komadori’s green corner

Work has started to reinstate the railings around Faringdon Road Park. Although they will be less substantial than the originals — the brick piers are not stable enough to hold full-height railings — they’ll lift the park’s appearance. It remain’s Swindon’s most barren of parks, bereft of the well-kept flower beds to be found in the parks around Old Town.

Some of the coping stones being removed are stamped with the manufacturer’s mark from 1897. They seem to have been carefully removed and will make a reappearance atop the rebuilt heightened piers.

Both the blue and red nests seem to be keen to blame t’other side for proposals to build 3000 houses to the west of Swindon. The government’s representative in South Swindon, Ms Snelgrove, would have us believe that it’s all the fault of the blues.

Under current proposals Tory run Wiltshire County Council plan to build 3,000 new homes neighbouring West Swindon…. The Regional Spatial Strategy that sets out housing numbers for each local authority area was drafted by the Tory controlled Regional Assembly (now known as the South West Leaders Council).

Naturally, her opponent lays the blame on the reds.

Yesterday, Labour bizarrely criticised the Conservatives for the Regional Spatial Strategy, which has led to plans for 3,000 houses next to West Swindon. But only four months ago, Labour’s South Swindon MP strongly supported the RSS, saying, “it lays out important manageable growth figures for Swindon”.

As is so often the case in politics, all are suffering from selective memory loss.

The Regional Spatial Strategy is a consequence of the planning legislation introduced by the current government (red). The housing targets in it were set by the government (red). The strategy itself was produced by the South West Regional Assembly, now known as South West Councils (both blue). This is a document that seems to aim to solve the housing problems of rural Devon and Cornwall by building in the corner of the region that is furthest from those two counties — 34,000 houses were to be built in Swindon. Not satisfied with this distortion, the government (red) added another 2000 houses to Swindon’s allocation plus another 1000 in North Wiltshire in ‘urban extensions’ to Swindon.

Where to put those 37,000 houses? The Regional Spatial Strategy identified a large area to the east of Swindon, the Eastern Development Area. Swindon Borough Council (blue) in the first draft of their Core Strategy identified a number of other ‘areas of search’ where there could be significant development. One was at Tadpole lane. It also suggested where the urban extensions in North Wiltshire added by the government should be: near Ridgeway Farm and Moredon Bridge. Neighbouring North Wiltshire District Council (varying hues) objected to Swindon making plans beyond its border.

Now Wiltshire Council (blue, successor to North Wiltshire District and Wiltshire County Councils) is consulting on its own Core Strategy. It allocates land near Swindon’s western border for 3000 houses. In doing so it follows where the Government’s development strategy, the South West Regional Spatial Strategy and Swindon Core Strategy have lead.

With that provenance, neither main party is innocent in the conversion of Swindon into a suburban sprawl.

Whilst waiting for my first recycling collection of the year — the snowy weather has lead to the cancellation of the previous two — I’ve been browsing through Swindon Borough Council’s cabinet paper on plans for incinerating cooking Swindon’s rubbish. I couldn’t help but notice that rather a lot of what is sent for recycling seems not to be recycled.

The principal risk is how it deals with household waste, however, there is evidence that it will at least manage the residual waste from the Recycling Centre…. To fully manage our entire waste stream, an additional two units, on top of the three funded through this case, are required.

That rather reads as though the majority of the first two units will be used to burn leftovers from recycling. With 50% of Swindon’s rubbish actually being recycled, just how much more than that 50% is having to be weeded out? And given the oft claimed high quality of Swindon’s recyclables, just how little of what people elsewhere think they’re recycling is actually going to landfill?

And how much direction to that regeneration will £150,000 buy? I ask those questions because £150,000 is roughly the size of the ‘package’ being offered for the chief executive of the replacement to the New Swindon Company.

• £120,000 salary
• £15,000 bonus
• Removal and storage costs
• Up to £4290 for temporary accommodation
• 6 months weekly travel costs
• Legal & estate agents fees plus stamp duty
• £750 for ‘adaptations in the home’
• Up to £8000 for relocation expenses

That’s roughly 10% of the new company’s budget of roughly £4.5M over 5 years going to its chief executive’s pay.

