Welcome to Broxtowe Enews, brought to you by the Liberal Democrats and edited by David Watts, the leader of Broxtowe Borough Council. A special welcome to the new readers we have this week.
1. Open Cast Mining
I attended a meeting of all the affected parish councils this morning which was organised by Anna Soubry MP. All the parishes have agreed to work together to oppose these plans. We had a good pooling of ideas this morning and will by organising a public meeting shortly. I did read a moaning email from the Labour Party saying that they hadn’t been invited. In fact their parish and borough councillors were invited, and one of their borough councillors did attend. Unfortunately he seemed to leave after about ten minutes without saying anything, which was a shame.
2. Christmas Lights Switch On
The dates for switching on the Christmas lights across the borough have been announced. Stapleford will be on 2nd December, Eastwood on 23rd November and Beeston on 27th November. I don’t have a date for Kimberley yet but will announce it when I have it.
3. Trowell Parish Web Site
Trowell Parish Council are launching a new web site on 30th November dealing with events local to the village. When I have the address I’ll post it here.
4. Bus Display Boards
The County Council have now approved plans to install a range of real time bus display boards across the borough showing which bus will be coming next and how far away it is. Much of the funding for this is provided by Broxtowe Borough Council, as part of our contribution to funding improvements to public transport.
5. Youth Council
Congratulations to 16 year old George Fletcher from Beeston who will represent Broxtowe at the UK Youth parliament. George was elected by young people from across the borough.
6. Stapleford Walk In Centre
The official consultation on the future of the Stapleford Walk In Centre is now open. We have had a fantastic response to our opposition to this, with hundreds of people joining the Facebook page and signing our petitions. I hope that everyone who has asked for a petition has now received it, but if not please let me know again and I’ll get them straight out to you. We do need as many people as possible to complete the formal consultation so please make a point of doing so. The NHS have been very rattled by the strength of the opposition to their proposals, and I’m delighted that they are now starting to realise the strength of feeling about their proposals.
7. Privatising Postal Workers
Anna Soubry seems to have found herself in a bit of hot water over a speech she gave in parliament over plans to part privatise the Royal Mail. (Incidentally although my party support these proposals I’m personally against them as I think that the Royal Mail is a national asset which should stay in wholly public ownership.) Anna said in parliament that she had received no letters from postal workers about these proposals, although she had been lobbied by a couple against the proposals. People have pointed out that this seems to contrast sharply with an article she wrote in the Beeston Express where she said she had received 300 post cards from people against the proposals.
8. Public meeting on Israel-Palestine.
There is an opportunity to hear a first-hand eye-witness account of daily life under occupation in the West Bank, what the Israeli peace movement is doing, and what we can do to promote a just peace in Israel-Palestine. Jan Sutch Pickard has recently been an international monitor for the Quaker Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme, living among the Palestinians for 3 months and monitoring the check-points through the wall. Sunday 21 November, 4:30 – 6:00 pm at Round Hill School, Foster Avenue, Beeston, NG9 1AE. Chair: Anna Soubry MP. All welcome. More details from 0115 925 0385.
9. Attenborough Calendar
The 2011 Attenborough Nature Reserve Calendar is now on sale from the visitors centre, showing a number of pictures taken by local amateur photographers. They cost £7.50 and proceeds go to the Notts Wildlife Trust.
10. Albany School Roof
My colleague Cllr Brian Wombwell is pressing for urgent repairs to be carried out to the roof at Albany Junior School after it was revealed that they have suffered from a leaking roof now for five years. I totally agree with Brian that this is far too long and I hope that his intervention will force the County Council to address matters.
11. Local Economic Partnerships
I’ve mentioned before that the Government plans are to replace the Regional Development Agencies (Including EMDA which dealt with the east midlands) with Local Economic Partnerships (LEPs), which are comprised of local authorities and local businesses. A new LEP has now been approved for Notts and Derby, which is what we had hoped for. However Cllr Kay Cutts, the leader of the County Council, is now trying to exclude any of the district councils from being on the board. I have spoken to most of the other leaders of the district councils in Nottinghamshire and we are all extremely angry and intend to challenge her all the way on this.
12. Lib-Dem Membership
Have you ever considered being a member of a political party. Here in the Liberal Democrats all members have an equal say, and all our decisions are taken on the basis of one member one vote. Membership costs as little as £10 per year (less for students) and here in Broxtowe we now have a higher membership than for many years. (Nationally the Lib-Dems have also had a massive increase in membership this year.) If you would like to join we would be delighted to have you. Just let me know and I’ll be round with the forms.
As ever thank you for your support for this newsletter and any feedback is gratefully received.
David
