Maidstone Weald Bandolier

Fund Raiser

2008-01-21T21:23:00.000Z

"An Audience with Ann Widdecombe"
on Saturday, Feb 9th 20083pm - 5pm at Maplesden Noakes School Buckland Road Maidstone Tickets £10 / Concessions £6*including Afternoon Tea*from Crossroads, Holborough Rd, Snodland. Tel: o1634 249090or on the door

Parking Charges set to Rocket

2008-01-14T20:11:00.000Z

The LibDem run council has been forced by the Conservatives to reveal their plans for swinging increases in parking fees at a council meeting held on 12th December 2007, which are likely to come into effect by Feb 2008.

Conservative Councillors had predicted draconian rises as the LibDem’s had recently voted to raise a whooping additional £100,000 net, from motorists to help fund their cash strapped recycling programme.

Charges for on-street parking will jump by 25 to 33% depending upon length of stay, while evening charges are to go up 50%. Businesses are to be directly hit with permit charges increasing by 43%. The up to 3 hours car park tariff will rise by 14% essentially affecting all motorists who have to park in the town centre at some point.

All of this comes after the LibDems put the pinch on parking spaces by closing the Coombe Quarry Park and Ride site. A move which will send 70,000 additional car journeys into Maidstone town centre over the year, ensuring there is a captive market for parking spaces.

This is a shameful money making scheme, thrust on motorists to plug the holes in the LibDem’s previously un-costs decisions.

Northern Rock hits £57Bn bail out

2007-12-18T17:54:00.000Z

Mervyn King the Governor of the Bank of England, has extended the Banks guarantee to cover any loans made by other financial institutions to the Northern Rock. This now means each and every taxpayer is exposed to the tune of £2000. This guarantee accounts for an additional 30% of the Rocks balance sheet.
The question is now, when do we call it nationalised?

Data, Data, Where for art thou data

2007-12-17T22:08:00.000Z

More Data lost

This time the data, learner drivers names and addresses was lost 6 months ago; and the government knew. Yet ………………………………

Educational Standards are Slipping.

2007-12-06T20:23:00.000Z

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has published the finding of its 2006 assessment of educational standards, this is call the PISA with an assessment made of more than 400 000 fifteen year old students from 57 countries. Those participating countries account for somewhere close to 90% of the world economy with the focus of the tests on science, reading and mathematics.

Britain has slipped down the ratings dramatically, from 7th to 17th in reading and 8th to an appalling 24th in mathematics.

This gives undisputable evidence that Labours educational policy is not working.

In an attempt to refresh the memory on just what labours policy might be I visited the new departments website, for Children, Schools and Families,

“The Department will build on the successes in education and children’s services that we have seen over the last decade” so they are in denial.

But then in the next sentence “It will now focus on the significant challenges that remain – raising standards so that more children and young people reach expected levels”.
All this from the party of Education, Education, Education. One can only wonder at what they have previously been focusing on in that case!

There is a simple reason for this, it is called poverty of aspiration, our youth are uninspired by life under this Labour Government of uniformity and blandness.

Power to the People

2007-12-06T18:20:00.001Z

David Cameron has today launched the Conservatives’ Green Paper on decentralised energy.
• In the face of the enormous challenge of man-made climate change, ‘business as usual’ is not enough. Britain needs dynamic industrial change if it is going to compete and win in the low carbon era.
• We need to move from a top-down, old-world, centralised system to a bottom-up, new-world, decentralised system. By enabling people to generate their own electricity, we are literally giving them more power over their own lives.
Key policy recommendations
Power to the People: The Decentralised Energy Revolution sets out a way of changing the architecture of Britain’s energy supply. Although this does not involve dispensing with the national grid, we want to enable every small business, local school, hospital and household in the country to generate electricity through micro-generation.

£200,000 Government job for data disc loss boss

2007-12-04T22:38:00.001Z

Mr Paul Gray who initially so it seamed, did the apparently decent thing by quitting as HM Revenue and Customs boss over lost data discs, has not gone so far after all, and remains working for the government.
He was praised for resigning with "honour" when discs holding the child benefit database were lost in the post.
However channel 4 News reported that he had begun a short-term Cabinet Office post and is still paid more than £200,000.
But a government spokesman said Mr Gray's period of notice meant he would continue to be paid until 31 December whether he was working or not.
"In the meantime he has agreed to a request from Cabinet Secretary Sir Gus O'Donnell to undertake a short piece of work on cross-government matters until Christmas," the Cabinet Office spokesman said.
He added the period of notice meant "he could receive payment for no work or receive payment for doing some work.
"It was thought to be better in the public interest that he did some work. There is no additional cost to the public purse. He will leave the payroll on December 31."

I was going to say well Mr Gary was a patsy for Brown-Lazy-Mr Bean-Controllers but, £200,000. Does this mean he will get a massive pay off to go with his tax payers rather large salary!

Freedom of Maidstone for Ann

2007-12-04T18:59:00.000Z

Last night at a special meeting of Maidstone Borough Council, Councillors of all persuasions bestowed the Freedom of Maidstone upon The Rt. Hon. Ann Widdecombe, this is the highest honour that the council can give.

The motion was proposed by Cllr Paulina Stockell and seconded by Libdem Leader Cllr Fran Wilson with all speakers praising Ann for her unstinting hard work for the people of Maidstone over the last twenty years.

Only 32 individuals have received the councils highest honour since 1897, last nights event was also graced by Sir John Wells another Freeman of Maidstone and Ann’s predecessor as MP for Maidstone.

Labours second largest donor is not even eligible to vote in a UK General Election.

2007-12-02T13:30:00.000Z

The Mail on Sunday reporter Jonathan Oliver has uncovered, and published in the MoS today.
"The focus of the sleaze scandal engulfing the Government switched dramatically last night to the Labour Party's second biggest donor - an Iranian-born car dealer who is not even entitled to vote in general elections.
Mahmoud Khayami, a French citizen, has given a total of £830,000 in the past eight months, making him Labour's biggest individual backer after Lord Sainsbury.
The party said it would launch an investigation after The Mail on Sunday discovered that:
• Khayami made his first donation - of £500,000 - just 24 hours after becoming legally allowed to do so, by having his name added to the Electoral Roll.
• The tycoon - who runs a car dealership in California and has a villa in Cannes - had waited until the age of 77 before adding his name to the roll.
• Khayami is a close friend of Labour-supporting "fixer" Anthony Bailey, whose clients have included Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe regime, and whose own £500,000 donation was rejected by Labour because of fears it had come from foreign sources.
Even though his name is on the register, he is permitted to vote only in local and European ballots, not general elections.
Commentators said that while he was thus technically qualified to make party donations, the fact he had done so meant Labour was 'sailing close to the wind' on donation rules.
But Tory frontbencher Chris Grayling said: 'It is now very clear Gordon Brown had ordered a 'dash for cash' ahead of an early Election.' "

This report comes after a week of revelations about illegal (Jack Shaw’s words) funding of the Labour Party by Abrahmas, as a second Police Investigation is launched. Perhaps the Labour Party ought to read the laws that they pass a little more closely, since they clearly can not rely on having any common sense. Either that or they think they are above the law and can just carry on getting away with it. Time and again the Labour Party treat the public as fools and with contempt.
Paraphrasing Vince Cables career topping comment, “we have seen Stalin become Mr Bean in a week”

Quote of the day

2007-11-29T20:10:00.000Z

Not so much Stalin as Mr Bean: Gordon Brown is made to play the fool in stage farce

"The House is punch drunk after a solid ten days of crisis non-management. There are almost too many to keep track of and the Labour-donor sleaze scandal is so complicated that it makes a bowl of spaghetti look straightforward. "

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article2963664.ece

Value of PFI deals 'is uncertain'

2007-11-28T21:25:00.000Z

Does any of this sound familiar?

The government's private finance initiative has not offered the taxpayer value for money, according to a committee of MPs.
In a report published on Tuesday, the Commons public accounts committee said public authorities often failed to secure a good deal on contracts with private firms.
There are some 800 PFI contracts worth £155bn up to 2032, but the MPs said that the managing of some projects had "got worse" since it last reported on the issue four years ago.

Committee chairman Edward Leigh said he was "very concerned" that public authorities were cutting essential services "to keep the PFI contracts affordable".

"If the public sector is to get value for money from the deals, then the market must be truly competitive," he added.
"What we find instead is that a third of recent projects attracted only two viable bids. This may well become an even bigger problem than it is at present."
With an average three-year tendering period, Leigh said the "costs of making a bid are driven up", resulting in schemes being delayed and the market interest weakened.
He warned that a lack of "PFI expertise among the public sector procurement teams is resulting in poor negotiating with bidders who often have the whip hand".
"The public sector must not be placed in this vulnerable position," Leigh said.
"PFI deals were supposed to give us certainty about the long-term costs of providing public services. The reality is different."

Sell off Victorian jails built on prime land.

2007-11-28T21:10:00.000Z

The Sunday Times has reported that Nick Nerbert, the conservative shadow justice secretary is expected to disclose conservative proposals to sell off victorian prisons currently residing on prime inner city land. The report suggests that £350m could be netted to help pay for modern more specialist prisons.

In his speach Nick Herbert says
"Policy Exchange's research has shown that there is huge potential for remodelling the current prison estate and selling off some of the oldest Victorian prisons in inner city, high value locations, either building on a new site or rebuilding on the same site (with a smaller footprint) a modern prison that is cheaper to maintain."

I realise that Maidstone Prison is 'listed' but this policy has, to use the new vernacular 'legs' for Maidstone. While we must wait for the details, one can not but think that this might suit Maidstone very nicely. Afterall Maidstone Prison occupies a huge site and can hardly be the best use for this prime land.

Lib Dems hit by MEP defection to Conservatives

2007-11-26T20:52:00.000Z

Sajjad Karim, who represents the North West Region, said of the Lib Dems “I’m afraid that the Liberal Democrats have lost their way and are no longer a serious force in politics.”

Labour Party boss quits over donations cover up

2007-11-26T20:16:00.000Z

The BBC reports today further party donation irregularities,
Labour general secretary Peter Watt has resigned following the revelation that a property developer made donations to the party via two colleagues. David Abrahams gave over £400,000 through associates.
Mr Watt told a meeting of officers of Labour's National Executive Committee he had known about the arrangement.
Under the law, those making donations on behalf of others must give details of who is providing the money.
He added: "I was aware of arrangements whereby David Abrahams gave gifts to business associates and a solicitor who were permissible donors and who in turn passed them on to the Labour Party.
While Mr Watt is reported to have said "Consistent with my own and the party's commitment to the highest standards in public life, it is with great sadness I have decided to resign my position as general secretary with immediate effect."
Surely common sense would have enabled him to see that passing money through associates was not consistent with high standards in public life.

6 More Discs Lost

2007-11-25T17:45:00.000Z

As the police search buildings belonging to TNT as they hunt for the two missing 24m data discs, the HMRC as admitted that another 6 disks have gone missing having apparently been posted on the 24th Oct from a tax credit office in Preston to Whitehall.
These discs contained recordings of telephone conversations between a tax credit claimant and the HMRC.
This rather effectively demonstrates that the ‘two discs’ episode is not the isolated incident that Darling and Brown would prefer us to believe and the balance of probability now resides firmly in the camp of those who suggest that the security of personal data is not held high by the HMRC, (an understatement if ever there was one) this is a cultural reality rather than singular incompetence.

Tax Freedom Day 2007 is 1 June

2007-11-24T15:27:00.000Z

The Tax Freedom Day calculation shows just how far into each year we spend working for the Treasury, before we earn any money for our selves.
Does it really seem right that on average we are all working a full 5 months before we earn any for our selves?
You will not be surprised to discover that Tax Freedom Day is getting later and later under Brown, it is now a full week later than just back to 2002. A whole extra week working for Brown.

As a nation have we really had value for money for this extra weeks work?