According to Mr Bluh

This is an exciting opportunity to lead and direct the regeneration and transition of Swindon, placing it on the national and international stage as a location open to inward investment.

Unfortunately Mr Bluh has been saying much the same thing for many years. There’s been far too much talk of visions, leadership and direction, but a woefully small amount of action, even allowing for the havoc wreaked upon the regeneration plans by the poor state of the economy.

We are seeking someone who has the appropriate leadership and entrepreneurial qualities and the ability to gain the support of public and private sector investors and the local community to deliver success.

‘Deliver success’? And whose version of success will that be? Surely it should be for this new company to support the public/local community and private sector investors to deliver success, not the other way round.

This is a pivotal time to shape the future of Swindon and in the process make your mark.

And that mark needs to be something considerably better than decorated hoardings around demolition sites, which is just about the only mark the New Swindon Company has left on the town.

This new company has a long list of things to do. It includes some such as a ‘University project’ that should be dead with the current state of government finance. Roughly £1.3M of our money is to be spent in the company’s first year, and a total of roughly £4.5M over five years, with a mission:

‘To deliver prosperity and a town everyone can be proud of.’

Given the parlous state of public sector finances — both nationally and locally — we need to get considerably better value for our money than the regeneration has been so far.

Appearances can be deceiving. I see that, having Swindon Borough Council loaned almost £½M to the company in which it has a 40% stake that is installing wireless internet across Swindon, that company has contracted the installation and maintenance to Swindon Commercial Services. That’s the same Swindon Commercial Services that Swindon Borough Council has recently made into an arm’s length company, and would obviously like it to have a few ‘external’ contracts in its first year of pseudo-independence, to make its finances look rather more rosy. The same Swindon Commercial Services that has amongst its directors one Mr Hunt, who so happens to be chief executive of the wifi company.

Public sector commercial dealings should not only be above board, but should be seen to be above board. The appearance of this deal is rather more incestuous than is seemly.
Hat-tip: magicroundabout.

Sometimes the government’s representative in South Swindon, Ms Snelgrove, is so keen to slag off the blue nest controlled council that she ignores what she’s quoting her own ministers as saying. Take, for instance, today’s announcement that the government’s adding another £122.6M to the national debt to fund the building of more council houses. Ms Snelgrove would have us believe that the council needs to do more.

The Council’s housing waiting list is now over 10,000 which is completely unacceptable and they need to start matching the Government’s support to tackle this problem.

Err… matching the ‘Government’ support (i.e. taxpayer support) is a condition of the scheme, and as the council had to bid to government for the money, is something they’ve already committed to.

John Healey announced 73 councils covering every region of England will share an extra £122.6 million. Councils will match the Government’s grant, bringing total public investment in the programme to over £500m to build more than 4,000 new council homes

Oddly although Ms Snelgrove included that in her press release, she chose to ignore Mr Healey’s compliment to the winning councils.

Councils have shown they’re ready and willing to build new homes, so I’m ready to back them.

The government’s representative in South Swindon, Ms Snelgrove, is always quick to criticise the council when their bids to government are unsuccessful. In contrast, when the council is successful… she’s still full of criticism. I’m not daft enough to expect politicians to present an unbiased view; I do expect them to keep their political point scoring consistent with the facts.

The local red nest have chosen a candidate to replace Mr Wills — if the electorate are willing, that is. So, for what does Mr Agarwal stand?

As a county councillor for Stanwell & Stanwell Moor in Surrey — of which he has been a lifelong resident —, Mr Agarwal, the self-styled Stanwell’s Voice, has expressed opinions on some topics that will be familiar to people in Swindon. He is, for example, a fan of council-supported wi-fi, unlike his Swindon colleagues.

I am currently working with Council Officers to see if it is possible that Stanwell & Stanwell Moor could have wi-fi access…. As Stanwell residents we could all work where we want to, when we want to, in the park, in the pub, in the garden…. The only city which has already done this is Seattle in America where residents have seen an enhancement to the quality of life.

