Nicely timed!

My understanding is that there is good news on the way today for certain schools in Darlington, courtesy of Schools Secretary Ed Balls who is dishing out £1bn to a few councils around the country to enable the rebuilding of run-down secondary schools.

The announcement is nicely timed for Jenny Chapman, cabinet portfolio holder for children's services, just before she faces the local Labour Party at their parliamentary candidate hustings on December 5th.

Labour tries to stifle democratic debate (2)

During the "debate" on the abolition of three discussion forums at last week's Council Meeting, the Labour leadership, supported by the Borough Solicitor, tried to stifle open debate in the Council Chamber. Rather than have debates on each and any amendment moved by members, the Borough Solicitor likes to get amendments moved straightaway after the mover of the original motion has spoken and to conduct just one debate covering both the motion and amendment. This means each councillor only gets one chance to speak in each debate, apart from the mover of the original motion, who gets two speeches. However, there is no constitutional requirement for amendments to be moved at the start of the debate.

That cunning plan didn't quite work last week, however, because the Mayor hadn't been properly briefed. After Labour had moved the motion to abolish these forums, the Mayor called Lib Dem Councillor Fred Lawton as the first speaker. Fred made his usual thoughtful, measured contribution. Then Gill Cartwright was called and instructed to move her amendment, which effectively ended debate on the original motion.

During the debate on the amendment, Fred Lawton, quite correctly, stood to speak. Immediately the Leader of the Council leapt to his feet, bellowing "Point of Order" because Fred had already spoken once. At first he was supported by the Borough Solicitor, who actually seemed to take over chairing the meeting from the mayor, as she instructed Cllr Lawton to "Sit down then!"

Fred, who, as a long standing trade unionist is thoroughly versed in the nuances of Lord Citrine's ABC of Chairmanship and correctly stood his ground, insisted on his right to be heard. He was, of course, perfectly correct. His original speech was before Gill's amendment was moved, so he was absolutely entitled to speak on the amendment too. Eventually the Borough Solicitor had to give way and Fred was allowed to speak.

The lesson for the future, if we want councillors to have more than one chance to speak, is to refuse to move any amendments until the end of the debate on the original motion, before the summing up by the mover of the motion. That way, everyone gets the chance to speak more than once. Not "streamlined and efficient" as Labour politicians like, but much more open and democratic.

Labour tries to stifle democratic debate (1)

The Labour Party in Darlington, shamefully, pushed through their proposal at last week's Council Meeting to abolish three consultative forums. As Cllr Dot Long said in support of their proposal, this is about making the consultative process streamlined and efficient. As I said in the Council Chamber, since when have efficiency and streamlining been part of the definition of democracy? Streamlining and efficiency appeal to bureaucrats and Labour politicians, of course.

As the discussion paper said, "Some members of the public regularly attend (forum) meetings mainly to pursue their own personal issues." Well, there you are then, we can't have ordinary members of the public expressing views the Labour Party disagree with, can we?

Feisty Conservative Councillor Gill Cartwright moved an amendment to refer the abolition of these forums to public consultation. Her party leadership called for a named vote on the amendment: the first one since I was elected. There was a complete split along party lines, with all Lib Dem and Tory councillors voting for the amendment. Inevitably, the vote was lost and a long-standing part of the democratic process in Darlington was consigned to history.

Labour tell us that many of the functions of these forums are carried out by the theme groups on the Darlington Partnership, so they are no longer needed. But the membership of these theme groups is selected by the Labour leadership: need I say more?

Unfortunately, Labour have become so entrenched as the party of government in Darlington that they believe only their views count.

Good news for Leyburn Road

Ever since I was elected we have been lobbying the Highways Department for effective action to be taken to solve the problem of rat-running and frequent congestion down Leyburn Road in North Road ward by drivers trying to shave a few seconds off their journey time down North Road. The situation was improved but not resolved by altering the timing on the traffic lights at the junction of North Road and Thompson Street East.

This morning Fred and I had an excellent meeting with Andy Casey, a young Highways Engineer who, having been with the Council for just a year, has not yet been infected with the "Ward Councillors shall be the last to know" virus.

His proposed solution, to which I suggested one amendment, should, we believe, solve this problem by encouraging traffic to use the uninhabited Fitzwilliam Drive instead of Leyburn Road. Until Cllr Lyonette signs the plans off, they cannot go to public consultation but we hope this will be done soon and that, if approved, work can be completed by next summer.

My suggestion was for a further slight remodelling of the junction of Fitzwilliam and Leyburn to help reduce the problems experienced in the south part of Leyburn Road where cars frequently and illegally turn left from Fitzwilliam Drive.

Residents of Leyburn and Pendleton Roads will be fully consulted and have the opportunity to comment on the plans.

Ray of light in bad tempered Council meeting

Last night's Full Council Meeting was the most bad-tempered I can remember, though more about this later. The one ray of sunshine was Cllr Nick Wallis announcing, two months after he had rejected my call for the Council to sign up to the 10:10 climate change agreement, that he had in fact just signed the Council up to 10:10.

This was a remarkable about-face and Nick is to be congratulated for admitting that he had changed his mind in the intervening period, though maybe the threat of the Lib Dems bringing our own motion committing the Council to 10:10 had something to do with it.