The Tax Freedom Calculation is determined by taking the Net Nation income and then calculating how much is siphoned off in the direct and numerous indirect stealth taxes.

More on this subject of how the calculations are made can be found on the Adam Smith Institute website (http://www.adamsmith.org/wrapper/)

NHS to underspends by £1.8bn

2007-11-23T19:44:00.000Z

The NHS is predicting a massive £1.8bn underspend this financial year. This is 2% of the total NHS budget and comes at time when inflation is running at 4.2% (RPI inflation rose to 4.2 per cent in October 2007, www.statistics.gov.uk) and the DoH as just instructed the NHS pay review body that staff should get no more than a 2 per cent rise.
The Department of Health can justifiably be accussed of bust and boom health economics espcially since only 2 years ago the NHS was over £500m in the red.

For the area covered by the South East Coast Strategic Health Authority (SHA) this amounts to £60m.

National Audit Office (NAO) critical of governments privatisation of the defence firm Qinetiq

2007-11-23T19:24:00.000Z

While the report states that the taxpayers could have gained ‘more money’ from the deal, perhaps tens of millions more.
“The value of the shares of the top 10 managers was £107 million at the time of the flotation, from an initial investment of £537,250.” This is a cool 19,990 % return on their investment, nice work if you can get it.
“we consider that the returns in this case exceeded what was necessary to incentivise management to deliver this growth in the value of the business.”

13th year in a row The EU Audtors unable to sign off accounts

2007-11-23T19:01:00.000Z

Reporting back - Richard Ashworth MEP, November 2007

Court of Auditors report

Even before the European Union's Court of Auditors delivered its verdict on the EU's accounts on Monday night, it was easy to predict what its contents might be. For the thirteenth year in a row, the EU's auditors were unable to give a positive statement of assurance for the EU's 2006 accounts.
Trust in the integrity of the accounting procedures is a vital foundation stone of any democracy. If the people don't have confidence in the integrity of the governing institutions of Europe then we have all the credibility of a banana republic. I would like to explain in a little more depth why the auditors came to their decision, and some of the steps I have been working towards that will enable us to move closer to ending this annual debacle.
Firstly, there is the issue of inadequacy of internal controls and the regularity of the transactions the EU conducts. The court makes reference to administrative errors, misapplication of funding and the failure to follow correct budgetary procedures. While the auditors rarely make reference to fraud, they are absolutely right to say that inadequate fiscal discipline and controls inevitably leave the Commission vulnerable to corruption.
But the comments above are usually as far as the Court can go – because they can only comment on the transactions they can see, and that’s a mere 26 percent of them. 74 percent – the overwhelming majority – of transactions are carried out by the national governments and their agencies. For example, in the UK a large amount of EU money is spent by Defra. If you’re one of the farmers I recently met still waiting for their 2005 CAP payment, you will not be filled with confidence! The Court of Auditors is unable to scrutinise these accounts and, while that does not mean each of them are cooking the books, it does create a lack of transparency and accountability.
Cast your mind back to 2005, when EU leaders agreed to the seven year budget deal. The European Parliament threatened to block the whole budget unless the national governments promised to provide the parliament with evidence of self-certification for the transactions each member state carries out on behalf of the EU.
Frustrated with the glacial pace at which the Commission and Council of Ministers were moving on this matter, I put down a parliamentary question in September demanding to know what progress has been made. The response was far from encouraging. Reading between the lines, the earliest a system of self-certification could be up and running would be 2010 but, because the auditors work two years in arrears, that would mean 2012 would be the earliest we might see a positive declaration of assurance. That is simply not acceptable. Although the bulk of the criticism for this ongoing debacle rests with the governments, we must never forget that the buck stops with the Commission. Thirteen failures in a row is NOT acceptable, the Commission MUST attach far greater urgency to solving this problem.

Brown slated by five former defence chiefs in The Lords

2007-11-22T22:25:00.000Z

Admiral Lord Boyce was highly critical of Brown’s decision to give the defence secretary a second job as secretary for Scotland.
"It is seen as an insult by our sailors, our soldiers and our airmen on the front line.
And I know because I have reason to speak to them a lot. And it is certainly a demonstration of the disinterest and some might say contempt that the prime minister and his government has for our armed forces.
And it shows an appalling lack of judgement at a time when our people are being killed and they are being maimed."
Another former defence chief, General Lord Guthrie, said Mr Brown had been "unsympathetic" to the military.
Lord Guthrie said: "In my experience... he [Gordon Brown] was a most unsympathetic chancellor of the exchequer as far as defence was concerned - and the only senior Cabinet minister who avoided coming to the Ministry of Defence to be briefed by our staff on our problems."
General Sir Richard Dannatt also raised the issue of the strain placed on resources by operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

E-mails reveal data check warning

2007-11-22T22:13:00.000Z

The BBC has revealed today that

HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) officials were warned to ensure CDs containing benefit details of 25 million people were delivered "as safely as possible".

One email sent by an NAO official on 2 October, 16 days before the data went missing. It said: "Please could you ensure that the CDs are delivered to NAO as safely as possible due to their content."

But another e-mail from the same day, from an HMRC official, appears to suggest officials were concerned about the cost implications of stripping sensitive data from the files.
It says: "I must stress we must make use of data we hold and not over burden the business by asking them to run additional data scans/filters that may incur a cost to the department".

Another message, dated 13 March from an NAO official, with all names blanked out, says: "I do not need the address, bank or parent details in this download - are these removable"

Shadow chancellor George Osborne said: "These emails conclusively show that senior officials at HMRC were involved in the decision to send sensitive information to the NAO, and that the NAO explicitly requested that the disks be sent 'as safely as possible due to their content'.

No evidence to support extension to detention without charge beyond 28 days

2007-11-21T22:52:00.000Z

Sir Ken MacDonald the director of public prosecutions has told MPs that "Our experience has been that 28 days has suited us quite nicely."
He added: "Our experience so far has been that we have managed - and managed reasonably comfortably.
"Of course it's always possible to set up hypothetical situations in which it could become extremely challenging - and it's for Parliament to decide whether it wants to proceed on the basis of hypotheticals - rather than the evidence we have received so far,"

It also turns out that the Labour Ex-Attorney General Lord Goldsmith had not supported the last attempt to extend detention to 90 days in 2005 and would have voted against it in the House of Lords had it not been voted down in the House of Commons. “I didn't see any evidence during my time to indicate that longer than 28 days was necessary.”

Too Little Too Late

2007-11-21T19:49:00.000Z

In the wake of the largest data security breach this country has known, Brown orders spot checks of all government departments.

Of course what is now needed is a change in the culture, this can only be brought about by a change in the Government.

Who in there right mind can have any confidence in this shambolic government to act on their behalf?

Gordon Brown Fails to Protect 25m

2007-11-21T19:05:00.000Z

Catastrophic Tuesday

As the full weight of the long and far reaching significance of the data protection failure becomes apparent, it only takes seconds to find who is actually to blame for this, a certain Gordon Brown. For it is he who preformed the shotgun wedding on HM Customs & Excise and Revenue in 2005. This cost-cutting exercise has now bitten back.

While all the papers ran front page today with this I think the FT summed it well.

"Mr Brown’s administration has failed in one of the first duties of government: to protect its citizens. Never mind breaches of data protection laws. Fraudsters armed with details of bank accounts, national insurance numbers, and the names of almost every child in the country could wreak identity theft havoc on an un-dreamed-of scale."

Northern Rock Up

2007-11-20T21:20:00.000Z

A few words from George Osborne Shadow chancellor

“This is not about the commercial interests that the Prime Minister spoke about last week, but about the public interest and the £900 that has been pledged on behalf of every taxpayer in Britain. The Chancellor talks about the Government’s liabilities being secured against £100 billion of Northern Rock assets, but he does not say that many of the assets are already promised to other creditors. Will he confirm that the free assets at Northern Rock could be closer to £40 billion and that total Government liabilities, through both the facility and the deposit guarantee, might now be approaching the total of the available assets, putting the taxpayer further at risk.”

10 Day Cover Up Over Unprecedented Data Protection Disaster

2007-11-20T21:15:00.001Z

Computer discs that contained the personal details of all families in the UK with a child under 16 have gone missing in the post.
The data on them includes names, addresses, date of birth, National Insurance numbers and bank details of 25m people effecting 7.25m families.
This can only be described as a "catastrophic" failure; in fact words can but fail to describe the actions of HMRC staff as the computer discs were posted in standard mail. Who would do this?
Darling apologised for what he described as an "extremely serious failure on the part of HMRC to protect sensitive personal data entrusted to it in breach of its own guidelines".
The BBC reports that the data was sent on 18 October and senior management at HMRC were told it was missing on 8 November and the chancellor on 10 November, while the Chancellor kept quite for 10 days.
This is the same man and government that the British Tax payer has no choice but to trust to get the £40Bn back just lent to Northern Rock.

Just image what damage this lot could do with the Data on an ID card system!

Conservatives Education Green Paper in Summary

2007-11-20T20:15:00.000Z

Practical steps, employing common sense principles

"We believe that ensuring every child has an excellent education is the principal role the state can play in making opportunity more equal."

1. Immediate action driving urgent improvement
Improve discipline and behaviour in schools, shifting the balance of power in the classroom back in favour of the teacher.
Get every child who is capable of doing so reading by the age of six, so that every minute in the classroom thereafter is productive.
Reform the testing regime in primary schools to reduce bureaucracy and focus on every pupil’s real needs.
Deliver more teaching by ability which stretches the strongest and nurtures the weakest. Reform the schools inspection procedure to ensure there is tougher, more effective and more searching scrutiny of under-performance.
Champion excellence in the comprehensive sector by evangelising for the best professional practice in the state system, and more generously rewarding those who deliver for the poorest.
2. The supply-side revolution
Provide over 220,000 new school places. That would meet the demand from every parent who lost their appeal for their first choice school in our most deprived boroughs.
Allow educational charities, philanthropists, livery companies, existing school federations, not for profit trusts, co operatives and groups of parents to set up new schools in the state sector and access equivalent public funding to existing state schools.
Ensure funding for deprivation goes direct to the pupils most in need rather than being diverted by bureaucracies.
Divert more resources to pupils who come from disadvantaged backgrounds, ensuring they get the earliest possible opportunity to choose the best schools and enjoy the best teaching. Make it easier to establish the extended schooling (from summer schools through Saturday schooling to homework clubs and breakfast clubs) which drives up achievement, especially among the poorest.
Remove those obstacles in terms of centralised bureaucracy, local authority restrictions and planning rules – which prevent new schools being established. Allow smaller schools and more intimate learning environments to be established to respond to parental demands.

Education, Let Teachers Teach How They Know Best

2007-11-20T20:08:00.000Z

Raising the bar, closing the gap.
David Cameron has today promised 220,000 extra school places as part of Conservative plans to raise school standards and make opportunity more equal.
Speaking at the launch of 'Raising the bar, closing the gap', the Conservative Green Paper on education, David said, "It's time for a revolution in the supply of education in this country."
Michael Gove, the Shadow Children's Secretary, set out plans to tackle educational under-achievement in the immediate term through policies such as more teaching by ability and giving teachers more power.
And he laid out plans to increase the number of good school places through a long-term programme that:
- Allows educational charities, co-operatives and parents to set up new schools
- Diverts more resources to pupils who come from disadvantaged backgrounds
- Removes obstacles which prevent new schools being established

Six Months Of Non-Delivery

2007-11-20T20:05:00.000Z

Despite the Conservative Party securing the largest number of Councillors in May 2007, the Liberal Democrats took control of Maidstone Borough Council by forming a coalition with Labour and the Independents.

Hell bent on taking control rather than acting in the best interests of our Borough, this coalition of mismatched ideas, priorities and people has led to virtual paralysis in the delivery of services to the people of Maidstone. The LibDems point to their decision to introduce a new recycling service as their single major achievement but at what cost and what about other important council services?

Since May, major frontline services have been cut, others are threatened and they have been unable to guarantee that our Council Tax will not rise significantly next year to pay for their mismanagement of council services.

