Category: Uncategorized

With less than three weeks to go until the local elections on 6 May, campaigning by the candidates in Central ward is distinctly lacking. Even the local blue nest website carries a paltry amount of information on their candidates. So far only Mr Wright of Western ward has been leafleting. Of the known local (i.e. resident in Central ward) candidates, official information on Mr Leakey is limited — Ms Leakey has told us more — and neither Mr Evans nor Mr Cox have yet had anything to say — though you can still read Mr Evans’ views from three yeas ago.

Of the other less local candidates, Mr Chadfield of Eastcott Ward has said nothing. Ms Spencer, also of Eastcott Ward, has been presented rather more eloquently, but nevertheless is largely uninformative.

So of those that have expressed an opinion, what do we know of their future intentions. Mr Leakey wants more investment.

If elected, Kevin’s priority will be to improve investment in the residential areas of Central Swindon. He wants to offer people a fresh start, as a new Councillor who lives and works in the Town Centre and actually cares about it.

So, apparently, does Ms Spencer, as well as changes to residents’ parking.

Kathryn wants to be involved with the proposed regeneration of the town centre and working with local business as investment will have tangible benefits for those in Swindon Central. Kathryn also puts reform of the failed residents parking scheme at the top of her agenda.

And Mr Wright, well he has rather a long list.

Resident priorities I am working on include: Return Residents Parking back to residents control; Protect Urban spaces and gardens; Reduce Centrals Residential roads down to 20MPH; Ensure local accountability and fair charging for council services; Press for more Central School places for Central children; Work for a sustainable solution for the Mechanics Institute; Correct the Tories mistakes on Street Cleaning and Waste.

All worthy stuff. It’s just rather a shame that all bar one haven’t made much effort yet to tell us more.

’Tis amazing sometimes just how tenuous are the causes for complaint put forward by nimbies. For those living near a large car assembly plant, you’d think that distractions from a couple of wind turbines would be the least of their concerns. Apparently not. South Marston parish council are worried about strobed sunsets.

We’re concerned because it’ll be situated to the west of the village which means when the sun sets there may be a sort of strobe effect as the turbines go round.

Perhaps if the sun always set at the same point on the horizon, regardless of the season, it might be a legitimate concern. If clear sunsets on a windy day were a common occurrence, perhaps I’d have a little more sympathy for the potential mind-blowing effects of a dazzling stroboscopic display. Perhaps.

Mr McEwen, the chair of South Marston parish council, is also worried about noise from the turbines.

Also, we understand that there are noise issues which are currently being checked out and I’ll be very interested to see the reports on how those issues are going to affect people.

Perhaps he’d also considering campaigning against leaves on trees that rustle in the breeze.

This year’s election in Swindon’s Central ward has one unusual feature for recent years: a councillor seeking re-election. Recent turncoat councillors have done a runner from Central when the time has come to seek another term. Today I have thus received the novelty of a leaflet from a councillor not only seeking re-election based on their track record as a councillor for Central ward, but also still in the same party for which they were last elected. Unfortunately for Mr Wright he’s little of note to shout about.

In addition to striking a traditional politician pose, pointing at something he’s done nothing about (a pothole in this instance), Mr Wright lists several things he claims to have either helped, opposed or campaigned for. But not just him, oh no.

Over the past 4 years I have worked closely with Anne Snelgrove and my colleagues on the council in delivering for the residents of Central.

Mr Wright may well have fought for Central — tho’ there’s little evidence of him putting up much of a fight; half of what he lists were failures — but the government’s representative in South Swindon, Ms Snelgrove, certainly has not and her recent interest in wifi doesn’t make up for four years of non-interest.

If Mr Wright has done all that he claims, the results of his efforts are all but invisible. He’s had some success in stopping things; he’s been far less noticeable when it comes to getting things done.

An advanced draft of Ms Snelgrove’s speech on wifi in Swindon is now available. If you didn’t catch the adjournment debate, it’s well worth a read.

Update, 19:40, Tuesday 23 March 2010: You can now watch the recorded debate on the BBC website and read the official record of the debate from Hansard.

Mr Bluh has repeatedly maintained that the process by which Swindon Borough Council made a decision to invest in Digital City (UK) Ltd — for the purpose of providing boroughwide wireless internet for Swindon — was totally above board. Even as late as the meeting of the council’s cabinet last Wednesday, Mr Bluh said that ‘Process is a red herring’. It seems that Mr Bluh has difficulty distinguishing red herrings from great white sharks.

The meeting of Swindon Borough Council’s Scrutiny Committee last December was provided with evidence that the decision to invest in Digital City (UK) Ltd was made in October of that year, 20 October 2009 to be precise. At last week’s cabinet meeting, it was stated that Mr Patel was not a director of the company, that no appointment had been made, he was just ‘an observer’. Not so.

Evidence from Companies House shows that not only was Swindon Borough Council allotted shares in Digital City (UK) Ltd (at that time still known as DM 56 Ltd) on 15 September 2009, but Mr Patel also became a director of the company on that date. His directorship has only just been terminated.

