EU Treaty Referendum

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

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

“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

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

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

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

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.