What do they say about the Cover-Up being worse than the "crime"?

There's an old saying that the Cover Up is worse than the "crime".  

My colleague, Ian Davis has highlighted a link between Lord Derby's Estate and Savills, a leading and large property agent.  This is especially in relation to the council's plans to establish a Development Company to build houses and the current Local Plan Review.

So concerned is Ian, that he has written to the council's Chief Executive over the matter.

I doubt, those concerns will have been allayed by the sudden change today (8th January) to the LinkedIn profile of Simon Waller, Estates Director at Lord Derby's Estates.  

Having had the connection between his employment at Savills and Lord Derby's Estate publicly commented upon by a councillor and with two local websites carrying the same story just today, Simon Waller has suddenly altered his LinkedIn page to remove all reference to employment by Savills.

Is he still employed by Savills?  We don't know.  Was he previously employed by Savills?  One assumes he must have been from his LinkedIn entry until today.  What is interesting is that he feels so embarrassed by the connection that he should feel the need to completely remove all reference to employment by Savills from his profile.  Why would he want to do that?

Here's a screenshot of the LinkedIn profile he doesn't want you to see, which was current until sometime earlier today (8th January).  

 

No way to run a public authority

The last full Council meeting took place on 18 July 2018 - 42 days or 6 weeks ago and yet no minutes of the council meeting have been published to date.  I cannot recall such a long delay in the past.

In fact, for cabinet meetings, the council must publish minutes within 3 days.  It's a pity it's not more efficient with the minutes of full council.

This is no way to run a public authority.  It might be seen as a tedious administrative detail, but minutes perform important functions in an efficient organisation:

1. Meeting minutes offer legal protection and clarity

2. Meeting minutes provide structure

They describe how Council members arrived at reasonable decisions. They record who attended and who was absent along with declarations of interest. 

3. Meeting minutes drive action

Good meeting minutes help drive a plan of action for the Council's senior officers. They clarify how, when, why, and by whom decisions were made. They map out a plan for the action items (which helps get the work done) and they later provide valuable information to those who aren’t able to attend the meeting.

4. Meeting minutes act as a measuring stick

Minutes record meeting decisions, which makes them a useful review document when it comes time to measure progress. They also act as an accountability tool because they make it clear who’s duty it was to perform which action. 

The delay in publication of the minutes is symptomatic of a council that is not firing on all cylinders.

Two-Timing Councillor seeks new "nice little earner"

My views on Councillor Paul Moon – the councillor who remains a Borough councillor in both West Lancashire and Wyre are well-known (see here and here), but now he is seeking to boost his allowances still further by becoming Chairman of the Planning Committee on Wyre council while simultaneously trying to represent his residents in Hesketh Bank, West Lancashire where he two-times as a councillor. 

 

In January I focussed on his poor attendance record .  Cllr Moon seems impervious to calls for him to mend his ways but perhaps emails from local residents in West Lancashire and Wyre might cause a rethink.

The meeting to decide who will become Planning Committee Chairman at Wyre Council is this Wednesday 10th May, so if you share concerns about Cllr Moon then don't delay write now to:

West Lancashire Conservative Group Leader, Cllr David Westley (if you are a West Lancashire resident) Cllr.Westley@westlancs.gov.uk 

Wyre Conservative Group Leader, Cllr David Henderson (if you are a Wyre resident) David.Henderson@wyre.gov.uk

Please copy us into your email and share any reply with us.  Our email is office@ourwestlancashire.com

You might also wish to write to the letters page of the local paper and to your local councillor asking for their comments on the matter.

"American politicians do anything for money...English politicians take the money and won't do anything."  Stephen Leacock

A Question of Truth

Who is telling the truth?  Is it the Lancashire County Council Highways Portfolio holder or is it the Leader of the Conservative Borough Council Group?