The Conservative Group has reviewed progress of the Lib Dem coalition since May and believes it is right for our Borough to be made aware of their failures:

Park and Ride GONE
PCSO’s funding threatened by LibDems
NO grip on planning
Lack of clarity and ambiguity over concessionary fares as Labour propose to centralise the process
NO PLAN for 07/08 municipal year
Ruling group CANCELS Council meetings claiming that there is no business to be transacted!
BIN SNOOPERS to monitor your waste

Maidstone Conservative Group’s conclusion is that:

Pensioners will suffer from the closure of the Park and Ride in South Ward and the South of Maidstone; they will be hardest hit from a cut in concessionary fares and we will see an increased fear of crime because of the potential threat to PCSOs.
For a group desperate to cling to power in a coalition which brought together a group of people whose only interest was power, the result has been inertia. The people of Maidstone are suffering from their lack of leadership, lack of direction, lack of vision and lack of budgetary control.

Lord West security advisor performs hand brake turn.

2007-11-14T22:56:00.000Z

The junior minister Lord West brought into the government by Brown as security advisor has been force to perform a hand brake turn to avoid a head on collision with his new master Comrade Brown. Not something that Lord West would have been used to doing in a battle ship.

One moment Lord West was not in favour of extending detention without charge and then after a few minutes with Brown he had changed his mind. Who is advising who on security?

Broom sweeping through MTW Trust Board.

2007-11-12T23:12:00.000Z

At the Hospital Rally tonight, interim Chief Executive for the Trust announced that three Non-executive Directors have resigned today, with two others not seeking reappointment at the end of the month.

Though not before time, at least now this paves the way for a representative board to be established.

Maidstone is Resolved

2007-11-12T23:05:00.000Z

After a minutes silence for the victims of C.diff, the very well attended rally on Maidstone Hospital services voted unanimously for the following resolutions;
1. Fit for Purpose
Our NHS trusts to provide highest hygiene standards, nursing and management to ensure patient safety to cover all services in a Maidstone General District Hospital, which must now regain public confidence.
2. Watchdog
This rally supports a KCC proposal to set up a Maidstone area ‘Health Watch’ – an independent route for registering concerns about Maidstone health services.
3. Dissolve Trust
Maidstone and Tunbridge Well NHS Trust to be dissolved and a more appropriate trust area formed with fair Maidstone representation on the board, top management and among clinical directors.
4. A&E
Full A&E to be retained at Maidstone hospital including all emergency surgery (apart from specialised trauma). Chronic pain unit to return immediately.
5. Maternity
Proposals to remove maternity unit, paediatrics and Special Care baby Unit from Maidstone Hospital to be abandoned. Gynaecology to be repatriated.
6. Stroke Unit.
Reinstatement of promise – a specialised Maidstone stroke unit.

Remembrance Day

2007-11-11T19:08:00.000Z

The Kohima Epitaph

“When you go home tell them of us and say,

for your tomorrow we gave our today”

Constitutional Renewal Bill(draft)

2007-11-11T19:02:00.000Z

This Bill is actually quite promising;
This draft bill is suggesting Parliament should have some form of say on whether the Country should go to war, this should of course actually be a vote, we shall have to wait and see just what the final Bill says, This is currently described as a consultation.
The next significant point is that there should be a statutory mechanism by which treaties can be brought before Parliament, All in favour of this one as well, pity it will not go as far as referenda!
“To rebalance power between Parliament and Government, and give Parliament more ability to hold Government to account;” This is some Brown/ Labour posturing seeking to differential Comrade Brown from Ex-President Blair.
“To reinvigorate our democracy, with people proud to participate in decision-making at every level; and to clarify the role of Government, both central and local.” The simplest way to do this would be to call an election that would reinvigorate our democracy.

Further details on this bill can be viewed on http://www.commonsleader.gov.uk/output/Page2171.asp

£5.6bn estimated cost for ID cards

2007-11-09T18:50:00.000Z

Birmingham Post: The introduction of identity cards and biometric passports will cost more than £5.6 billion over the next 10 years, according to a Government estimate.
Under the Identity Card Act, all foreign nationals in the UK are required to carry biometric ID cards from 2008, and all UK passport applicants will be issued with them from 2010.
The Home Office's Identity and Passport Service (IPS) acknowledged that, as with any cost estimates covering a 10-year forward period, there are "uncertainties" over the eventual cost of the scheme.
Mark Wallace, of the Taxpayers' Alliance campaign for lower taxes, said: "Biometric ID cards and the national database that will go with them are a vastly expensive project. Even the quite conservative Home Office predictions see the taxpayer bearing a heavy burden for the scheme, assuming there are no problems.
"In practice, we know that Government computer projects almost always come in hugely over budget, years after deadlines and regularly suffer severe technical problems. The financial threat to the taxpayer posed by ID cards is just as concerning as the civil liberties implications."
tpa.typepad.com/media/2007/11/birmingham-po-1.html

Lost and Found, Can you help? Who is this?

2007-11-08T21:49:00.000Z

Is this really the centralising Stalinistic, tax payers money wasting chappie who until recently hid in No. 11 Downing Street?

Can this much dust really gather this quickly?

Thankfully Yes!

Queen's Speech, Brown's plans, good if you want to build an off shore wind farm perhaps

2007-11-08T00:02:00.000Z

He is the full list of Bills in the Queen's speech, unless I am missing something there is little actually new or visionary here, but then with Brown at the helm what can we expect? Brown the Borrower strikes again, Brown the Taxer, a number of Brown the Developer Bill's and Brown the Confused over Pensions, was it not he who raided the countries pension schemes, erh yes of course, so it was! And then there is Brown the Educator who has no idea what to do with the disaffected youth the Labour Party has created during its reign. Here is a clue, its called aspiration.

Apprenticeships (draft) Bill
Applying in England, this bill is likely to give 16 to 18-year-olds an entitlement to an apprenticeship, in an effort to reduce the number of young people not in education, training or employment.

Channel Tunnel Rail Link Bill
Sets out provisions which clarify the legal and regulatory position of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link, ahead of a restructuring of the company which built the link. Applies to whole UK.

Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill
This bill, applying to England, Wales and Scotland, will set up the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission to replace the Child Support Agency. The government says it will have tougher powers to force absent parents to pay for their children. It will also set up a scheme to pay a lump sum to people suffering from the asbestos-related disease mesothelioma, who are not yet eligible for compensation. Applies to England, Scotland and Wales.

Children and Young Persons Bill
Gives councils powers to organise children's care in different ways and ensure children do not move schools in Years 10 and 11, except in exceptional circumstances. Says young people should not be "forced out of care before they are ready" and calls for higher standards for those children placed in care. Applies to England and Wales.

Citizenship and Immigration (draft) Bill
Will "take forward any recommendations" from the review of citizenship by former Attorney General Lord Goldsmith.

Climate Change Bill
This bill creates a legal framework to reduce the UK's carbon dioxide emissions up to 2050 and beyond. It will propose statutory targets to reduce UK carbon dioxide emissions by at least 60% by 2050 and between 26 and 32% by 2020 - as compared with 1990's emissions. Provides for pilot schemes by councils to cut household waste. Much of the bill applies to the whole UK.

Constitutional Renewal (draft) Bill
Promises to "rebalance power" between Parliament and the government and give MPs more clout to hold the government to account. Subject to more consultation, the bill will propose giving Parliament powers to ratify treaties and decide whether troops should be deployed. It will also incorporate the findings of the ongoing consultation on judicial appointments and the handling of protests in Parliament Square. Most of the bill applies to the whole UK.

Counter-Terrorism Bill
Would enable post-charge questioning of terrorist suspects and the drawing of "adverse inferences" from refusals to say something which is later relied on in court. The bill would ensure the police and intelligence services can make full use of DNA and convicted terrorists provide police with personal information when they are released from prison. Convicted terrorists would be banned from travelling overseas. Applies to whole UK.

Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill
Includes jailing non-dangerous criminals who breach the terms of their release for 28 days only - rather than automatically serving out the rest of their sentence. The bill will also introduce Violent Offenders Orders, which are post-sentence restrictions on violent offenders, and a new immigration status for people convicted of terrorism or serious offences. It would ban the possession of "extreme" pornographic images available on the internet and not covered by the Obscene Publications Act. The government also says it would amend the law on self-defence to ensure people who act with "reasonable force" to protect themselves, others and their property are "fully protected" under the law. It largely relates to England and Wales, although some provisions will extend to Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Crossrail Bill
Gives necessary powers to build Crossrail, a railway stretching east to west across London. Carried over from the previous parliamentary session - having been introduced in February 2005.

Cultural Property (Armed Conflicts) (draft) Bill
Would allow the UK to ratify the 1954 Convention on the Protection of Cultural Property, providing a series of protections for cultural artefacts during wars.

Dormant Bank and Building Society Accounts Bill
Allows the government to use money held in bank and building society accounts which have not been used for 15 years to provide more youth facilities. Applies to the whole UK.

EC Finance Bill
This bill will amend the European Communities Act 1972 - to change the way the UK finances the annual EC budget. It allows the UK to make payments direct from the government's own bank account - the Consolidated Fund.

Education and Skills Bill
Gives the power to England and Wales for all 16 to 18-year-olds to be required to stay in some form of education or training by 2015. Also places a duty on employers to release young people for the equivalent of one day's training a week, while parents and local authorities have a duty to make sure young people participate.

Employment Bill
Promises clearer and stronger enforcement of employment law and to bring in measures to resolve disputes more quickly. Applies to England, Scotland and Wales.

Energy Bill
This bill aims to provide greater incentives for renewable energy generation and to make it easier for private firms to invest in offshore gas supply infrastructure, in "carbon capture" research and provisions on nuclear waste and decommissioning financing. Applies to whole UK.

EU Reform Treaty Bill
Would bring into UK law the EU Reform Treaty, which is due to be signed by EU heads of government in December.

Health and Social Care Bill
Would establish the Care Quality Commission to inspect and intervene in failing hospitals. This combines the functions of the existing Healthcare Commission, the Commission for Social Care Inspection and the Mental Health Act Commission. The bill would also bolster professional regulation.

Heritage Protection Draft Bill
Proposes a "unified" heritage protection system, removing "unhelpful distinctions" between schemes such as listing and scheduling. Applies to England and Wales with some parts applying to Northern Ireland.

Housing and Regeneration Bill
This merges the Housing Corporation, which distributes funds to housing associations to build new social housing, and English Partnerships, which plans housing projects in new growth areas.
It will also implement the recommendations of the Cave Review of Social Housing Regulation and respond to the implications of the recent ECHR ruling on gypsies and travellers. Applies to England and Wales.

Human Tissues and Embryos Bill
Would ensure the creation and use of all human embryos outside the body is regulated. The bill also proposes a ban on selecting the sex of babies for non-medical reasons and would recognise same-sex couples as legal parents of children conceived through the use of donated sperm, eggs or embryos. Applies to the whole UK, although there are some provisions involving the changes to legal parenthood in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Local Transport Bill
Would give local authorities "greater freedom and choice" to set their transport policies, including more "freedom and flexibility" to set up local road-pricing schemes. Applies to England and Wales, with some provisions extending to Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Marine (draft) Bill
Proposes a new system of planning for marine and offshore developments. Proposed for whole of UK.

Marine Navigation and Port Safety (draft) Bill
Proposes giving lighthouse authorities more powers to operate a modern service and clarifies the existing framework for port safety. Applies to the whole UK.

National Insurance Contributions Bill
Would harmonise the upper earnings limit (UEL) for national insurance contributions with the higher rate income tax threshold. The UEL will rise in phases, to match the higher rate income tax threshold by April 2009. The measure would extend across the UK.

Pensions Bill
Would mean eligible workers are automatically enrolled into a pension scheme, with a minimum employer contribution introduced. Applies to England, Scotland and Wales.