Not surprisingly, he’s also no fan of blue nest dominated councils.

When you become a one-party local authority, things can get pushed through ‘on the nod’.

Rather like decisions on wifi provision? He supports the government’s national identity card scheme, which will win him no favours with Swindon’s No2ID campaigners.

He is also, apparently, committed to serving his local community in Stanwell and the Moor…

As someone brought up in Stanwell since infancy I am committed to serving my community and fellow residents.

Though obviously not quite as committed as he once was.

Some, such as Mr Montaut are taking the will of the people of North Swindon for granted.

This is a Labour town, and this is our seat.

Just what parts of ‘marginal constituency’ and ‘Conservative controlled council’ has Mr Montaut not understood? Mr Agarwal has managed to survive as Surrey’s only Labour county councillor by placing great emphasis on his long-term residence in the area. He can’t do that here; his main opponent can.

Councillors’ attendance rates continued to improve in 2009. This is the third year I’ve trawled through the record of meeting attendance for Swindon Borough Councillors. It’s pleasing to see an upward trend. On average across all councillors the attendance rate was 85% in 2009, up from 80% in 2008 and 77% in 2007.

In terms of attendance rates, the top five councillors of 2009 were:

• Mr Montaut: 26 meetings out of 26 – 100%
• Mr Morton: 20 meetings out of 20 – 100%
• Mr Ford: 12 meetings out of 12 – 100%
• Mr Perkins: 35 meetings out of 36 – 97%
• Mr Short: 31 meetings out of 32 – 97%

Another 22 councillors attended over 90% of the meetings they were recorded against, a big improvement on last year. Three of these attended over 50 recorded meetings during the year.

The councillors with the worst attendance rates in 2009 were:

• Mr Fanning: 24 meetings out of 39 – 62%
• Mr Holland: 20 meetings out of 33 – 61%
• Mr Wiltshire: 17 meetings out of 29 – 59%
• Mr Dobie: 5 meetings out of 9 – 56%
• Mr Sammels: 5 meetings out of 11 – 45%

There has been some improvement in the low-attendance tail. In 2008, 5 councillors in post at the year end had attendance rates of 60% or less and another 6 had rates of 70% or less. In 2009, that improved to just 3 attending 60% or less of their meetings and another 7 attending 70% or less. In 2009, for the first time in three years, no councillor attended less than 40% of their recorded meetings, though Mr Sammels’ previously good attendance record has taken a tumble and is now well adrift from others.

The figures are derived by taking an entry in a meeting attendance page of ‘Present’ or ‘In attendance’ as meaning the councillor was there, and any other entry as meaning that they should have been there but weren’t. Full details of all Swindon Borough Councillors’ 2009 meeting attendance rates are available in the archive.

Credit where it’s due, although Swindon may not have had the 6 to 12 inches of snow that some were forecasting, the council workers have done an excellent job of keeping the main streets relatively clear of snow. Many pavements in central Swindon had also received a good dose of salt — unlike last year — and most urban bus services were running.

Those responsible for running Swindon’s schools have a lot to learn from the town’s businesses and other public services.

In the interests of getting some much needed clarity on the extent of Swindon Borough Council’s support for the company planning to provide boroughwide wireless internet to Swindon, I’ve made some enquiries to the Council. This is a summary of their answers to my questions.

• The council’s 40% shareholding was obtained at nil cost, i.e. it did not cost anything in addition to the £450,000 provided as a loan.
• The decision to provide the loan was made by the Director of Finance (Mr McKellar), the Director of Law and Democratic Services (Mr Taylor) and the Group Director Business Transformation (Mr Patel).
• “[R]egarding support of planning applications for transmitters… no special or preferential treatment is being extended to Digital City UK Ltd regarding this matter. They are subject to the same process and regulations as any other company.”
• The offices provided to the company rent free in the David Murray John Tower had been vacant.
• “In terms of making the space fit for use… no additional cost has been incurred as a result of Digital City’s occupation.”

From those answers it appears that £450,000 is the limit of the council’s expenditure, so far, on this speculative venture.