Anthony's Blog

Tom Levitt MP

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony) — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 01:40:00 PST

Tom Levitt MP has made the following statement this morning :

Tom Levitt last night sent the following statement by email to Labour Party members in the High Peak:

“Next year I will have completed 27 years in public life, 13 of which have been as the Member of Parliament for High Peak. On April 21, I will become High Peak’s longest serving MP since the Second World War. It has been a huge privilege to represent the constituency in the House of Commons and I have enjoyed every minute of it, but it is time for me to move on.

“I have informed the Labour Party that I shall not be a candidate at the next general election. After the current Parliament I would like to spend more time with my wife, our children and grandchildren. I would also like to do something different in the work environment. Between now and the election I will work as hard as ever, both to support my constituents and help secure a fourth term for Labour in government.

“The last six months have been torrid. Rightly, MPs have suffered collective as well as individual criticism for the scandalous mess of parliamentary allowances. Steps are now being taken to stop MPs deciding on our own expenses, pay and conditions ever again. This is the right thing to do. We need to demonstrate that a line has been drawn. New levels of transparency, compliance and enforcement can restore confidence in Parliament and the democratic system.

“I am proud to serve the people of High Peak in Parliament and I have done my best to be diligent on behalf of constituents. I have also been committed to legislation which, I believe, has improved life for ordinary people in High Peak and elsewhere. There is still much which needs to be done and I will continue to work for the people of High Peak until this Parliament is dissolved.

“I thank so many people in communities across High Peak for their support, indulgence and friendship over 20 years. This group extends beyond my natural political allies. My proudest memories will be the acquisition of the Devonshire Royal site for the University of Derby and the central role of High Peak in the pursuit of the historic right to roam.”

More details / comment later

Gamesley Community Centre

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 04:06:00 PST

Just as a little bit of an update I have had a number of meetings over recent weeks looking into options for improving the future for the community centre.

Talks are still ongoing at current but I’m very hopeful that the suggestions on the table will be both work to improve the range of activities at the centre along with developing the amount of community involvement to ensure the future for the centre looks bright.

Tenant Services Authority Governance Standards

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 03:10:00 PST

Last Thursday I had a trip to Birmingham to become better educated on the likely contents of the Tenant Services Authority’s new governance standard.

Now whilst this may sound both like a bit of a dry topic and a mouthful to say, it is in my view at least an important part in ensuring that the management of ‘housing bodies’ is done to the highest standard and to ensure the best level of services to local residents whether that is for the very large housing bodies such as some of the inner city housing bodies to those a bit smaller like our own High Peak Community Housing.

Essentially ‘governance’ is about how decisions are made within the company and the process to reach them and it will a strand within the areas that will be regulated and monitored by the new tenant services authority.

In terms of what it means locally, some of the issues are about refining some of the work done at current to give greater emphasis on the views of tenants and it will also amongst a range of other issues see the introduction of tenant inspectors, which will see specially trained tenants reviewing in far greater details than before issues like repairs.

In terms of the event today it was about increasing knowledge of what the standards will be and what changes housing bodies need to look at to meet and where possible exceed the new standards which will be released by the TSA in greater detail in the next few weeks.

Locally I know various aspects of this are been worked on and it will be interesting to see other the forthcoming weeks and months what issues we need to consider further to both meet and beat the requirements.

Digital Switchover

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 01:40:00 PST

Don’t forget to retune your Freeview box today when the analogue signal for BBC 2 is turned off as the first stage in the Digital Switchover process.

Across the North West around 7.2m TV sets in more than three million homes across the North West are affected.

The move means that homes in some areas, including Glossop, can get Freeview for the first time (from the Glossop Transmitter). The remaining analogue channels - BBC1, ITV1, Channel 4 and Five - will be switched off on Wednesday 2^nd December (when you will need to retune Freeview again)

For more information goto : http://www.digitaluk.co.uk/

If you’ve not switched yet you can get more information from the above website or by phone on 08456 50 50 50

If you are older or disabled people and you’ve not yet accessed the help scheme and you need assistance switching to digital please contact the Switchover Help Scheme on 0800 408 7654.

Beatsweep – ‘On patrol’

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 06:51:00 PDT

On Friday night as part of the recent Beatsweep that Derbyshire Police has been running within the Gamesley and Charlesworth Safer Neighbourhood Team Area as part of their operation relentless, local councillor’s and MP Tom Levitt, joined the police on a walkabout with a difference to see some of the challenges they face around in particular anti social behaviour.