Planning Reform Bill
Calls for the establishment of a new separate planning system for major infrastructure projects and simplifying the planning system for minor home improvements. In many cases formal planning permission will no longer be required. Applies to England.
Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Bill
Aims to "reduce unnecessary burdens" placed on business by local authority regulations. Applies to whole UK.

Sale of Student Loans Bill
This bill, applying to England and Wales, covers the proposal to sell the student loan book, announced by Gordon Brown in the 2007 Budget, which is expected to raise £6bn over three years.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7080446.stm

Labour Immigration Shambles

2007-10-30T19:48:00.000Z

1.5 million foreign-born workers have come to work in Britain in the past 10 years.

52% - or 1.1 million - of new jobs created had gone to migrants.

When 10 further nations, including eight former communist states, joined the EU in 2004, the UK adopted an "open door" policy – which simply allowed unfettered access to labour markets here, while failing to make any attempt to accurately count migration.
As a result when the government predicted 15,000 migrant workers would arrive each year. Instead 600,000 arrived in two years.

Speaking after the Government had to correct its own figures twice in a week, Shadow Home Secretary David Davis said: "It is not good enough for the home secretary to apologise.
"The government should be open about telling the truth before they are pressurised into it.
"Immigration policy has been out of control for a decade and, if you can't count migration, you certainly can't control it."

The UK population is projected to increase by 4.4 million by 2016. This increase is equivalent to an average annual rate of growth of 0.7 per cent.If past trends continue, the population will continue to grow, reaching 71 million by 2031.

sources http://www.statistics.gov.uk/ http://news.bbc.co.uk

Community Policing at Risk

2007-10-29T19:59:00.000Z

Not content with the cut to funding for 2 Police Community Support Offices (PCSO’s), a decision strongly apposed in a vote by the Conservatives, Cllr FitzGerald Cabinet member for Community Services has now announced that the administration is proposing to pull MBC's contribution to the funding for 3 more PCSO’s in the hope that Kent Police will pick up the full cost.

These Officers operate in Tovil, Shepway and Parkwood, once again the residents of the South of Maidstone will be having to take the hits.

How likely is it that Kent Police will be able to find the funds for full funding in one round? All of this in the context of supposedly partnership working between MBC and Kent Police.

From my experience in South Ward, the PCSO has in the comparatively short time in post made a real and tangible difference. I will be strongly apposing any loss to community policing and invite the residents of South Ward and indeed the South of Maidstone to write to the Leader of the Council to express their concerns.

It would seem that the administrations priorities and concerns lie elsewhere than community safety and community policing.

Local Government Association call for supermarkets to do more to help comsumers boost recycling rates.

2007-10-23T21:13:00.000+01:00

“Supermarkets must take urgent action to reduce excessive packaging or Britain will fail to meet its recycling targets, council leaders warned today.The call came as new research published by the Local Government Association revealed up to 40 per cent of a regular household shopping basket cannot be recycled.
The LGA commissioned British Market Research Bureau (BMRB) Social Research to buy a range of common food items from eight retailers. Analysis of the purchases found that local retailers and market traders produced less packaging and that more of it could be recycled with the larger supermarkets lagging behind.
BMRB Social Research found five per cent of the total weight of shopping baskets was made up of packaging. The most environmentally friendly retailers have low levels of packaging a high proportion of which is recyclable. The supermarket with the heaviest packaging was Lidl's (799.5g), while the contents of the Marks & Spencer basket had the lowest level of packaging that could be recycled (60 per cent). Asda was the best performing supermarket, with packaging weighing 714g 70 per cent of which was recyclable. But the market was the best overall, with packaging weighing 710.5g, 79 per cent recyclable.
Recycling rates in Britain are increasing as more people do their bit to protect the environment. Councils are also extending and improving their recycling services in a bid to reduce the amount of waste thrown into landfill sites. The LGA has warned these efforts to meet EU recycling targets will not succeed unless supermarkets do more to reduce excessive packaging.”

This report is clearly very welcome. More and more consumers are doing their bit but if everything we purchase is unnecessarily and overly packaged the task is an up hill one, and of course who will get to pay for it in the end, the council tax payer.

http://www.lga.gov.uk/PressRelease.asp?id=SX1293-A7849461

Brown sets course to push through EU constitution/ Treaty

2007-10-19T21:39:00.001+01:00

"The Prime Minister briefed his Cabinet colleagues on Tuesday to expect another protracted tussle on the latest treaty, starting in the new year and continuing well into the spring, The Times has learnt.

He told them that months of detailed examination will dampen Eurosceptics’ opposition while demonstrating that the document is too complex to be decided by referendum. "

www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article2687253.ece

Joined up Healthcare

2007-10-18T21:16:00.000+01:00

Click on the link to see a short video of myself at the Conservative Party conference where I am calling for a pledge for joined up healthcare. Unfortunately the end is cut off.

Not a day goes by that the need for coordinated healthcare and true cooperation between all health agencies, local governemnt, social services and the voluntary sector becomes ever more urgent.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuGiKBYq4AU

Wide Spread Infection Control Failures

2007-10-18T18:44:00.000+01:00

The Healthcare commission has released the 2006/07 annual health check ratings for every NHS Trust.
Across the country 44 out of 172 acute and specialist trusts (the hospital trusts) did not comply with at least one in three core standards relating to infection control.

We must insist on a zero tolerance of health care acquired infections, only then will the systemic culture of acceptance of such infection begin to be tackled.

Ann Widdecombe MP in Parliament 15th Oct, on the MTW Trust

2007-10-16T23:08:00.000+01:00

Ann Widdecombe MP: "May I draw the Secretary of State’s attention to the debate in the House on 23 January 2007? After listing a catalogue of neglect and disaster at Maidstone hospital, I said:

“One of my constituents telephoned his brother to say that he was in Maidstone hospital with C. difficile, sitting in his own diarrhoea, and that he wished he was dead.”

I asked the then Secretary of State:

“Can anyone believe that when that is the standard of nursing, it has nothing to do with the spread of infection?"

That was 10 months ago.

May I draw the Secretary of State’s attention to something that I identified at the time, but has not mentioned in his responses so far? It is the crucial role of ward sister. Ward sister, unlike management, matron or the director of nursing, is there all day. She used to fulfil the role of boss: “Nurse, why is that drip empty?”; “Nurse, why is this man in his own diarrhoea?” If she still fulfilled that role— [Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. I hear the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr. Jones) saying from a sedentary position, “It is a speech.” We are considering a serious matter, which is why I have allowed an urgent question. Let the right hon. Lady speak because I understand that she has lost constituents.

Miss Widdecombe: I am very grateful, Mr. Speaker. I apologise for the length of the question, but we are considering my Trust and I am concerned about what is going on. Does the Secretary of State accept that, if ward sister fulfilled her former role, many of the difficulties might have been avoided? Does he agree that there are three main reasons for her not fulfilling that role? First, short-staffing means that she is nursing when she should be bossing and supervising. Secondly, she has become too much a commissioner of bandages and blankets rather than active on the wards. Thirdly, she spends too much time filling in forms—whether that is related to targets or anything else is not the point; she spends too much time on officialdom. Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that I was right to say 10 months ago that if we get the role of ward sister right we will make a huge impact on the situation?

Alan Johnson, Secretary of State for Health: I do agree with that. If the role of the ward sister or matron is got right, we will go a long way towards tackling the problems. The right hon. Lady made important points, and I have no argument with the amount of time that she took to make them. She should be congratulated on raising the issue in January. Of course, as she will accept, the Healthcare Commission was in the midst of its investigation then.

I also agree with the right hon. Lady that the standard of nursing had everything to do with the problem, as the Royal College of Nursing and others have pointed out. We made an announcement a couple of weeks ago. I do not say this with the benefit of hindsight in relation to what happened at Tunbridge Wells and Maidstone. The right hon. Lady made the point that the matron and ward sister should have direct control not only over the cleaning arrangements and the contracts agreed for the hospital, but over the making of a report, at least quarterly, to the NHS trust board. The views of the ward sister and matron could not be filtered through various layers of management because the report, on these and other specific issues, would go directly to the trust board. That was the gist of our announcement.

I am afraid that I do not entirely agree with another point made by the right hon. Lady, because I think it detracts from her point about the standard of nursing at the particular hospital and her graphic account of patients being told “Go in the bed”. That is the term that was used. The right hon. Lady and others will surely accept that that is not the standard of nursing that we find in our hospitals across the country; it is absolutely exceptional.

The excuse cannot be given that the management of the trust did not receive the right support. The right hon. Lady spoke of a staff shortage, but there are now about 85,000 more nurses in our hospitals than there were 10 years ago, and 280,000 more care assistants and the like. As she will accept, there is no excuse for the dreadful things that happened in that hospital.

I accept that there are issues that we need to tackle in relation to ward sisters and matrons. We should give them more power and make them much more assertive, and remove any bureaucracy that they feel is a hindrance to their role. As I said in my statement, I am perfectly willing to shoulder that responsibility. My point is that nothing must detract from the failure that occurred in those three hospitals, and nothing must excuse the appalling standard of nursing that was in operation."

What about the others?

2007-10-16T23:01:00.001+01:00

Maidstone is waiting!

Ex-chair of MTW speaks

2007-10-16T22:40:00.000+01:00

The disgraced ex-chair of MTW trust spoke on the BBC news tonight 16th Oct.
For those of you who did not see his appalling display, in essence Mr Lee sort to shift blame to any other than himself. Did he not realise that as the Chair of the Board of the Trust he was at the top of the organisation and therefore responsible.

The Ex- Chair of the Board appears not to understand his responsibilities. Who is to blame for this, well perhaps those that appointed him, The Appointments Commission?

The Healthcare Commission have been slow to report. Why was this?

The more that we begin to understand, the more the failures appear to be systemic.

I have spoken on every platform available to me to argue for a new future of cooperation across all health agencies, local and district authorities, social care and the voluntary sector.
Until this happens our health and social care will not perform as we should, could and actually do expect.

Chair of MTW NHS Trust Resigns

2007-10-15T22:35:00.000+01:00

James Lee, the Chair of MTW NHS Trust has resigned. His resignation was anouced in Parliament by Health Secretary Alan Johnson though speaking later in the day on BBC Kent radio Mr Lee said that he had not wanted to go.

Maidstone & Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust Board must go NOW

2007-10-12T23:09:00.000+01:00

Health Secretary Alan Johnson has failed to act decisively. Or act, other than to seek to shift the blame over the impact of targets that the government has pursued so relentlessly despite a plethora of argument about their destructive nature.

Hoops ‘a’ jumping, hoops hoops hoops.

Ok. Johnson has acted to try to stop Gibb’s pay off (pending legal advice, possibly £400,000) but what practical real action has he taken. Well none! The Board are still in place, at least as this post is published.

Some Quotes from the Healthcare Commissions report

"Until recently, the board considered the annual report on control of infection solely as a retrospective document rather than a prospective plan for the coming year where the board could influence and agree priorities.

Additionally, the impact of financial pressures was to reduce further already low numbers of nurses and to put a cap on the use of nurses from agencies and nursing banks. There was unrelenting pressure to reduce the number of beds. Thus, both trusts had very high occupancy levels, could not manage with fewer beds, and so had to open ‘escalation’ beds, often at short notice and in unsuitable environments, without proper support services and equipment in place and, by definition, without permanent staff. The effect of all this was to compromise seriously the control of infection and the quality of clinical care.

We are concerned that where trusts are struggling with a number of problems that consume senior managers’ time, and are under severe pressure to meet targets relating to finance and access, concern for infection control may be undermined.

C. difficile figures were reported to infection control committee meetings, held every three months, but were generally three or four months out of date. The information was part of the pack that subsequently went to the clinical governance and risk committee, the trust management board and the trust board. There was no evidence of action in response to the figures. The data also formed part of the annual infection control report.

Between April 2004 and September 2006 the trust reported to the Healthcare Commission that it had 1,176 patients with
C. difficile infection

At least 345 people died in hospital between April 2004 and September 2006 following an admission to the trust in which they developed C. difficile infection."