Mr Bluh would like us to believe that there are no problems with the process by which the decision was made to invest in Digital City (UK) Ltd. He thinks — as he said last week — that it’s time to move on. If he weren’t so confused about not just what the process was but also when it happened, perhaps his pleading would be a little more convincing.

Hat-tip: TalkSwindon

Update, 01:43, Monday, 15 March 2010: Seems Mr Patel is trying to rewrite his recent past so his LinkedIn profile now describes him as having been an ‘SBC observer on Board of Digital City’ where twelve hours earlier it said he was a ‘Board Director’. Either Mr Patel didn’t understand what he was doing last September when he signed the Companies House form declaring himself to be a director of the company, or he regards the public as rather naïve. Either way, perhaps it’s time he found himself a less onerous job to do.

If I were Mr Tomlinson or Mr Buckland I’d be worried. Not because of how their party’s lead has diminished in recent national opinion polls. Nor because of particular campaigning successes of their opponents, Mr Agarwal and the government’s representative in South Swindon, Ms Snelgrove, respectively. No, what would worry me would be the antics of the leadership of Swindon Borough Council. Mr Bluh through his arrogance and extravagant splurging of local taxpayers’ money on vanity projects, is giving the opponents of his party’s candidates in the national elections an easy target.

The leaflet dropped through my letterbox today by Mr Wright in the company of Mr Montaut is devious in its attempt to confuse national politics with local politics. Thus it compares recent expenditure by the blue nest controlled council with alleged ‘investment’ by national government — bragging about money spent by Mr Brown’s government without mentioning the record-breaking debt they’ve run-up is like praising a bullion robber for their money laundering skills. But all that is a side issue in comparison with the simple messages of Mr Bluh’s vanity projects — wifi, tabernacle stones, the Radio 1 Big Weekend — and a simple claim.

David Cameron has already said he would run the country like a Tory council – don’t give him the chance.

I can’t find the source of that claim. And if Mr Cameron were to run the country like most Conservative councils, I wouldn’t mind. But Swindon Borough Council isn’t like other Conservative councils — it’s one with a legacy of Mr Bluh’s failed vanity projects.

Recent additions to the Swindon Local Studies Collection’s online archive of photographs have included several from a century ago of the point where the Wilts & Berks Canal crossed Kingshill Road. komadori has been out to photograph the same views today.

(2010 images are © komadori and part of a collection of almost 200 Swindon photographic comparisons with images from the online archive of the Swindon Local Studies Collection.)

Looking east…

and west…

and north…

and finally south-west.

On Monday night, for the first time, I went to observe a meeting of Swindon Borough Council. This was the budget setting full council meeting. Even allowing for the poor reputation of politicians, one might expect that for an important issue like this the debate would be serious and behaviour respectable. Instead, there was a display of infantile posturing and bad temper.

The meeting started with a minute’s silence to mark the death of Ms Fowles, chief executive of the local NHS who died of cancer at the weekend. In tribute, Mr Bluh suggested that councillors should try and have a reasoned debate. It was advice that few — including Mr Bluh and his own cabinet — chose to follow.

During the first item on the agenda — confirmation of the minutes of the last meeting — Mr Perkins delivered the first of many ranting political lectures. Indeed, one of the three consistent features of the evening — the others being the number 21 bus and Mr Bluh’s now infamous smug arrogance — was Mr Perkins’ aggressive contempt for all those he disagreed with.

Next up were questions from the public. In response to one question Mr Young admitted that the £2M benefits to the local economy claimed for the Radio 1 Big Weekend were ‘partly speculative’. In response to another question, Mr Bluh claimed that ‘due process was followed’ when investing almost £½M in Digital City (UK) Ltd. He also said

As far as I am aware there is no Audit Commission investigation.

Awareness may not be one of Mr Bluh’s strong points.

Next were general questions from the councillors, during which Mr Wright got very hot and bothered over the matter of naming streets and announced he was referring the matter to the borough solicitor. The names of streets seemed to worry Mr Wright more than how the council spends our money.

After ¾ hour it was on to the main item for the evening: the council budget. According to Mr Edwards his budget was ‘brilliant’. Naturally, Mr Montaut disagreed and proposed an amended budget, for the same cost but different services. Much knockabout political squabbling then followed, with Mr Perkins and Ms Foley in rather a lot of words accusing the opposition of being stupid and Mr Bluh taking the ‘nice try but should have done better; much better’ approach, and the red nest trying to make up for lack of numbers by shouting all their speeches.

Most bizarre moments of the evening for me were Mr Bawden making a speech opposing a budget needing a higher council tax, even though that wasn’t what the opposition had proposed, and Mr Ali delivering a political speech that made almost no mention of budget plans but wouldn’t have been out of place in a general election hustings for his candidature in Devizes.

However, perhaps the most telling point was when Mr Wright observed that an essential element of civic pride is ensuring that basic things, like keeping the streets clean, are done and done well. To this Mr Bluh responded

The Tabernacle stones and canal are about the bigger picture and Swindon moving forward.

For Mr Bluh running a council during a financial crisis is clearly more about vain legacy projects than serving the basic needs of Swindon.