I did, of course, welcome his action and expressed the hope that he would follow my lead in other matters over the coming months.

Darlington Credit Union Launched

Last night was the launch party for the Darlington Credit Union, painstakingly pieced together over two and a half years by merging together the four existing credit unions in the town. Much of the credit for this must go to my friend Cllr Alan Coultas who chaired the steering group. The Credit Union is now large enough to employ a full-time salaried co-ordinator, another good friend of mine, Tony Brockley.

A fair smattering of the great and good of Darlington were there, including the Chief Executive of Darlington Borough Council, Ada Burns, and the High Sheriff of Durham, Alasdair MacConachie. Both made nice short speeches, while Alasdair also handed out a number of certificates to volunteers from the four unions, in recognition of their years of service.

Inevitably the hot favourite (you'll know why if you've seen the final short list of unknowns up against her) for the Labour Party nomination to be their Parliamentary Candidate, Cllr Jenny Chapman, was there briefly, speaking on behalf of the Leader of the Council.

Maybe you're wondering where the photo comes into this. Well, after the formalities and presentations, three actors from Newcastle presented an interactive play, recounting the lives of two people who had run into debt, giving the audience the opportunity to intervene in an attempt to alter the course of events as the play went on. It was good fun and the audience entered into the swing of it.

Credit Unions are very much more widespread in countries like Ireland and the USA. We certainly need this new venture in Darlington, to provide people, particularly those suffering from financial exclusion, with access to low cost financial services and to help them avoid the clutches of loan sharks.

Successful AGM tops successful year

Last night Darlington and Sedgefield Liberal Democrats held their AGM at Darlington Cricket Club. We had an excellent turnout in the driving rain, everyone was in very good spirits and the cricket club bar had a good evening.

During this year we have had the fastest growing membership of any Lib Dem local party in the region with a one-third increase since last year's AGM. This is due partly to our relentless Focus delivering to parts of Darlington hitherto untouched by grassroots Liberalism and partly to our work in Newton Aycliffe finally showing results since we assumed responsibility for the Sedgefield constituency a couple of years ago.

We also elected a new Chairman last night: Councillor Malcolm Dunstone brings his cheerful personality to the position. I expect a renewed emphasis on embracing and involving our members and a continued drive to increase both our membership figures and the number of local government candidates in the run up to 2011.

A number of new members were elected to our Executive and as Regional Conference Reps, though, apart from Malcolm assuming the chair, our other officer positions remain unchanged, as you will be able to see on our website later today.

Cllr Bill Dixon: suitable for purpose?

Darlington seems to be on the BBC every day at the moment. This morning it was the news that Chambers night club are to slash the price of all drinks to 69p every Thursday. Both Bill Dixon, the Cabinet member for neighbourhood services and community safety, and Colin Shevills, director of Balance, have condemned this promotion: and quite right too! The night club's advertising says, "Are you Broke? All drinks only 69p".

Of course, I have to be careful here. The last time I criticised a drinks promotion some jumped-up Labour councillor accused me of using the Council Chamber to advertise the nightclub in question, bless him! And the time before that, half the supporters of Darlington Football Club turned on me for criticising their club's happy hour policy.

As the BBC said this morning, and as Colin Shevills confirms, Darlington has the highest level of under-18s in the whole country admitted to hospital for alcohol-related reasons. This sort of promotion, aimed specifically at students, will do nothing to help improve that sad statistic.

Bill Dixon, however, has his own analysis of the situation. Just as he says people who are worried about anti-social behaviour in the town have been watching The Bill too much, so now he says we're no worse than anywhere else for alcohol-related hospital admissions, it's just that we have more accurate figures on who is admitted to hospital and for what!!!

This is just plain nonsense. All data relating to alcohol-related hospital admissions is routinely collected across the country. There's even a National Indicator for it. Take a look here, Bill:

http://www.nwph.net/alcohol/lape/pctProfile.aspx?reg=q30

Or you could take a look at page 7 in this report:

http://www.darlingtonpct.nhs.uk/Bdocuments/uploaded/Item20-AlcoholMay09.pdf

Sadly, Cllr Dixon's comments about the causes of the fear of anti-social behaviour and his dismissal of official figures for alcohol consumption in the town make him no longer suitable to be charge of the Council's policies on these important matters.

300 or 30?

Last week, Fearless Francis Jones told the Northern Echo that he already had 300 people from Skerne Park signed up and paying £3.50 each a week for the services of his private police force. Yet today we learn that, despite the huge national and local media coverage given to Sparta Security, the true figure is just 30!

Indeed, Fearless has raised the possibility that he might withdraw the service unless at least 70 people sign up. So, far from being the public service he's presenting it as, in fact it's just a money-making exercise which will be withdrawn if it doesn't turn a profit.

He continues to sow fear by suggesting in the Echo today that Sir Ian Blair himself would sign up if he moved to Skerne Park and was burgled and had his back door kicked in. Well, frankly, Francis, I don't see how your service, "patrolling the neighbourhood, driving around at 3mph, looking out", is going to stop any burglaries. Unless the local villains tend to stroll around in masks wearing stripy jumpers with a bag of swag over their shoulders, that is.

Lib Dems in Newcastle show how it should be done

This is how you deal with neighbourhood crime problems - not by paying for a private police force.