The MTW Trust BOARD must go.

There will be much more to publish soon!

Maidstone Hospital Reconfiguration

2007-10-11T23:29:00.000+01:00

The Independent Review Panel (IRP) had the first round of consultations today starting with 4 members of the Maidstone Borough Council External Overview and Scrutiny Committees, of which I was one.

The members argued stridently against the proposals and the manner of the consultation process. Obviously there is more to be reported once the review has completed its evidence gathering process.

Healthcare Commissions Report is Beyond Shocking

2007-10-11T23:05:00.000+01:00

The full report can be viewed at the following link

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/11_10_07maidstone_and_tunbridge_wells_investigation_report_oct_2007.pdf

The emotions that the report evokes do not warrant a quick 'blog' response, only the resolve that action is absolutely necessary.

Our thoughts can only be with all those whose have suffered and those who have lost their lives because of this.

"Government has failed on flood defence spending"

2007-10-10T22:50:00.000+01:00

Stephen Haddrill, the Director General of the Association of British Insurers has hit out against the Government’s Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) on flood defence spending.
"The insurance industry is helping tens of thousands of people affected by flooding this summer, but the Government has now failed to play its part. Millions of homeowners and businesses around the country have been let down by the Government’s failure to commit sufficient money to new and improved flood defences.

“Government spending for the next three years (£2.1Bn) is less than we were asking for, even before the floods during this summer. It does not begin to address the major issues, including drainage, which were highlighted by this summers floods. The Government will have to increase spending substantially as needs are identified by the Pitt review team."
The insurance industry has supported householders caught by flooding on the understanding that the Government would improve defences. Will the Chancellor Alistair Darling’s spending announcement leave householders in flood risk areas now at risk of not getting insurance?

Flood risk maps can be viewed on line by The Environment Agency.
Click on the link below and zoom in to the Maidstone Weald area.
http://maps.environment-agency.gov.uk/wiyby/mapController

Save our Post Offices

2007-10-10T20:20:00.000+01:00

Not only do our local sub-Post Offices provide essential and convenient services for many, Post Offices play a vital role in maintaining a sense of community, thereby contributing to the identity of our local areas. Across Maidstone there are 3 ear marked for closure with a further 3 in the surrounding villages.

South Park, 192 Loose Road, Maidstone ME15 7UF

Hardy Street, 84-86 Hardy Street Maidstone ME14 2SJ

Station Road, Station Road, Staplehurst, TN12 0QH

Benenden Chest Hospital, Goddards Green Road, Cranbrook TN17 4AX

Hawkhurst, High Street, Hawkhurst, TN18 4AA

Gills Green, Station Garage, Gills Green, Hawkhurst TN18 5EP

Full details about the Area Proposal for Kent can be accessed online by visiting: http://www.postoffice.co.uk/portal/po/content1?catId=57600693&mediaId=57600697
I urge everybody to send expressions of concern directly to the Royal Mail by Freepost or email to

Gary Herbert
Network Development Manager
C/o National Consultation Team
FREEPOST CONSULTATION TEAM
Email: consultation@postoffice.co.uk
Customer Helpline: 08457 22 33 44

While you are at it please sign the Kent County Council’s online petition, accessible at http://www.kent.gov.uk/static/surveys/postoffice02/

Gibb’s Off

2007-10-08T22:43:00.000+01:00

The troubled Chief Executive of Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust, Rose Gibb has left her post as of last Friday 5th Oct.

Full details are not yet clear and many rumours abound.

As Chief Executive Rose Gibb was responsible for the hugely unpopular reconfiguration plans for the two hospitals which would see a down grading of Maidstone Hospital A&E services. Her plans had also included the loss of children’s and maternity services.

During her time she presided over the tragic long running out break of C. diff diarrhoea infection, where many elderly lost their lives. The Healthcare Commission were called in to investigate and their report is expected this week to be highly critical.

Maidstone Hospital

2007-10-06T23:19:00.000+01:00

Well I Never,

The word on the ground is that the LONG awaited Healthcare Commission report into the Trusts management of the tragic deaths due to Clostridium difficile (often called C. Diff) will be published during the next week.

The report is expecting to be DAMNING.

And so it should be.

Browned off with Brown

2007-10-06T23:06:00.000+01:00

Well, he is obviously Browned Off with himself.

Well, having briefed the world that he was going to call an election, Fuscous has changed his little Taxing Mind.

This is not good NEWS as now the DULL TAX WASTING man of politics has a few more years to tax us all and waste every single penny.
Good oh

LibDem's Spend Your Money with out knowing the actual COST

2007-10-06T18:19:00.000+01:00

Shame on Them, the LibDem's will just pass on the cost to you, Council Tax Payers.

At the Town Hall on Wed 26th Sept the LibDem run council supported by Independent councillors committed the Council Tax payer to a deficit funding strategy to pay for the recycling.

The papers presented services cuts such as to Community Policing and hiking up charges such as parking fees, with more potential black holes than an episode of Star Trek, a financial Bermuda Triangle of fudge, so much so that even if their boat does come in, the course now set will result in above inflation tax rises.

Reserves are to be raided and the deficit passed onto the council tax payer. How much will the rise be? Well let me tell you this, no one who voted for the funding strategy would be able to tell you just what the bottom line will finally be.

This was a shocking display of arrogant financial imprudence. Of course those who will suffer the most over this are those on fixed incomes and those who have to rely on their pension. However, we will all suffer from these year on year above inflation rises. Heaven help us if we ever get the threatened Council Tax Band re-evaluations.

Brown’s speech under the spot light.

2007-09-29T14:33:00.000+01:00

In Brown’s 2007 conference speech, Gordon Brown pledged that unless contract cleaners in hospitals meet the highest standards of cleanliness they will lose their contract. Was this supposed to be an earth shuttering revelation, a moment of clear thinking, what's the procedure at the moment, then? His party has had 10 years to clean them up. MRSA has quadrupled and our old and vulnerable are dying of C-diff, a hospital acquired infection, one that continues to cause suffering and deaths in Maidstone Hospital.

Looking at his aspirations for Britain, it is all more of the same. Ten years on the aspirations have not changed, much needs to be done. Labour has failed to deliver in many key areas.
Child poverty, social mobility, youth unemployment, basic literacy and crime are still unsolved problems. In some of these areas things have gone back, not forward - youth unemployment is worse, violent gun crime is higher.
Let us consider some simple facts and some of Brown’s misrepresentations;
· The social mobility gap is wider than it has ever been
· The health gap is as wide now as in Victorian Times
· 1 in 4 of our youngsters leave primary school without basic requirements in literacy and numeracy.
· Youth unemployment in Kent is around 52% (16-17 year-olds) demonstrating our education system continues to fail significant numbers of our children.
· 200,000 pensioners live below the poverty line
· You cannot deport gun-toting criminals if they are from the EU – the EU won’t allow you , (this is your que to sign EU referendum Petitions in the posts below)
· Brown can not DO Britishness; How can he champion Britishness when his party presided over the break up of the Union? Devolved legislatures in Wales and Scotland and failed to address the iniquitous West Lothian question. Ie Scottish MP’s continue to vote on English laws that effect only England while English MP’s have not reciprocal vote on Scottish matters. This is undemocratic.
· Furthermore Brown makes no move to redressing the Barnett Formula which sends Maidstone council tax payers money to 'deprived' areas in Wales and particularly Scotland, with no assessment of the needs of Kent which has some of the highest pockets of deprivation.
· All of his 'new' announcements have been announced before, some many times. Why should we believe him?

Brown is no social reformer, his way is central control, larger state, ie more peoples lives directly in the control of the state, higher taxes and little to show for it. (Edited, Highlights supplied by Janice Small, Keep them coming)

Kent Conservatives Rally for EU referendum.

2007-09-29T13:37:00.000+01:00

On Saturday, 22nd September, Maidstone town centre hosted the epicentre of the Conservative campaign to force Gordon Brown to keep his 2005 General Election manifesto pledge to have a referendum on the EU Constitution.

Conservative MEP’s Dan Hannan and Richard Ashworth were joined by Prospective Parliamentary Candidates and activities from across Kent, with events taking place in Rochester and Maidstone, and then across to Deal and Ramsgate.

The event gathered enormous public support, demonstrating that the British public are not prepared to put up with this Government telling them one thing and then going off and blatantly ignoring them once the elections are over.

Thanks to Janice Small for her contributions to the rallies and to this post

Call for help to catch fly tippers

2007-09-29T12:21:00.000+01:00

Click on images to enlarge

Fly tippers have struck in Yalding and your help is needed to catch the culprits.
The criminals dumped what looks like a demolished public outbuilding in a farmer’s field off Pike Fish Lane, Yalding. The fly tip was discovered by the farmer on 13 September 2007, and is thought to have been dumped the night before.
It is possible the building had a flat roof and was the toilet facility for a public building, such as a sports club. The waste includes windows and doors covered in security-meshing, a toilet and other bathroom materials, roof lining and insulation and associated rubble.
It is hoped someone will be able to identify the building and where it came from. Please have a good look at the photos - somebody must recognise the building or know of a place where an outbuilding has been recently removed.
Anyone with information should contact the council’s environmental crime hotline on 01622 602202. Maidstone Borough Council News Release; Ref No: ARL/070919

Never in the History of this Country!

2007-09-25T21:27:00.000+01:00

Sign up to The Sun's Campaign
http://www.thesun.co.uk/section/0,,2004240000,00.html

Have your say, don't leave it to..............

Don't consider it a treat, to have a referendum on the treaty

Weak Planning Policy

2007-09-22T19:10:00.000+01:00

Cllr’s Harwood and English (LibDem) frequently refer to the inadequacy of our Planning Policy and they are quite right in this because it is weak and frequently ineffectual. However they are of course more shy when it comes to pointing out that it was produced under the leadership of the LibDems back in 2000.
At the last full council meeting Cllr English in response to a direct question over who was responsible for this state of affairs, admitted the Local Plan (the planning policy) was not robust and blamed what he called a ‘rogue’ planning inspector for the inadequacies and to quote “their [the LibDems] only mistake was not having stood up to him”.
Beyond this he intimated that advice given at the time, was that the policy would be sufficiently robust, however he declined to say by whom exactly. We can only hope they do not take the same advice this time over the new planning policy, the LDF.
If we think back over the last 7 years at the various developments across the Borough, how different would Maidstone now be if the LibDems had stood up to the inspector and ensured a robust local planning policy?

Equal Opportunities Commission

2007-09-22T19:05:00.000+01:00

I was some what surprised to hear on the Radio, the chairwoman Jenny Watson of the Equal Opportunities Commission suggesting that ministers should consider a moratorium for any firm who undertakes a pay review to identify inequalities in employees pay, for a period of 3 years. Hardly being that challenging I would suggest, with champions like that who needs enemies!

Under the current system tribunals hear such cases individually which means that each individual affected has to bring a separate claim. Not exactly efficient. Theresa May MP and shadow Minister has suggested that firms who lose wage tribunals could be instructed to undertake pay reviews for the rest of their staff, thereby unclogging the pay tribunal system which has seen sex discrimination cases double in the last 2 years.

Brown Trousers

2007-09-22T18:35:00.000+01:00

While today the BBC News online report that Gordon Brown "after facing a series of crises since he became leader - bombings, floods, foot-and-mouth and, finally, Northern Rock - Mr Brown remains high in the opinion polls.
The "Brown bounce" shows no sign of abating and he appears to have weathered the Northern Rock storm and the expected erosion of trust in government in the wake of it."
The reality is that Brown hid in No. 10 leaving his reluctant Chancellor to fumble his way through the Rock fiasco.

Nice to see Tax payers money is put to bias reporting as usual.