The motley group consisted of myself, Cllr Bob Mckeown, Cllr Chris Webster, Hannah Cocker the council’s anti social behaviour officer, along with MP Tom Levitt, Sgt Barry Doyle, PC Julian Gallagher and PCSO Lee Willows

We started off with a tour around Gamesley which I was pleased to see was extremely quiet in terms of very few people hanging about anywhere on the Friday evening. We then travelled up to Manor Park, where the Derbyshire County Youth Services had had an event on with an aim to tackle some of the potential anti social behaviour by providing alternative activities.

By the time we arrived at the event it was drawing to a close, but from the folk remaining it seemed to have been a successful event with around 200 youths from across Glossopdale in attendance, a number of us were concerned with the choice of venue for this event, as Manor Park was more or less pitch black as there is very little lighting in the park, and whilst the activity involved glow bands and fluorescent football etc and just from a health and safety point of view given the numbers involved it did seem that other venues in the Glossop area or possible looking at closing off a car park for the evening may be better than in the dark park.

However that said the event appeared to have been very successful, but following the event it seemed very difficult to get many of the those attending the event to then leave the park, and the noise within the park must be quite a concern for local residents around the park area.

Following on from that we viewed various other areas within Old Glossop, and saw how the Police work with local traders to try and tackle young people getting alcohol, we then returned to Manor Park and saw firsthand the difficulties that the police were having in trying to disperse some of the groups still left in attendance, and the number of them many aged just between 13 – 16 that were already intoxicated and showing very little willingness to observe the police requests to leave the area.

By around 9.00pm many of the youths had left many park, but were still within the area and the police took further steps including using a torch like tool that could identify if any of the young people stopped had had a drink or if they had bottles / cans of coke, could check the bottle or can for any added alcohol, and following on from one of these check a young girl was identified from just outside of the Glossopdale area, very intoxicated and with little clue of how she was getting home, eventually requiring the Police to take her home, taking up Police time unnecessarily.

We returned to the town centre, and the Police were able to make use of a valuable tool they have in dealing with anti social behaviour and that is to issue a ‘section 27’ notice which required a person that has been identified by officers as a potential trouble causer to leave the area for a certain amount of time or face arrest if they return to or remain in the area.

Now the section 27 notice whilst useful couldn’t help with some of the issues in dealing with groups of youth’s causing problems as it is only useable on people over 16, and whilst it might not sound ‘nice’ to consider using this type of measure on young people, when dealing with some of the groups of youths that were in the town centre drunk at 9.30 and beyond at night, it could help to tackle some of the issues before they have to look at arresting and taking more stringent action if the rowdy behaviour become more.

All in all an interesting evening that help to clarify some of the difficulties that the Police can experience when trying to deal with issues around anti social behaviour, it also helped fax in my mind how bad on occasions it can be people for people living around places like Manor Park, along with the importance of supporting any efforts to put on ‘diversionary’ activities to try and stop these concerns becoming problems.

Update - Levitt on Legg

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 05:32:00 PDT

Whilst I don't know if this is the full details or not (of the letter), there is an updated post on Tom Levitt's website with regards to the Legg issues, it reads as below :

Legg enquiry on MPs' expenses (19 October 2009)

Tom Levitt has agreed to repay to the House of Commons £389 as requested by Sir Thomas Legg. This is in respect of a sofa bed purchased in 2004 which Sir Thomas has deemed ‘extravagant’ even though the Fees Office approved it at the time. He said “Had I been asked to pay this balance at the time I would readily have agreed to do so.

High Peak Borough Council - Freedom of information – possible fail

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony) — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 15:43:00 PDT

My.society.org runs a number of ‘democracy’ themed websites such as writetothem.com and fixmystreet.com.

They also run a site called whatdotheyknow.com which is aimed at helping people to make freedom of information requests (FOI) to public bodies throughout the UK, the site also allows you to see what requests have been made to public bodies and the reply received.

All good so far, however looking locally at High Peak Borough Council since the site was first started there have been 11 requests made, 6 answered in one form or another, however to some note of concern there is 5 outstanding. 1 from 2008 and the others from 2009, but all outside (without any valid reason shown) the deadlines that FOI requests are supposed to be responded to in.

Now whilst the issues flagged up within the requests may have been dealt with at current from looking at the whatdotheyknow website it would give you the view that High Peak is either ignoring or not responding properly to freedom of information requests.

