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| Parish Council consider plans for new offices and take advice from London Office |
I would like to see if the Citizen of the year award is truly a peoples award or is it just a pat on the back for the great and the good in the community, by the great and good in the community for the great and good in the community.
SO PLEASE SEND AN EMAIL TO THE PARISH CLERK NOMINATING ME FOR THE AWARD
lets see if I win....lol I will not hold my breath....ho ho ho
Ah the winter newsletter arrives on the doorstep, and just for once it does not have a veiled or direct attack on democracy in the form of slagging off anyone who does not agree with them, so sherries all round, mince pies and a happy xmas to all....but to drown their collective sorrows they decided to vote to give themselves a slap up meal at the Swan at Stafford as a consolation prize. I would have thought a donation to "House of Bread" this Christmas would have been more appropriate but that why they put up the precept by 125%.......so what next
Ah Yes
The new website.............. Sorry but I can't see what the difference is? apart from it looking different, it is still not up to date, its still not accountable or transparent or accessible.
Oh it does cost double the amount of the last one, or so I am led to believe
Oh yes and if I am right it is being done by a firm in Exeter Devon, whereas businesses in Staffordshire would have done it at half the cost and probably done it better. This new website was supposed to be an opportunity to improve communications with the public. They even set up a new committee to oversee communications. This site has all the imagination of a "dead donkey" apart I may say for the inclusion of the excellent photos from Dawn Lockett.
The Home Page just a bit of text with links to other parts of the website, the photos are bog standard stock photos and say nothing about the actual council, this page has LESS information on it than the previous site.
Council Information - Nothing new
Meetings and Minutes - Nothing new
Community Information - Nothing New
Members Area !!!!! great something NEW.......sadly only the great and the good have access...
The rest is just a hash of EXACTLY THE SAME INFORMATION that was on the old website. Not much of a launch for the community to see a step up in communication to match the 125% increase in precept this year. Yes they have spend a large wad of cash but for what purpose, NOTHING IS DIFFERENT its a joke, please tell me this is a Joke!
Oh well I am sure they enjoyed their slap up meal
Now we are told that the parish council will be employing directly two part time "lengths men" to do the odd jobs in the villages rather than using local businesses. This to me looks like empire building, instead of tax payers cash going on facilitating improvements in the community it will all be sucked up by wages. Remember earlier this year a 1% increase in wages led to a massive increase in wages cost? this is the last thing we need more increases in the cost of running the council in pensions and benefits and with the way they run things in general the cost of tribunals when things go horribly wrong.
Then we are told that despite a 125% increase last year in the precept they will be increasing the precept this year ANOTHER 1.9%. Now I really dont understand this at all. Next year the council will have access to hundreds of new homes in the villages who all will pay extra money in the pot for the precept at the NEW HIGHER RATE. Other councils in this situation have actually cut their local tax by around 11% to take into account the growth in the villages. Remember 2% on top of the increased 125% is massively more of a cash rise than it would have been without the tax rises this year. That's why they have put it in % terms as it will now be a large lump of cash to increase next year, I will ask them to give out the cash amount for you to see in the new year. Remember this is YOUR cash coming out of YOUR purse and wallet, you have been given no say, no consultation, and no justification has been given.
Fracking - at last its on the agenda just like the hedge at mill lane in 8 years time a formal policy might be in place but only after the whole village is surrounded by wells and the water under Essex bridge is poisoned will they do anything about it. I asked the County Council via our County Councillor Len "Useless" Bloomer, who said there are no "Fracking" sites in Staffordshire. He was right, however there are 3 "deep coalbed methane extraction" sites, one just up the road from us in Stafford at Bramwell.
HS2 - this is a laugh, the HS2 denier in chief Adam Billingsley the vice chair, has had a meeting with HS2....lol anyone can have a meeting with HS2 I have had a dozen or so. This was back in OCTOBER things have moved on!! this figleaf of representation is just that, just to say if anyone asks that they have done something. Nothing of substance was discussed, nothing of substance came from the meeting.
We are constantly told how busy the Parish Council are, lets see shall we, I have been looking through the mins of the meetings for the myriad of committees that sat this year.
1. The allotment committee last sat in January......
2. The Burial Ground Committee last sat in February.....
3. The Leisure and Environment Committee last sat in June.....
4. The Policy Committee last sat in March.....
5. The Young People Committee last sat in June.......
6. The Newsletter Committee last sat in June.......
7. The Planning Committee last sat in November but before that in June.....
8. The full council meets one a month for a couple of hours at the time of publishing this the December final mins have still not been posted 2 weeks after the meeting was held.
Now I may be missing something here, but why then is it that it costs so much to run? and why does it take so long to do stuff???
Many of these committees only sit once a year twice at most
Remember we have 2 clerks one full time and one part time, yet they cant publish a set of mins for a meeting until just days before the next one, what are they doing all day? your guess is as good as mine.
Now I am compiling a list of all the things the Parish Council "Resolved to do" in 2016 and so far have not completed.......I promise you its a long list. I want to keep it ongoing and current to keep and eye on exactly how long it takes to get some basic simple things done. Productivity is a big issue within the Parish Council, this is the fault of the Management of the council not individual councillors. 2017 needs to be the year this is sorted out.
