolation. Surplus places kept open mean less funding for the rest of our schools, including those in both village and town.

In my opinion what is required is an approach that considers the whole of our school system, and whilst listening fully to the people,  is not then derailed by narrow local electoral considerations. The issue is very emotive and inevitably supporters of some schools will be disappointed. The ruling Conservatives on Shropshire Council face some very tough decisions on the matter, but to do nothing is no longer an option.

What was not acceptable was the stance of certain prominent local Tories, who sought to blame the Labour Government for Shropshire’s surplus place problem. Spouting misleading and  inaccurate claims will not solve the problem, and does nothing to foster the informed debate we all need to have on the subject. The funding figures per pupil are largely a product of past failures to tackle the surplus place problem. No Government, of whatever party, is going to pay us to maintain significant numbers of empty desks.

If the same people repeat these claims now, they will truly have exposed themselves to be unable to understand simple mathematics, or worse, to be total cynics.

MP Silent on Local Tory Turmoil

The very public spat between ousted former Tory Borough Council leader Peter Nutting and current Tory Shropshire Council leader Keith Barrow throws up several significant questions. Cllr Nutting has been ruthlessly stripped of his Deputy Leadership and sacked from all his other main committee posts on the unitary new authority.  Yet only recently our Tory MP praised Cllr Nutting in the fullest possible terms.

In a Parliamentary debate on Local Government in March 2007 MP Daniel Kawczynski said of the Borough Council “It has an excellent chief executive and a formidable council leader, Peter Nutting.” Yet less than 3 years later Cllr Nutting has been ejected from power by his own Party, and Robin Hooper seems long gone.

As a Councillor on all of the Borough, County and Unitary Councils I always respected Peter Nutting as a hard working local representative. But I had deep differences with him over policy, particularly the spending spree the Tories indulged in with the sale proceeds of the Borough council houses. A recurring problem I found was getting information to scrutinise these spending decisions. The regular exclusion of the public under the exempt item rules, such as happened with the secret sale of the Barker Street car park, is just one example.

Sadly this is still going on. I have found great difficulty in getting details out of the Tory led Shropshire Council, to try and get to the bottom of of the huge Quantum Leap spending total. Yet both Peter Nutting and Keith Barrow are now publicly claiming they want more open and democratic local government. They can start by holding a full investigation into the huge sums spent on the Darwin celebrations, and why local residents  seem to have got so little in return.

And what of our Tory MP Daniel Kawczynski, what has he got to say about this local Tory turmoil? When it comes to his own Party, he seems to go very, very, quiet.

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