Round two for the Loose Area Character Assessment

2007-09-22T18:16:00.001+01:00

The Character Assessment process put in place by Conservative Councillors last year to help strengthen our weak planning policy is moving forwards for Loose quicker than expected. A wide ranging group of interested parties met on Wednesday evening at Loose Primary School to have a second in put to the assessment process. Character Assessments will help protect against developments that do not maintain or enhance an area. The consultants from Tony Fullwood Associates who are undertaking the documents development will be arranging for local public consultation on the draft document in Nov 07 with an expected final version for March 08. This document will then have legal weight in planning terms. The consultants did make the point that it would not stop all developed, but that development will have to be more in keeping.

Still no sign of Gordon

2007-09-17T22:10:00.000+01:00

So, if Northern Rock crashes on the rocks it will be nationalised. Hmmm....That means the State will have a charge on,..... how many homes......well, it's the 5th largest mortgage lender so quite a few!

Personnal debt £1.3 Trillion, National deficit run up to £30Bn Hmmm.... 10 years ago we had a National Surplus.

Why not visit The Wrong Man website http://thewrongman.typepad.com/

Northern Rock on the Ropes

2007-09-16T22:17:00.000+01:00

Northern Rock the 5th largest UK mortgage lender is up against the ropes, having borrowed staggering sums to finance its own lending. We all have a vested interest in not seeing the lender end up on the rocks as we watch TV new footage of investors queing outside high street branhces. Over the last two day investors have withdrawn £2bn from the bank amid fears that their savings will be lost.
Continued uncertainty can only mean one thing, money will become more expensive. If banks continue to be reluctant to lend to each other the cost of our nations personal debt will rise. Personal debt now stands at £1.3bn.

So here is the question,
Where is Gordon Brown, our Prime Minister?
The Prime Minister that has just spent the last ten years as Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Has the man of Prudence got nothing to say?

Maidstone Hospital A&E

2007-09-13T19:22:00.000+01:00

Independant Review Panel (IRP) begins review in West Kent

Press Release 12.9.07 more information from http://www.irpanel.org.uk/

The IRP, the independent expert on NHS service change, has announced the start of a review into contested health service changes in West Kent. The review is taking place at the request of the Secretary of State for Health, Rt Hon Alan Johnson MP. The IRP will consider existing proposals put forward by the local NHS to change emergency and general orthopaedic and surgical services at Maidstone Hospital and the Kent and Sussex Hospital in Tunbridge Wells.

A report with the IRP’s recommendations will be sent to the Secretary of State following a thorough review process. The IRP includes members with clinical and management expertise, as well as lay people. During the review IRP members will make a number of visits to West Kent specifically to meet with patients, clinicians and other staff. These visits will also provide an opportunity for the IRP to meet with a range of other interested parties, including local authority representatives, interest groups and individuals living and working in the area.

Dr Peter Barrett, Chair of the IRP, said: “Our job is to provide recommendations to the Secretary of State that offer local people high quality, safe, sustainable and accessible healthcare services. Our key focus throughout the review will be on the patient and the quality of care, and we will be hearing evidence from all sides of the debate. We will also look at how any proposals for changes to orthopaedic and surgical services may impact on other clinical services.”
The Secretary of State’s request follows a referral from Kent County Council Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee. The referral relates to the decision by West Kent Primary Care Trust - following a three-month consultation[1] undertaken jointly with Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust - to relocate emergency and general orthopaedic services and surgical services between Maidstone and Kent and Sussex Hospitals.

Orthopaedic and surgical services are currently provided from both hospitals. Under the proposals, each hospital would become a specialist centre – Kent and Sussex Hospital in Tunbridge Wells for emergency surgery and emergency orthopaedic care; Maidstone Hospital for planned (elective) surgical and orthopaedic care. Both hospitals would retain A&E services.The IRP’s final report with its recommendations will be forwarded to the Secretary of State by the end of November 2007. The final decision on changes to services in the area will be made by the Secretary of State for Health.

[1] Consultation: A new direction for orthopaedic and surgical care

Of concern here is the statement that both hospitals retain A&E services. Under the proposed reconfiguration, Maidstone will only retain elements of an A&E service.

Our Future Health Secured?

2007-09-11T23:10:00.000+01:00

Sir Derek Wanless has produced a follow up report to his 2002 paper which led to Gordon Brown giving a time limited increase in funding to the NHS.

This new report (http://www.careandhealth.com/resources/pdfs/Future_Health_Secured_full_version.pdf) reviews the progress so far.

In short "What is clear from this review is that we are not on course to deliver the sustainable and world-class health care system, and ultimately healthier nation, that we all desire."

"the biggest increase in hospital activity had been in emergency admissions - a key sign of ineffeciency as the NHS is not doing enough to prevent ill-health"

HIPS coming to a three bedroom home near you.

2007-09-09T23:09:00.001+01:00

A survey by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), published today by The Sunday Telegraph, reveals the true extent of the damage HIPs are causing to the housing market.
Fifty-three per cent of chartered surveyors reported a drop in the number of four-bedroom houses put up for sale in August, compared with the same month last year. The average reported drop was 51 per cent - rising to 67 per cent in London and 62 per cent in the North-West.
According to industry experts, the fall in the number of houses with four or more bedrooms on the market is in "stark contrast" to expectations - and the finger is pointing at HIPs.
There is worse to come. Tomorrow, Monday 10th Sept despite repeated warnings from those on the front line of the housing market, the Government will extend HIPs to include three-bedroom homes. (Source Telegraph online)

Why we should have a Referendum on the EU Treaty

2007-09-09T21:59:00.000+01:00

Quite simply we need to get at the truth about Europe and what membership of the EU does for us and costs us. We need to get at the truth about what powers we have given away and just what further loss of control the new treaty means for the UK.

If we have a referendum then we can have a proper debate with the arguments set out so we can all have the opportunity to hear the case both for and against.

Reports on the cost of our membership vary considerably from the official Government figures which suggest we are in net profit, to independent sources such as the think tank Open Europe who suggest that our membership has cost £40b since 1998 (www.openeurope.org.uk/media-centre/article.aspx?newsid=2000). While the Institute of Directors have estimated the Net cost at 1.75% of GDP per annum, almost £15 billion per annum. (www.euro-know.org/articles/eumembership.pdf). Civitas predict the cost is even higher, between £17-40bn per year. (www.civitas.org.uk/pdf/EUCosts_Factsheet.pdf).

Looking at the cost of red tape and regulation since 1998, the British Chamber of Commerce found an extra cost of £55.66Bn to UK business and that 73% of this costs to business arose from EU legislation, furthermore they suggest that the Government cannot and does not challenge the figures. (http://www.chamberonline.co.uk/)

To try to put these figures in a real world human perspective, £15Bn would build us some where between 45 and 60 new hospitals. That’s no expensive tax payer pays later PFI’s.

Moving on from the costs, 6 out of 10 new UK laws are now simply rubber stamped from Europe. We are stuck with the Human Rights Act that leans towards the rights of the law breaker over the victims of crime. This act is enshrined in membership of the EU.
We cannot control our own immigration policy and struggle to deport criminals because of the primacy of EU law.
The EU landfill directive is responsible for the current local Government woes over rubbish collection and disposal as the directive can impose unlimited fines for exceeding limits on landfill. Though I am sure no one supports the use of landfill into the future as a method of rubbish disposal why should we be fined by the EU.

Sign up to the EU Treaty Referendum Campaign

2007-09-07T22:19:00.001+01:00

Follow the link here to add your support

http://iwantareferendum.com/index.aspx

You can also add your support to the telegraphs petition here

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?grid=F18&petition=europe&view=PETITION&xml=/news/2007/06/25/view25a.xml

Browns Flannel on Maidstone A&E Petition

2007-09-05T22:01:00.000+01:00

Gordon Brown has published his response to the petition against the downgrading of Maidstone A&E.

To demonstrate just how disinterested he and his Government are, they have not even bothered to find out that the KCC NHS Scrutiny Committee has already referred the decision to the Secretary of State for Heath.

The full text reads as follows

Although the Department of Health provides strategic leadership to the NHS and social care organisations in England, it is for local NHS organisations to plan, develop and improve services for local people. These bodies are therefore best placed to respond to patients' concerns and needs. However, the Government has made it clear to the NHS that any changes to the configuration of local services should not compromise patient care and should show how the quality of care will continue to improve further in the future. Local services must continue to meet patient safety requirements and the standards set in National Service Frameworks and should demonstrate how they will use improvements in medical technology and techniques in future.
The Government is halfway through a ten-year plan to provide a modern NHS, responsive to patient needs and focusing equally on promotion of health and well-being, as well as the treatment of ill health. So far, the NHS has been leading the change, focusing on increasing capacity with more staff and more facilities. As a result, hospital waiting lists are now the lowest since records began, early deaths from cancer and coronary heart disease continue to fall and patients have more choice and involvement in their own care. The White Paper Our Health, Our Care, Our Say: a new direction for community services focuses on a strategic shift that locates more services in local communities and closer to people's homes.
Similarly, the Department of Health's clinical reports, such as Mending Hearts and Brains and Emergency Access - Clinical Case for Change outline the opportunities to change acute hospital care in order to deliver the best possible services in future. These proposals build on the improvements that have already been made to health and social care and will reinforce the Government's existing programme of reform.
Plans for the future configuration of acute services provided across the south east have not been determined at a national level. Any proposals for change that may be put forward by local NHS organisations will be subject to extensive consultation with local people. This discussion phase will inform the proposals, and any significant service changes proposed will be subject to the full public consultation which is expected to take place in the autumn. The decision for the future service pattern will then rest with the Primary Care Trust (PCT), which will analyse the responses and decide which course of action to take.
Should formal public consultation be required, the PCT's final decision will be subject to scrutiny from the local authority overview and scrutiny committee (OSC), which is made up of elected local councillors.
If the OSC determines that the consultation has been inadequate or that the proposal itself is flawed, it can refer the decision to the Secretary of State who has committed to asking for an independent expert clinical opinion form the Government's Independent Review Panel for any cases referred to him.

Maidstone Lacks Effective and Strong Vision.

2007-09-04T22:53:00.000+01:00

The vision document Maidstone 20/20 Our Vision gives us:
Improving in all that we do; Improving customer care; Maintaining a clean and tidy borough
Community Safety; Improving parks, open spaces and play areas; and Improving transport links and, in particular, delivering the All Saints Link Road.

I suggest that these are weak words. These six statements are obvious and therefore hardly worthy of presence in a vision statement with any real prospect of delivering the Maidstone that we deserve.

What we need is a clearly articulated vision statement that does exactly what is says upon the bottle, a statement of words that we can all see in our minds eye.

If we look at other towns around the country, there are many with emphatically clear vision. The River Medway could and should be a jewel in the centre of town.
The Maidstone Wide Local Plan (2000) is not robust, according to Cllr English, member for regeneration (LibDem). Why is this? He has suggested that under the LibDem/ labour coalition in power in 2000 they failed to stand up to what he called a rogue inspector.

MBC is responsible of Planning and Waste Collection/ Recycling.
LibDem and pseudo-independent-LibDem-voting plus Labour voting coalitions have controlled MBC since very many years bar one.

The Vision is poor at best; Improving in all that we do, what comfort!

Park 'N' Ride off into the Sunset

2007-09-04T20:50:00.000+01:00

No matter which way the LibDem councillors try to spin the Coombe Quarry Park and Ride closure, the residents of the south of Maidstone have simply been failed by them.
They failed to adequately explore viable options, they failed to consult with the public and they failed to give residents the opportunity to support the service.
We were promised an alternative bus service, the reality I now understand is one bus per hour, with the service finishing by 2pm, that’s both into and out of town. This is more than a major inconvenience, this is ridiculous.
We were promised by Cllr Harwood at the last full council meeting that the pavement alterations to compensate for the loss of the low floor buses would be in place by the 3rd Sept. This promise has been broken, despite Cllr Harwood dismissing the alterations as a mere trifle. In fact there is no sign of works starting. Not surprising really since the Borough Council does not own the pavement where the alterations would have to be made.
Clearly this would take time, time which the LibDems failed to give themselves, against the recommendation of the Regeneration and Sustainable Communites Overview and Scrutiny Committee.