I’ve flagged up the issue with Mark Trillo who is the council’s strategic director with responsibility for legal and democratic services (amongst a whole range of others areas) and I will flag up details of the reply received.

No say for tourism

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony) — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 14:14:00 PDT

When the area forums were setup a few years ago, the intention behind them was to provide a forum for local residents to discuss issues of concern and get more involved in local decision making.

Following recent stories in the paper’s and a range of comments locally around the theme of tourism, and in particular the closure of Glossop’s Heritage Centre and Tourist Centre I thought it would be a useful idea to discuss issues around tourism at the next forum and allow all the issues and concerns over the recent closure to be raised.

However despite suggesting the area I was advised that the topic of Coping throughout the Recession and planning community events won’t leave any time to discuss an issue that to my mind could at least help or provide some assistance to both of the themes for the area forum.

That said I still think the area forum will be worthwhile even if it is covering the same topic as was discussed at the recent central area forum.

Football News

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony) — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 13:21:00 PDT

A more detailed report on Gamesley’s Derbyshire Cup Tie will follow in the next few days (just checking a names where I don’t recognise the players) so if you don’t want to know the score ignore the next paragraph !

Saturday 17th October saw Gamesley’s first team take it first try in the senior Derbyshire Cup with a home tie which was lost 5 – 3 to Shirebrook Town. The reserves unfortunately shared a similar fate to the first team losing 6 – 2 away to Golborne Sport Reserves.

Next Saturday (24th October) sees no football on Gamesley in terms of either the first or reserves, with the first team returning to league action with an away tie to Garswood United, and the reserves hopefully making a better start to their time in the Derbyshire Cup with a first round tie away to Dronfield Town.

For Gamesley Villa the 12’s don’t appear to have played on Saturday (or at least there was no details on the FA Full Time website) the 11’s didn’t have a game this week and the 14’s were away to Heyside JFC 14’s who beat them 5 – 2.

Next week sees the 14’s at home (25th October) in Cup action with a 2nd round cup match against Heyside JFC 14’s (here’s hoping for better result), the 11’s also in 2nd round Cup action away to Moston Valley 11’s, with the 12’s on Saturday away to NJ Wythenshawe.

Levitt wrong on Legg

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony) — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 12:41:00 PDT

Many of you will have seen the coverage in the local papers and similar coverage elsewhere in the national media over the recent letters to MP’s by Sir Thomas Legg, who has been conducting a audit of MP’s expenses.

In the national media coverage there been details of the letters sent to a variety of MP’s including the Prime Minister and various high MP’s from all parties either detailing that they had money to repay or whatever the details were.
However locally in a complete about face from his earlier stance on the expenses issue, our local MP Tom Levitt has decided that the letter is an item of private correspondence to be responded to accordingly.

In my view given Tom’s earlier stance on the expenses issues was to be as open as possible and get as much information as possible on the issue available to people, this current stance is wrong, and I would rather hear that Tom was taking similar action to Frank Field in challenging the results of the audit, than to hear this is a private matter.

I do hope that given Tom’s neighbouring MP’s in Tameside have revealed the details of their letters, Tom will be able to follow suit and whilst I don’t have some of the concerns expressed elsewhere on other sites and blogs the earlier openness on the expenses issues should be replicated now or does the earlier comments from Tom on those MP’s who will not be forgiven from bringing their role into disrepute no longer apply.

Blog Action Day – Climate Change

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony) — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 15:58:00 PDT

Today (15^th October) is blog action day, a day when blogger’s across the world aim to spark discussion and awareness of serious and important issues.

This year the topic is climate change, and in the run up to December’s Copenhagen Conference on Climate Change, a whole range of government figures have joined in the blogging action, from a special post from the Prime Minster on the Number 10 website to the Foreign Offices Climate Conversations which is drawing together a number of climate change bloggers from the foreign office including the foreign secretary David Miliband.

Now whilst these are examples of high level involvement of trying to raise awareness of climate change issues, you can take small steps to get involved and take actions yourself.

The act on Copenhagen website asks you to sign up and support the British governments aims for a climate deal, to do so or find out more go to : http://www.actoncopenhagen.decc.gov.uk/en/subscribe

For more practical steps specifically around cutting your carbon emissions goto : http://www.1010uk.org

Football News

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony) — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 23:02:00 PDT

A good Saturday for Gamesley’s first team with a 2 – 1 win away to Billinge FC, the reserves however fared less well ending their home tie in 1 – 1 all draw, following a little bit of a lapse in the defence during the second half.