It’s rare that I find myself in agreement, — even just partial agreement — with my local red nest councillors. But with the first election leaflet of the year to drop through my letterbox, they seem to have picked a topic which I suspect many in Central ward will see more than just a hint of truth amongst the political exaggeration.

First, they comment on residents’ parking permits. This is almost unadulterated political spin.

Residents parking is their second biggest revenue stream after Council tax. Every time they put up parking charges at car parks in town, drivers try to avoid the increased costs by parking in Central’s residential areas.

They’ve obviously forgotten that in the run-up to Christmas, charges for parking in town centre car parks were dropped.

If you think we are being unfair then question why the Tories closed the Northern Park and Ride, adding an estimated 250 week day cars looking for parking spaces in Central.

Perhaps because the economic disaster that the Labour government has presided over has reduced the number working in Central Swindon by far more than that.

The Tory Council have forgotten that this scheme is for you and your parking needs and not as their income generator.

Agreed, but the price of residents’ parking permits has nothing to do with visitor car parking charges.

So far, so much traditional party political drivel. But then they come to a topic where the current blue nest leadership are contentedly kicking own goals as fast as they can.

This Tory administration is more obsessed with itself and creating a legacy, than representing the people of the Borough… this Administration has an attitude of “it’s my way, or no way”…. They were planning to cut £50,000 from the Dial-a-Ride service at the same time they have shown misjudgment (sic) with priorities by the way they have gone about loaning £450,000 of Tax payers money to the Wi-Fi venture.

It seems the only legacy the local blue nest leadership have created is a massive stockpile of ammunition for their political opponents… and a bill for something many in Swindon will neither want nor need.

The flurry of news items and press releases on Friday referring to a ‘hydrogen highway’ were rather confusing. And that’s not just because the phrase is rather vague, meaning-light publicist-speak.

In the beginning, there was a trio of press releases: one from the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills;

South Wales was named as leading centre in the UK for hydrogen energy with South West as a key partner and with £6.3m of funding through the University of Glamorgan…. Energy Minister Lord Hunt highlighted how the South Wales LCEA will build on the expertise in the area to develop hydrogen on a commercial basis. It would also be closely linked to end users based on the M4 corridor.

Another from the Department of Energy & Climate Change;

UK capabilities in hydrogen were further boosted today as the Government created the sixth Low Carbon Economic Area (LCEA). It will be focused in South Wales, with close cooperation extending as far as Swindon in the South West. As part of this, the University of Glamorgan announced that it is investing £6.3m to develop new processes, products and services as part of the CymruH2Wales project. It will create 23 new research staff over the next three years and a further 63 permanent jobs in hydrogen energy.

And yet another from the Technology Strategy Board that did little more than repeat the words from the other two, though with much of the content removed, leaving an empty carcass of jargon.

By providing capital funding towards the cost of demonstration, this important programme will enable British companies to collaborate to commercialise fuel cell and hydrogen technologies. Covering both the transport and stationary market applications, the funding will support and take forward already successful research, development and prototyping projects. We expect the technologies that will be developed and demonstrated to make real progress towards market adoption, providing significant global opportunities for the British companies involved.

Note that apart from it being the location of Johnson Matthey Fuel Cells’ manufacturing facility factory in Swindon, there’s little of substance about the south west in all of this. The focus is very much on south Wales, where the University of Glamorgan’s press release made clear the extent of any ‘hydrogen highway’.

The money will be used to build a new hydrogen, natural gas and biomethane vehicle refueling facility at the University’s Pontypridd campus as well as further developing the existing alternative refueling facilities at its Hydrogen Centre in Baglan. These facilities will not only support the hydrogen and alternative vehicle drive train research and development work of the University, but will be the initial steps for the creation of a broader alternative refuelling infrastructure along the M4 corridor in Wales.

Now, unless there’s been a rather major secret redrawing of the principality’s boundaries, Swindon is not in ‘the M4 corridor in Wales’.

But as the day progressed, the Welsh border seemed to creep ever eastwards. First there was a tweet from Brunel fm.

Swindon is to become a hub for hydrogen technology research after a government cash boost – the M4’s to become a ‘hydrogen highway’.

Which is correct, if a little misleading, as mention of the ‘hydrogen highway’ being restricted to Wales has gone. Next it was the turn of the government’s representative in south Swindon, Ms Snelgrove.

According to today’s announcement from the Government, in partnership with the South West Regional Development agency, the new Low Carbon Economic Area (LCEA) will stretch through South Wales and across the South West.

Err… no. The announcement of an LCEA for South West England was made on 15 July 2009. Nice to see that the old habit or reannouncing old news as new is alive and well in government circles. Finally came Swindonweb with a version of the story of which the politicians would be proud with the ‘hydrogen highway’ extending all the way to Swindon.

The M4 motorway from junction 15 to South Wales is to become Britain’s first ‘hydrogen highway’, with strategically placed refuelling points along the route for hydrogen fuelled and electric cars.

Someone refill that car with two gallons of electricity please! South Wales is nearer than we think….