‘Housing numbers game is up,’ says KCC Leader

2007-09-01T11:22:00.000+01:00

Kent County Council Leader Paul Carter says the Government’s housing numbers game is up.

The Government’s Planning Inspectors report has been published, recommending 32,000 new homes across the south east region every year for the next 20 years,

Mr Carter said:
“County council leaders across the south east region fought very hard to contain housing growth within acceptable levels. The planning inspectors’ report published today is suggesting an additional 10 per cent of homes across the south east region. I am relieved that for Kent they are recommending a slight increase of only three per cent.

“The big issue will now be how the Government responds to the inspectors’ report. The government have already indicated that they will be demanding substantial increases over and above current regional proposals, this concerns me greatly.

“Kent will already struggle with current plans, for example, brownfield sites are running out, we have the prospect of flooding and much of our highways infrastructure is already overloaded.

“Unless the Government massively increases infrastructure investment the idea of an additional 20% more homes on the 6,500 proposed is outrageous.

For copies of the inspectors’ report, go online to www.gose.gov.uk/gose/planning/regionalPlanning/?a=42496

KCC News Release Ref No: 616/07 29 August 2007

For further information contact Philip Scrivener at Kent County Council Press Office on 01622 694013 or email phil.scrivener@kent.gov.uk
More news releases are available online at www.kent.gov.uk/news

EU Treaty Referendum

2007-08-19T22:13:00.000+01:00

This is, to use the vernacular “a no brainer”.

No one living in the South East is under any illusion or pretence that they can rely on Gordon Brown to negotiate on our behalf.

We must have a referendum, and then we can all have the opportunity to listen to the debate and make up our own minds.

UK Economic Competitiveness Flagging

2007-08-18T21:03:00.000+01:00

The UK has slipped from 19th in the world ranking of GDP Per capita PPP (purchasing power parity) in 2004 to 28th in 2006. Data source CIA, The World Factbook

GDP per capita gives an indication of the nation’s wealth per person. Though the absolute value has risen from $29,600 in 2004 to $31,800 in 2006, this increase is rather marginal when inflation is applied to the figures. The slipping in the world rankings means that other nations have increased their wealth per person at a faster rate than the UK.

There a many factors that can account for this, such as the cost of new regulation, however in the UK we have seen a recent acceleration in the growth of the population.
Figures released in November 2006 revealed population growth of more than 300,000 for the second successive year, and statistics issued by the Home Office on 22 August 2006 showing that 447,000 people from the EU accession states registered to work in the UK from May 2004 to June 2006. Including self-employed workers, total immigration from these eight countries was an estimated 600,000. (Opitium Popluation Trust)

Such evidence of the UK’s flagging competitiveness would seem to be contrary to the assertion that the recent immigration is unequivocally beneficial to the UK economy. If growth in GDP is only just ahead of the rate of increase in the population, in effect there is less growth in wealth per person than expected and therefore a reduced growth in money to spend on public services per person than expected. Though the total GDP may be higher we may not be as well off per person as perhaps we might be, or thought we were going to be.

Tax foreign lorries to pay for UK road improvements

2007-08-18T16:55:00.000+01:00

“We suggest raising money from foreign lorries using our roads, to provide cash to remove bottlenecks and improve traffic flows on main roads, especially at junctions.”
Freeing Britain to Compete: Equipping the UK for Globalisation, Submission to the Shadow Cabinet
Economic Competitiveness Policy Group, Chairmen, Rt Hon John Redwood MP and Simon Wolfson Aug 2007

With the repeated grid lock on the M20 as it passes around Maidstone who could not support this recommendation. Stationary traffic is the most polluting of all traffic as it goes no where. Because of the uncompetitive domestic tax situation facing UK freight hauliers as created by Gordon Brown, 75% of the lorries in these traffic cues are in foreign ownership with the profits they make going to foreign hands and the taxes levied to foreign governments. Ie no chance of investment in UK transport infrastructure.

If you would like to vote on this policy suggestion see the poll down on the right hand side.

More detail from the report below,
Lorry Charging – Allowing UK and Foreign Lorries to Compete Fairly
“Of the £31 billion that the Government raises annually in motoring taxation (even without taking account of corporation tax on car manufacturers and retailers), only £7 billion is spent on roads; and, as already stated, expenditure on new roads in particular has been very low in the last decade.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has concluded that: ‘The UK ranks poorly in international comparisons regarding the quality of transport infrastructure and congestion. The case for raising expenditure on strategic roads should be considered’. [Germany has double the road space per car with France and Spain having even more.]

Meanwhile, the UK road freight industry has been increasing its efficiency, with fuel consumption reduced by 16% since 1993. And although 25% of lorries still run empty, this is a 25% reduction in twenty years. But their international competitiveness has been reduced by an inequitable taxation
system, and hence the highest cost base in Europe. UK hauliers not only pay twice as much in diesel tax as their continental peers (who take on as much diesel as they can buy when leaving the French or Belgian channel ports for the UK); but they are also alone in having to pay heavy annual vehicle excise duties, simply to have the right to travel on British roads. This has resulted in a substantial loss of market share over the last ten years, with 75% of all lorries leaving the UK to travel on the Continent now foreign-owned.

The British haulage industry has made strong representations to Ministers, but to no avail. We therefore recommend that an incoming Conservative government should implement a system of charging all lorries for their mileage on British roads. At the same time, either the duty on diesel, or the rates of truck excise duty, would be reduced for UK hauliers, so that their overall level of taxation would not rise. This would have several advantages: British truck owners could compete more fairly, without breaking any EU rules; the Treasury would benefit from extra revenues as foreign trucks started to pay user charges; and there would be more money to pay for much needed road improvements.”

Happier Hospitals Means Healthier Patients

2007-08-10T18:38:00.000+01:00

The Centre for Innovation in Health Management a department of the Leeds University has released its finding in to The National Inquiry into Management and Medicine. Looking at hospitals across the UK, the inquiry focussed on the relationships between doctors and NHS managers. Perhaps not surprisingly it found that where Managers and Doctors had effective working relationships, the health service runs more efficiently and patient outcomes are better.
The research, led by Professor Ian Kirkpatrick, blames poor relationships between the two sides for the fact that increased productivity in hospitals has not kept pace with the rise in spending.

The National Inquiry into Management and Medicine, Key findings;

“The NHS is obsessed with money not with clinical care. This report shows that NHS organisations need to focus first and foremost on patients and their treatment and care and that should be modelled at the top of the NHS. General Management cannot ‘manage’ without knowing the business it is in.”

It recommends that;
> The NHS should set the direction and expectations for the service, but allow individual trusts to develop their own metrics, (ie measures or targets)
> Chief Executives should stop moving from trust to trust – and where they do move, should ensure a succession plan is in place to conserve productive relationships rather than destroy them.
> Commissioners and providers should be locally accountable.
> Clinicians and management should be involved in the development of performance data.
> Both sides should talk to staff, listen to their experiences of working together, and assess whether their real-life stories suggest the working relationship is productive – or obstructive.
> Medical students should be taught about management earlier in their education, with the curriculum embedding the notion that management is core business for doctors.

Home Information Packs

2007-08-09T20:22:00.000+01:00

The National Audit Office have today published a detailed response to concerns raised by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) over the consultants used by The Department for Communities and Local Government (CLG) in developing the policy and over the bidding process in tendering for this contract.

The RICS concerns were summarised as:
The use of consultants, who had a financial interest in a private sector company seeking to be approved under the regulatory scheme, on the development of the policy and the detailed regulatory scheme; and
An unfair bidding process.

The NAO concluded:
The Department for Communities and Local Government (CLG) employed consultants with a clear conflict of interest, ie guilty as charged then.

Since the 1st Aug 07 Home Information Packs have to be supplied by anyone selling a property with more than 4 bedrooms, the plan is to phase in taking in 3 bed properties next.

As part of its financial audit work, the National Audit Office intends to undertake further work to examine whether the weaknesses in procedures identified as a result of this work are more widespread within the Department. We intend to report to Parliament in 2008-09 on the overall effectiveness of the arrangements put in place by the Department to introduce Home Information Packs and to ensure sufficient qualified inspectors were available to implement the scheme.
The report will also provide an early assessment of the impact of the packs and whether they are meeting the objectives of making home buying and selling a quicker, more certain and less daunting experience

Grant Shapps MP, Conservative spokesman for housing, said:"We have long argued that Home Information Packs are fundamentally flawed, but it is even more alarming to discover that the consultants brought in by the Labour Government to advise on the scheme had their snouts in the trough."This is a shocking indictment of the haphazard and botched manner in which Home Information Packs have been handled by Labour ministers. There now urgently needs to be a full National Audit Office inquiry into the Government's continued bungling.

A Defining Moment for Loose and Maidstone

2007-08-02T21:30:00.000+01:00

Maidstone Council is moving ahead with plans to create character assessments. On Tuesday evening 31st July 07, representatives of The North Loose Residents Association, Valley Conservation Society and Loose Parish Council undertook a walk about of an area spanning from Armstrong road, south to Loose. Also present were Borough Councillors, MBC officers and the consultants who have been commissioned to under take this pilot project.

The purpose is to define the character of the area, with the resulting documentation then to be worked up in to a planning document called a Supplementary Planning Document. This will be an extremely important document by which planning applications in the future can then be judged against. This will help ensure that future planning policy is robust as it will be the yard stick by which applications can be judged to determine if they are in keeping with the character of the area.

This work must then be rolled out across the whole of the Borough to complete the planning document so all areas are affored the same protection.
Clearly this is a large undertaking for the council but is a giant step in the right direction and not a moment to soon.

Maidstone residents send Tesco packing

2007-08-02T21:29:00.000+01:00

After 9 year Tesco have given up on their plan to build a supermarket on the land behind the Maidstone Fire Station on the Loose Road. Many hundreds of residents got together to campaign against the Tesco proposal, forming the North Loose Residents Association (NRLA) in the process.
The land has now been sold to the property developer Talyor Wimpey, a merger between Taylor Woodrow and Wimpey. The site already has out line planning permission for residential development.

Planning Policy was not robust

2007-07-27T22:15:00.000+01:00

The Maidstone Borough Council, Cabinet Member for Regeneration has publicly admitted that the planning policy document, known as the “Planning Policy - Maidstone Borough-Wide Local Plan Adopted, Dec 2000” as put in place by the previous LibDem administration had not been robust enough. The Cabinet Member sort to blame, what he called a ‘rouge inspector’ but admitted that they [the previous LibDem administration] should have pushed harder. In other words they had been weak when standing up for the borough.

A salient feature here is not having put in place Supplementary Planning Guidance which specifically looked at defining and understanding the context and character of areas. Supplementary Planning Guidance provides planning guidance which amplifies the policies and proposals of the Local Plan. These are essential documents that enable a local interpretation of nationally imposed Planning Guidance, the term guidance is some what a misnomer here as they are a legal framework and hence not so much guidance as centrally imposed government control.

The Local Plan states in Policy ENV2;
Planning permission will not be granted for development in the defined urban area and village settlements unless: 1) proposals relate sympathetically to the context provided by their setting.

However if the local context is not defined in a systematic and consistent way, decisions are open to legal challenge.

How would Maidstone have looked today if such documents had been in place?

Has irreparable damage been done already?

How much back garden development would have been refused?

The good news is that Character Assessments are now underway as put in place last year by the previous administration (Con). We are assured that these documents will be developed for the whole of the borough, to be included in the future planning policy for the borough.

