komadori’s green corner

It’s taken a little time for our local press to accurately report on the Department for Transport’s imposition of penalties on First Great Western for failing to comply with the standards of service required for their franchise. The official announcement is quite robust.

First Great Western is being issued with a Remedial Plan Notice for exceeding the threshold on cancellations in the second half of last year….

The company is also being issued with a Breach Notice for misreporting its cancellations. This stipulates the steps First Great Western must take to rectify the problem.

In addition a £29m package of passenger benefits, fully funded by First Great Western, has been agreed….

Failure to deliver these new commitments would be a default of the franchise agreement which could lead to the Government terminating First Great Western’s franchise.

Reading the Adver’s first attempt at reporting this, at 8.50 this morning, you’d think that FGW had just chosen to splurge £29M on extra trains entirely of their own volition.

SWINDON train company First Great Western will invest £29m to improve services, it has emerged today. First will address poor performance in relation to cancellations and delays. It acknowledges its service has fallen short of its own standards and the expectations of passengers. The company says it is committed to improving performance and will take the necessary action to ensure cancellations and delays are minimised.

In the past year the company has come under fire from passenger groups and regulators for the service they provide.

A slight hint of criticism, but nothing more. The second report, twelve hours later, gets it right.

SWINDON train company First Great Western has been forced to make £29m worth of improvements. First Great Western (FGW) says it will now take action to ensure cancellations and delays are lowered for customers.

The company was ordered to make the changes by the Department for Transport.

The Beeb have done no better, hinting at nothing more than ‘discussions with the DfT’ as the prompt for this expenditure. All led astray by the railway company perhaps? Hardly. Their press release is quite clear about why they are spending the money.

The £29m plan has been put together to address poor performance, particularly in relation to cancellations and the subsequent contravention of our Franchise Agreement.

Who needs spin-doctors with reporting like this? The Beeb also give space to the group running a campaign of fares evasion.

But this is the result of passenger power, that independent groups like us and our fare strike have been responsible in a great part for these things happening, by bringing them to the attention of the government and making First lose face.

Really? I’m struggling to see anything more than penalty clauses in a contract being applied. This would have happened (and indeed has happened to other rail companies in the past) regardless of the actions of a small band of fares-dodgers.

Nine months after originally planned, Westlecott Farmhouse has now been demolished. That leaves Westlecott Farm Cottages (visible in the photograph) and the cottages and farm at South Leaze as the only pre-Wichelstowe buildings left in Swindon’s Front Garden.

I’m not overly interested in what the reasons may be for Mr Wren’s decision to prematurely leave his post as cabinet member for local environment on Swindon Borough Council. (Whatever the reason, I’m sure any formal announcement will include an attempt at humour of the ‘following the successful introduction of borough-wide kerbside recycling…’ variety.) Let’s just hope that his proposed successor, Mr Mattock starts with a little humility by admitting that the introduction of wheelie bins and blue bags for non-recyclable waste has poorly implemented.

The first step to improving services is admitting that they are not as good as they could, or should, be. The first step to learning how to make those improvements is admitting that mistakes were made.

Prompted by Mr Thompson’s antics, I’ve been trawling through the record of meeting attendance for Swindon Borough Councillors during 2007. Taking an entry in the attendance page of ‘Present’ or ‘In attendance’ as meaning they were there, and any other entry as meaning that they should have been there but weren’t, I get some interesting results. Note that I have considered all meetings for which councillor attendance is listed on the council’s website: some of these committees are described as ‘independent’, but presumably are closely related to the council’s business otherwise why would they be listed?

In terms of attendance rates, the top five councillors of 2007 were:

• Mr Montaut: 7 meetings out of 7 – 100%
• Mr Holland: 29 meetings out of 30 – 97%
• Mr Moffatt: 44 meetings out of 46 – 96%
• Mr Tomlinson: 22 meetings out of 23 – 96%
• Mr Shaw: 38 meetings out of 40 – 95%

Another 15 councillors attended over 90% of the meetings they are recorded against. The five councillors with the worst attendance rates were:

• Mr Short: 12 meetings out of 27 – 44%
• Mr Baker: 7 meetings out of 20 – 35%
• Mr Thompson: 8 meetings out of 24 – 33%
• Mr Dobie: 5 meetings out of 15 – 33%
• Mr Wiltshire: 9 meetings out of 38 – 24%

Two other councillors had attendance levels of less than 50%, one of whom stood down at the last elections.

The full set of data on which this analysis was based, including links to the meeting attendance records, is available as a comma delimited text file. Please mention komadori’s green corner when referring to this data.
Update, Sunday 24 Februrary 2008: OpenOffice and Excel files of the full data now uploaded.
Update, Wednesday 5 March 2008: Data now published as pages on my website. There’s also a lively discussion going on the TalkSwindon forum.

Mr Thompson seems to think that, just because he gave a fraction of his councillor’s allowance to charity, that makes it alright for him to continue taking the payments even though he left the country over six months ago. I presume then that if someone burgled Mr Thompson’s home but gave away a few items of the stolen property to charity, Mr Thompson would regard that as perfectly acceptable….