This coming Saturday (17^th October) sees Gamesley’s first team take its first steps in this year’s Derbyshire Cup competition with a home tie against Shirebrook Town FC – Kick off 2.15pm.

This will be the first team’s first try at this level of the Derbyshire Cup and the higher level Northern Counties East League Shirebrook Town should make for a interesting tie.

The reserves continue on with the league campaign with an away tie against Golborne Sports Reserves.

Gamesley Villa 12’s side won 3 -2 at home to Brendon Bees JFC 12s, the 11’s side won 5 - 3 against Moston Brook 11’s, and the 14’s had no game.

The coming Saturday sees the 12’s away to South Manchester 12's, with the 14’s on Sunday (18^th October) away to Heyside JFC 14's and no game currently listed for the 11’s.

Football News

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony) — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 04:37:00 PDT

It was a challenging Saturday for Gamesley’s first team last Saturday (3rd October) who initially appeared to be getting the better of their rivals Linotype/Cheadle HN when they went 1 – 0 up not long before half time, however the challenging weather amongst other factors took their toll and the opposistion equalized after about 20 minutes of the second half.

A number of chances for both sides followed to break the deadlock but neither side was able to put that final finishing touch on any of the opportunities.

Gamesley’s reserves faired even worse than the first team in an away match against the reserve side of the first teams opponents falling 4 – 1.

This coming Saturday (10th October) sees the first team away to Billinge FC, with the reserves at home to the reserve side of the first team opponents – kick off 3.00pm.

Gamesley Villa’s 12’s side romped home in the league cup tie against Failsworth Rangers 12's finishing 9 – 1 victors. The Sunday under 14’s also had similar luck beating Stalybridge Celtic 14's 2 – 0 in their league cup, whilst the 11’s completed a trio of wins for Gamesley Villa beating Hattersley FC 11's 5 – 0.

This coming weekend (10th / 11th October) sees the 11’s at home to Moston Brook, no game listed for the 14’s and the 12’s at home to Brendon Bees JFC 12s

Football News

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony) — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 03:57:00 PDT

Gamesley’s reserves unfortunately couldn’t match the success of the first side and fell 1 – 0 away to Daten, this coming Saturday (3^rd October) they are away to Linotype/Cheadle HN Reserves.

Gamesley Villa’s 12’s side fell 1 – 0 to Hyde United’s 12’s, and face Failsworth Rangers 12's away next Saturday in their league cup.

Gamesley Villa’s 11’s side beat Hattersley FC’s 11’s side 5 – 0 and face an away trip to Chadderton Park 11's next Sunday (4^th October).

Gamesley Villa’s 14’s unfortunately lost 2 – 0 to Failsworth Town 14's and are again at home next Sunday with a league cup tie against Stalybridge Celtic 14's.

Football News – Match Report – Gamesley v Trafford Reserves

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony) — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 03:42:00 PDT

With 5 players missing from the first team squad Gamesley put in a terrific performance, but it did not start well with Gamesley falling behind in the first two minutes to a Trafford Goal.

The Gamesley midfield were caught dwelling on the ball and they were quickly disposed and Trafford made their way forward, Fewtril who was making his debut in goals slipped trying to get back in position and the Trafford forward make no mistake.

However Gamesley rallied and started to apply pressure on the visitor’s goal and after 25 minutes from a free kick played in from Daz Scowcroft, Dewhurst headed home the equaliser.

Gamesley then continued to apply pressure and just after the first half hour of the game, Dewhurst was hacked down in the area by a Trafford defender, but was uninjured and able to get up and score the penalty putting Gamesley ahead.

About 15 minutes into the second half Gamesley’s defence had a lapse of concentration and let the visitors equalise, but this again spurred the home side on and they got their act together and pushed on. Chapman was substituted for Mulryan who had worked tirelessly throughout the game. 25 minutes into the second half Scowcroft hit a superb free kick and Mulryan scored with a glancing header.

The home side pushed on and after 40 minutes of the second half team Captain Capper sealed the point the points with a power header from a corner making it 4 – 2.

Taylor on his first game of the season was brilliant at the back along with Biggs and a great performance from the whole team.

This coming Saturday (3^rd October) sees a visit from Linotype/Cheadle HN who are currently one point behind Gamesley in the league.