Park ‘N’ Ride site set to become housing

2007-07-27T21:57:00.000+01:00

At the Town Hall council meeting on Wednesday 25th July there was no attempt to deny that “the current administrations’ plan, is now to sell the site for re-development”

So what will the proceeds be spent on?
When pushed to agree that “any resultant capital receipt from such a sale is invested in sustainable transport for the SOUTH of Maidstone, where the facilities have been lost and the funds generated”, the Cabinet Member for the Environment declined to agree to push for this, saying that funds could not be ring fenced for the south and would have to go in to funds for the borough as a whole.
Interestingly passing reference was made to his interest in [improvements to] the northern approach (A229). Cllr Harwood just happens to represent North Ward which is bisected by the A229.

The Cabinet member did however promise that pavement alterations in the area of the Armstrong Road, to allow access to non-low floor buses would be in place before the closure of the service on the 3rd Sept. He had no answer as to exactly where they would be, so it remains to be seen just how accessible the chosen site will be for those who had relied on the Park ‘N’ Ride buses.

Immigration Figures Released

2007-07-24T22:57:00.000+01:00

The Department of Work and Pensions has revealed that it issued 713,000 new National Insurance numbers in the last year to foreign workers, with over 2.5m since 2002.
These figures obviously only include those who are here legally, with the government being quick to point out that some will have returned home.
Shamelessly Immigration Minister Liam Byrne is quotes as saying “from next year we will start counintg people in and out of Britain”, at the opening of The Migration Impacts Forum 21 June 2007. Oh well there's an idea, how on earth did he come up with that?
Source Home Office website
http://press.homeoffice.gov.uk/press-releases/forum-migration-impacts

Such rapid increases in the population clearly puts strain on all sections of our public services and not least on our housing stock, increasing yet further the demand for new builds.

Park 'N' Ride Axed by Environmentalist

2007-07-20T22:32:00.000+01:00

The Regeneration and Sustainable Community OSC on the 10th July saw an unprecedented attendance by the public who turned out to urge the Cabinet Member for the Environment to reconsider his decision to cut the Coombe Quarry Park ‘N’ Ride.

Despite public condemnation of the decision, Cllr Harwood has decided to go ahead with his decision to close the only traffic relieving service that serves the south of Maidstone.

Let it not be forgotten that the publicly funded subsidy covers all the Park ‘N’ Rid sites across the borough, not just the south of Maidstone, however it is the Coombe Quarry site that is predominantly used by the residents of the borough. The council tax payers are therefore now subsidising the Park ‘N’ Ride sites that see significant numbers coming in from out side of the borough. The question therefore surely has to be are the council tax payers getting value for money as a result of this decision. Of course all sites help relieve the traffic pressure on our town, but if you live and travel from the south of the town, one option has now been removed. An option that saw 71,888 cars taken out of the centre of our town during the last year.

Let it not be forgotten that the service was essential to many users who needed the low bus entry facility afforded by the Park ‘N’ Ride buses.

We are told “options will be pursued including alterations to the pavement to enable people to gain access to non floor buses” we are not told when and essentially we are not told where such pavement alterations will be made.

To Organ Donate or Not to Organ Donate

2007-07-18T22:40:00.000+01:00

http://gallery.hd.org/index.jsp

Whose choice should it be?

The data suggests that one person a day dies after failing to find a suitable donor.

Sir Liam Donaldson (The Chief Medical Officer) thinks consent to organ donation should change so that you have to opt out of being an organ donor, rather than opt in.

Is this wrong?

Should opting in to the current organ donation system get better publicity first?

If you want to find out more about organ donation click on the link to the Uk Transplant site in the 'Link to other sites' on the right hand column

SEERA to give way to SEEDA, but may signal less not more local autonomy

2007-07-17T22:59:00.001+01:00

South East England Regional Assembly (SEERA)
South East Engalnd (Regional) Development Agency (SEEDA).

Today (July 17) John Healey MP Minister of State for Communities and Local Government signalled the end by 2010 for the un-democratically accountable Regional Assemblies to favour Regional Development Agencies (RDA's).... with local authority leaders holding the RDA's to account in the region and approving the regional strategy. Apparently ....to give local authorities greater powers

Sounds like good news for democracy then, well

The plans also include the appointment of a Minister for each of the regions, 'to provide a sense of strategic direction for their region and to give citizens a voice in central government' .. this sounds like more, not less central control to me!

Political Corner, How independent are your Independents?

2007-07-17T21:51:00.000+01:00

The theme of the following post has been suggested by Jamie Devlin

Does it matter to the average man or woman on the street actually how independent their Independent councillor representatives are?

If their voting record matches that of one political party are those who vote for representatives who proport to being Independent, therefore being short changed?

Is it appropriate for Independents to take seats in a Cabinet which is led by a political party?

Please note all comments on this subject will be published, unless they contain personally inappropriate remarks.

Food for thought or Food for throwing away

2007-07-17T21:40:00.000+01:00

http://gallery.hd.org

A second installment from the Communities and Local Government Committee, Refuse Collection, Fifth Report of Session 2006–07.

'Up to one third of food purchased is disposed of without being eaten, perhaps the most shocking example of utter waste revealed during our inquiry. Householders are throwing away £400 a year. Councils are forced to waste their time and our money clearing up our leftovers, which are often the most problematic part of domestic waste. We recommend that Government set specific targets for food waste reduction and follow through on the Waste and Resources Action Programme’s autumn food waste information campaign by promoting some simple measures households can take such as menu planning and improved storage, and by encouraging supermarkets and other retailers to help customers avoid waste by, for example, packaging perishable goods in sizes suitable for both single and family households.'

Refuse Collection

2007-07-17T21:34:00.000+01:00

Sorry for this rather long post, however this is a summary of a report on the possible future of refuse collection by the House of Commons, Communities and Local Government Committee,
Refuse Collection, Fifth Report of Session 2006–07.

Refuse collection is one of the most routine activities of government and one that generates most public interest. For many, having their bins collected is the most important thing local government does, and a major reason why they pay council tax. Responsibility for collection and disposal belongs to around 400 local authorities in England and the historical development of such a disparate system means practice varies widely on timing and frequency and the types of materials collected and recycled. European Union landfill restrictions, designed to combat climate change, have driven a shift towards greater recycling as councils seek to avoid paying substantial fines.
Recently, alternate weekly collection (AWC) systems have proved controversial, often wrongly characterised as fortnightly collection. In fact, the schemes, adopted by about 40 per cent of English authorities, are meant to force or encourage householders to recycle by providing collection of waste one week and recyclables the next. Our strongest conclusion is that local councils are better placed than anyone, central Government included, to know what will work best for their local areas. AWC plainly works in some places—recycling rates have risen, and there is little public opposition. In other places, it has worked less well, notably where councils have “blundered into” introducing it without adequately informing local householders and council tax payers.
AWC equally clearly is not suitable everywhere: in cities and urban areas, congestion and limited storage space rules against it. Most controversy has arisen over food waste, with householders concerned that storing leftover food for a fortnight means more rat, fly and animal activity, with consequences for public health. Research has found no public health risk from AWC, but wider research is required to convince the public.
Changing systems allied with the enormous variety of collection and recycling schemes in existence have left the public confused, and we recommend moving towards a clear,
understandable definition of what the public may expect.
The Government proposes to let councils operate financial incentive schemes aimed at rewarding positive recycling behaviour. The proposals fall short of recommendations made
by Sir Michael Lyons and appear complex and timid. Rewards of as little as £20 a year are
unlikely to prompt mass recycling, and as every winner will require a loser, those who end
up paying even £20 more for a service most believe they pay for through taxation are likely to be significantly more aggrieved than the gainers are pleased. The schemes may have perverse effects, too, potentially increasing fly-tipping.
Finally, for all the political heat it generates, municipal refuse represents only 9 per cent of the total national waste stream. While its high profile guarantees media attention and policy focus, it is easy to forget far more can ultimately be achieved by reducing, recycling and reusing commercial, industrial and construction waste products and we recommend government gives increasing emphasis to the commercial waste sector.

For anyone wishing to read more a link can currently be found at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/16_7_07_bincollections.pdf

Wealth Gap at 40 year high

2007-07-17T21:16:00.000+01:00

Research published today (17 July) by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation suggests that the gap between the riches and the poorest in our society has reached a level not seen for over forty year. At the same time, more households have become poor over the last 15 years

The lead researcher Danny Dorling, is quoted as saying “Most interesting and certainly unexpected when this work began is the geography of those households who are neither rich nor poor. Over time it has become clear that there is less and less room in the south for them; they have either moved elsewhere, or become poor.”

This is clearly very worrying and suggests the need for an urgent and radical rethink on central government policy.

Making the Most of the River Medway in Maidstone

2007-07-13T21:25:00.000+01:00

The River Medway has to be one greatest assets of Maidstone town centre.

The simple question is this, is the most being made of this assest?

If not, what would you like to see happen, in terms of future development or otherwise, along the river banks of the Medway in Maistone town centre?

A and E downgrade petition

2007-07-13T20:59:00.000+01:00

Come on Maidstone

Say NO to A&E cutbacks

As of 13th July 9 pm 1041 have signed the PM's petition against Maidstone Hospital downgrade.

I urge everyone who visits this site to sign the petition.

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/MaidstoneAandE/

Maidstone Borough Council's External scrutiny committee produced a highly recommended report on this subject. (I must confess that I was part of the committee that produced this report.)

to obtain a copy on-line please contact

mailto:angelataylor@maidstone.gov.uk

Park 'N' Ride the call in

2007-07-11T00:12:00.000+01:00

There was a large public attendance at Tuesday nights Regeneration and Sustainable Communities Overview and Scrutiny Committee, with many dismayed at the decision to close the site by Sept 3rd.

After a 2 1/2 hour debate the committee finally voted to refer the decision back to the Cabinet member for the Environment to consider the issued debated. The cabinet member now has five days to respond.

While the Cabinent Member made much over tight budgets, there was little new evidence presented to support the misguided decision for the September closure, other than of course budgetary pressures in other areas. This can only suggest that the Park 'N' Ride serving the whole of the South side of Maidstone was not hitting the Cabinent Members priorty button.

So much for the environment then.
And so much for public services!

Park N Ride Call In

2007-07-08T22:50:00.000+01:00

The Overview and Scrutiny Team at MBC have produced with out any apparent difficulty a variety of alternative options, other than closure of the Coombe Quarry service, for the committee to debate on Tuesday 10th July.

It is not to late to register your opinion.

Email louisesmith@maidstone.gov.uk

The committee meeting is a public meeting so do come along.

I should point out that at the discretion of the committee chairman you can be given an opportunity to speak should you so wish.

Live Earth

2007-07-08T00:13:00.000+01:00

Earth inspired, music inspired.

Good TV but will it make much difference?

Will Live Earth be remembered next week?

Was it better than doing nothing?

Reduce Reuse Recycle,

2007-07-04T21:12:00.000+01:00

It seems somehow that we as ‘a collective’ have lost our way on this. The issue has become recycling while we seem to have stopped considering how to do the most effect parts first, ie reduce.

Rather than writing to our local supermarket to tell them we will no longer buy 4 mushrooms packaged on a tray wrapped in cellophane, can we all not just stop buying them like this.

Consumer power can get you an 18 gear, dual suspension mountain bike manufactured and transported for the other side of the world for £80, surely it can get the unnecessary wrapping of our fruit and veg!

Post Suggestions

2007-07-03T23:46:00.000+01:00

Thank you to all of you that have already suggested issues for 'Posts'.
These are being collated and the issues and coments made will be posted for comment very shortly.

Park N Ride Call In

2007-07-03T23:26:00.000+01:00

The decision to close the Coombe Quary Park N Ride has been 'called in' to the Regeneration and Sustainable Communities Overview and Scrutiny Commmitte by Cllrs Bruce Pollington and Chris Garland.

This will now go to the committee on Tues 10th July.

If you wish to have your view brought to the committee please email louisesmith@maidstone.gov.uk

The public can also attend this meeting. Please contact Louise Smith the Scrutiny officer of your intention to attend this meeting asap so appropriate consideration of numbers can be made.

Since very little public consultation has taken place for this decision if you feel strongly this is your chance to make your view known to the committee.

As time is short if you don't fight for it you may end up losing it.