I’m pleased to read that a recent planning committee meeting has rejected plans for redevelopment of the tented market. I’m also delighted that they chose not to follow their officers’ advice.

Objectors consider that the proposal is contrary to the Central Area Action Plan Submission Paper. This is not the case. The Market Hall is referred to as a development opportunity site in the Action Plan, which states that any redevelopment should encompass Class A1 uses supplemented by Class A3 uses. It is considered that the proposal, which will provide both Class A1 and A3 uses, accords with this requirement.

A plan for four A3 (Restaurants & Cafes) and one A1 (Shops) units is clearly A3 uses supplemented by A1, not, as the planner claim, A1 supplemented by A3. The committee decision reflects this.

The proposal fails to comply with the provisions of the Swindon Borough Local Plan 2011 as it would result in a concentration of Class A3 uses that would be likely to detract from the vitality and viability of other Town Centre uses in the area.

The committee also rejected the rose-tinted view from their officer that I have previously commented on. Not for them

a light and contemporary design solution…. It responds well to the area and will be a positive catalyst to the future of the town centre regeneration.

The committee’s view is somewhat less favourable.

[It] would result in a building that fails to achieve a high standard of urban design, is unsympathetic to the local context by reason of its appearance and would fail to improve the character of the Town Centre.

I note the developer’s view of the reasons for the rejection.

[They] are as much a criticism of the council’s planning department, who recommended the application for approval, as a criticism of us.

I totally agree with that and am delighted that, for once, the councillors’ views agree with mine!

As has already been widely reported, the Post Office has decided to go ahead with all its planned closures locally. To me, page 33 of their report sums up just how much of a sham the ‘consultation’ was.

There are no changes to the Area Plan Proposal for West Berkshire and Wiltshire as a result of local public consultation.

Their analysis of Westcott Place post office, and all the others for that matter, is bland — nothing more than a restatement of their original reasons for proposing closure.

Post Office® Westcott Place branch
Respondents’ main concern was the impact on the elderly and the wider community.

Post Office Ltd has considered all responses received and a review of this proposal has been undertaken. Customer numbers at this branch are relatively low. There are two alternative branches within approximately a mile, both of which can be accessed using public transport if required. The nearest branch at Rodbourne Road has good access into the branch with wide double doors to help facilitate entry for Post Office Ltd’s vulnerable customers. Taking these and all other relevant factors into account the decision is to proceed with the closure of Post Office® Westcott Place branch.

However strong the case for closure may have been, to run a ‘consultation’ and then so glibly disregard the comments made leaves a very bad impression. All those responsible for this process should be thoroughly ashamed.

As I read of Ms Snelgrove and Ms Howard attempting to defend Mr Thompson’s behaviour of remaining a councillor whilst he was residing in Spain, I can’t help wondering why they are doing this. Presumably out of some odd sense of loyalty that puts the interests of their colleague ahead of those of their constituents… and ahead of their electoral interests too. To defend, as they do, an elected representative who took payments from the public purse whilst not fully performing the duties those payments were for, gives the impression that they put politicians’ own interests before those of voters. Whilst contempt for voters amongst politicians is nothing new, it is disappointing to see so solid a show of such contempt from Mr Small and his colleagues.

Some organisations make odd choices for the people they put forward as their public representatives. Take the Swindon branch of the Wilts & Berks Canal Trust for example. Rather than putting forward someone with a robust knowledge of both the canal’s history and the current proposals for its reinstatement, they instead put forward their chairman, Mr Cartwright, whose knowledge of both seems to be distinctly lacking. Consider his comments on the canal history.

From an historical point of view the reason the canal was closed was because of its threat to health.

Err… no. After it closed, the canal was filled-in by the council on health grounds, but reason it closed was because it was a commercial failure, only making money for a short time during the construction of the railway and railway works in Swindon. Despite that short period of profit, neither its original promoters, nor its subsequent owners, recovered the money they invested. But enough history, what about today?

There is no £50m, so if the canal is not built the money will not be available to anywhere else. The regeneration of Swindon has been priced and the canal would add two pence in the pound to the cost.

Again, incorrect. If the canal plans were not there, the council could choose to levy a charge on developers to support other improvements in the town centre. As to the significance of the cost, Mr Cartwright should have a read of the implementation section of Swindon’s Central Area Action Plan. That identifies the cost to the council of developments in the town centre as £145m. That makes the cost of the canal thirty four pence in the pound, rather more than the two pence that Mr Cartwright suggests. Even adding in the boroughwide costs of the town centre redevelopment only brings the proportion down to fourteen pence in the pound.

If even its most ardent enthusiasts cannot make a coherent argument in support of reinstating the canal, is it in any wonder that so many in Swindon remain sceptical?

komadori joined the many others marking the last day of Thamesdown’s Fleetline buses in Swindon, in aid of Prospect Hospice. Amongst the general chit-chat, he heard this:

What’s a boss? It’s someone who sits doing nothing behind a desk all day, and claims they’re why the company’s a success.

All the best conversation is on Swindon’s buses.