Team : Fewtril, Salthouse,Taylor S, Taylor C, Daz Scowcroft, Swift, Capper, Dean Scowcroft, Briggs, Dewhurst, Chapman – Subs : Mulryan, Mainwaring, Redmond

Friends of Glossop Station

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony) — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 03:52:00 PDT

Congratulations to the Friends of Glossop Station who have won first prize for the best station adoption group in the ACORP (Association of Community Rail Partnerships) Community Rail Awards 2009.

The award which was annouced at a glitzy cereomony in Carlisle yesterday, saw Glossop take the award due to there continuing efforts to bring a little magic to the station.

This has been done by the various events run during the year including the aray of decorations put in place for the Wembley Special that ran for Glossop North End's trip to Wembley earlier this year, along with the flower displays and poetry platform that runs all year round.

Approval for ministers

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 05:50:00 PDT

Have to say that I agree with the view that is been attributed to Ming Campbell by the IPPR (Institute for Public Policy Research) that all government ministers should have to go through confirmation hearings by parliamentary select committee’s in a similar way to the confirmation hearing process run by the American Senate and House of Representative.

Now whilst this may mean that the whole process of changing a ministerial team may take longer, it would hopefully lead to a better or at least more scrutinized process of appointing minister, and whilst in most cases the party in power would have a suitable majority to ensure there nominations are approved, if there are any doubts at least there would be an open way for those to aired.

Councillor’s surgery - housing growth options consultation

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 04:45:00 PDT

This Saturday sees the second and final councillor’s surgery during the housing growth options consultation. As with our normal surgery it will take place from 11.00am until 12.00noon at the Gamesley Residents Association Office on Winster Mews.

As with the previous surgery, the main focus is on the current housing growth options consultation that is ongoing and that comes to a close on the 1^st October.

Copies of the council consultation along with further information and details on the consultation will be available on Saturday morning, additional details are also on the council’s website www.highpeak.gov.uk.

In addition there are also details on my website www.anthonymckeown.info, including a short survey just asking for your views on the Glossopdale options that you can complete online, if you can, please take the time to complete the survey as your views are important.

Back to work session

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 04:34:00 PDT

As part of the effort’s to return to work following my redundancy earlier in the summer, I was required to attend a back to work session recently.

Initially and I’m not quite sure why, I had the vision of some of the job club scenes from the league of gentleman, but thankfully it was nothing like that and was actually a quite useful session.

My only issues about the session was that in all honesty the information you got, particularly on some of the training and guidance options would have been even more useful to me if I’d be aware of them weeks ago, as I could (like some of the other in attendance) have accessed the services a lot sooner, and the venue for the session seemed a little strange as it was at the Adult Education Centre in New Mills, which whilst not very difficult to get to, at least for my session at least seemed to have quite a few of those in attendance (including the job centre people) travelling across from Glossop to provide the service.

I only hope in sense that some of the services I will be wanting to access will be faster than the training arranged as part of the job centre’s rapid response, which despite part of the assessment for it taking place in June, I’ve only just attended the final assessment last week !

Housing Walkabout

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 04:17:00 PDT

Last Friday afternoon saw a walkabout on the estate with the alliances new head of housing Ian Young.

Mr Young is one of the new raft of managers following the management restructure that took place over the summer, and is from a more traditional housing background, than the manager that previously held the overview for housing within the council.

It was an interesting opportunity to highlight a variety of issues across the estate, and it will be interesting to see what progress can be made on fixing some of them.

One concern (amongst the many on the theme of the alliance) is that the setup for things in Staffordshire Moorlands for council housing is different with them getting rid of their council housing by way of stock transfer some time ago, along with different services been retained by the council, that in the High Peak setup are under the responsibility of High Peak Community Housing, and I hope that there is little time spent on fixing things that are not broke just so that they better match the setup over the hill.

However not to appear too negative, that more specific housing focus will I hope bring a clearer focus and some possible additional suggestions to work been done within HPCH to improve services.

Coming up ..

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 04:02:00 PDT

A variety of meetings coming up this week, starting off with tonight’s (22/9) full council meeting which will consider a motion from the Conservatives on how wonderful everything is with the alliance, along with appointing the new deputy mayor. The meeting will also consider a lengthy confidential report around the joint senior management restructure that has taken place over the summer.

Wednesday (23/9) evening sees this month’s meeting of the High Peak Community Housing Board, amongst the items for consideration are reports on the role of tenant inspectors and short notice inspections, the recent Xpress yourself tour, and a range of other updates.

Next Monday (28/9)sees a meeting of the social inclusion select committee, which will consider a range of reports including items on the recent changes to policing of community events, home options and local democracy week.

The Tuesday (30/9) sees a meeting of the Environment select committee, which will see reports on the performance of Veolia (the current bin and recycling contractor) prescribed processes, and updates on enforcement.

Waste and recycling sub committee

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 03:14:00 PDT

Last Thursday also saw the inaugural meeting of the waste and recycling subcommittee.

The committee will be looking to help develop the council’s waste strategy for the period up to 2015, in addition the committee will also be having a partial review of how well the current system of boxes and bins is working and I would welcome any comments on this.

In particular one of the things that it will be useful to see is how many people may have been put off using any of the recycling options that are available either because of previous problems with the set-up or problems that are occurring now.

Some of the things that the strategy will consider will be around how waste and recycling will be collected in the future, and whether some of the current methods such as the plastic bottle bring sites is the best way of doing it.

All in all it should be an interesting subcommittee with the options to look both at how well (or otherwise) things are been done now, and how things will be done in the future.

Audit and regulatory

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 03:00:00 PDT

Last Thursday evening saw a meeting of the audit and regulatory committee amongst the items considered were the annual governance report from the audit commission, along with reports on international financial reporting standards, freedom of information, annual internal audit report and risk management.

As I have done previously I expressed my concerns to the audit commission on the problems of accurate monitoring of progress in some areas of the council’s work that is monitored by the audit commission due to their continual changing of the audit commission’s standards. However this year I was assured that the standards at least for next year, should remain the same as was used this year, hopefully giving us the chance to monitor progress or otherwise.

On data protection it was good to hear that hear that the council had had no data protection issues or loses of any sort, but on freedom of information it was intriguing to hear that the 178 freedom of information requests so far received this year, along with those received previously, now means that work on the freedom of information act is meaning that around 1 day a week is been spent by a member of staff in the democratic services section dealing with these enquiries, in addition to whatever time is taken up by the various services on the council in responding to these enquiries.

A late report in terms that a further heavily amended version was emailed round to members of the committee the night before saw me along with other members of the committee objecting to even considering the report on the council’s joint delegation scheme, because whilst it may be essentially the same as the existing scheme which essentially gives officers the permission to carry out various duties on behalf of the council, we can’t be considering reports on good management and that we have considered all issues on a report when you’ve only received it the night before – especially as the report is over 30 pages long.

In the end a comprise was achieved and the report was deferred to an extra meeting of the committee to take place before the full council meeting.

Police Consultation

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 02:23:00 PDT

As noted earlier this past weekend the local police have been busy completing surveys on local people’s views on crime and disorder issues.

For the two sessions that took place on the estate they seemed to be a steady flow of locals who were nabbed for the questionnaire, and I understand from talking to the beat team members doing the survey that there time in Glossop was as busy with local willing to go through the survey.

In terms of the Gamesley results they will help reflect the work of the forthcoming ‘beat sweep’ which will take place in October. If you’ve not heard of a beat sweep before, it’s essentially the same process as what we carried out in Hadfield last year.

Essentially the police look to concentrate along with other agencies such as the council, housing etc in one particular area for a week or so, to address problems that locals have raised mainly of a crime and disorder nature, but also other issues that affect quality of life, such as street cleaning, graffiti etc.

Further details will be posted on the range of events that will take place during the beat sweep shortly, but if you would like to add your views into to last weekend’s survey please contact the beat team either via the HPCH office on Winster Mews or by phone on 0345 113 3333

Tourist Information

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 01:41:00 PDT

Last Friday saw the Heritage Centre and Tourist Information Centre in Glossop close their doors for the last time at their Henry Street base.

I think overall this is a shame, and that the council response whilst welcome in terms of looking at a review of ‘visitor services’ across Glossopdale dose appear to be slightly tardy coming as done after the existing premises have shut down.

Now whilst I think there may have been a lack of clarity about when, why and what was happening overall which may have prevented such a review for taking place earlier I do hope the review will take place as quickly as possible so that options can be considered as soon as possible, I also think that it would be a worthwhile topic for consideration at the next area forum due to take place in October.

In terms of my own view, whilst the ‘interim’ measure of having leaflet’s in the Town Hall is welcome, at least until the review is complete urgent attention should be given to making sure leaflets are available elsewhere such as somewhere within the Market, because a time when many visitors tend to come is weekend, when the Town hall is shut, making it a fairly useless interim solution.

When the review dose come, for my own money I think greater consideration should be given to looking at the unit on Glossop Rail Station that has in the past been a shop and taxi office, but would surely make a perfect place at least for tourist information services.