The current Conservative election leaflet in Ormskirk under the by-line of Cllr David Westley says: “The Conservatives are back in control of Lancashire.  They have … re-instated the plan for the Ormskirk by-pass”

Imagine my surprise (or perhaps not given my experience of the local Conservative Borough Group Leader) to learn yesterday from County Councillor Keith Iddon, the Highways Portfolio Holder that “I can confirm that the Ormskirk Bypass is not part of the county council’s plans for managing the transport network in West Lancashire”.

You can read the documents here and form your own judgment.

Conservative leaflet 19th April

Letter from the County Councillor Iddon, Highways Portfolio Holder, 23rd April 

The saga of the long delayed cycle route from the town centre to Edge Hill

As a result of development at Edge Hill, Edge Hill had to provide monies (known technically as Section 106 monies) to mitigate the impacts of development that could not be mitigated through conditions on the development itself.

One of these is the impact on roads of travel to and from the University and so monies sit in the Borough Council's bank to provide a cycle route between the stations in Ormskirk Town centre and the University.


The County Council (I get a sinking feeling now simply typing those words) is responsible for coming up with a scheme to spend this money.  Their West Lancashire Transport Masterplan promised the cycle route would be complete by March 2017.

Throughout the period 2015-2017, County Council Officers responsible for this scheme came and went, portfolio holders changed and I and Borough Council officers became increasingly frustrated and yet nothing progressed.

The County Council came up with a scheme that was eleaborate and hundreds of thousands of pounds greater than the budget available and so was shelved. 

Therefore, last year, working with one dedicated local resident from Ruff Lane, we drew up an alternative, fully-costed scheme which was checked by Quantity Surveyors from a large Civil Engineering company.  This would not only have provided a safe route from the bus/rail stations to Edge Hill, but also have provided quality speed calming measures on Ruff Lane. 

That speed calming is important.  What student or other cyclist is going to take their lives in their hands by using two wheeled transport with the speeds witnessed on our roads?  The 20 mph signs are simply not sufficient.

The scheme we costed came well within the amount of monies provided by Edge Hill, yet the County Council rejected it without much consideration because it utilised Knowsley Road which was deemed "too narrow".  Given that Knowsley Road is part of the A570 arterial road and no detailed rationale for this statement about it being "too narrow" being given, I remain of the view that this route should be seriously considered.

In the meantime we have money sat in the bank; a scheme that is already two years late; no plan in place; no speed calming on Ruff Lane; nor the improved facilities for students and others to cycle.  When local residents and councillors take the time and trouble they have, then the County Council needs to adopt a more cooperative and energetic approach.  Then perhaps Ormskirk might see at least ONE transport improvement.

Vote for Labour councillors in West Lancashire this May and the Party HQ in London looks likely to pull their strings

It’s not often that a couple of councillors resigning should cause much comment, but when two Labour council leaders resign within the space of two weeks citing bullying and racist abuse, then we should take notice.

Now I know very little about internal Labour politics, so I’ll simply quote directly what these two Labour Council Leaders said on resigning.

First, Claire Kober, led Haringey Council in London for 10 years and was Labour’s most senior woman in Local Government.  She resigned after Labour’s National Executive Committee (NEC) intervened with a clear message that a major Regeneration Programme agreed by the local council should be re-thought.  She went on to say that she wasn't consulted over the NEC's ruling which she says was handled "very badly".

Worrying she then added, "The sexism, bullying, undemocratic behaviour, and outright personal attacks on me, as the most senior woman in Labour local government, has left me disappointed and disillusioned."

Ms Kober said she "didn't want to go over details" of her claims, but added she was "in no doubt that the behaviour and actions of certain individuals at certain times met the test of both sexism and bullying and politically intimidating behaviour".  She is resigning as a councillor as well.

The decision of the Labour NEC to intervene in Haringey has been publically criticised by 15 other Labour London council leaders.

Then today, it became clearer why the Labour Leader of Harlow Council, Jon Clempner, resigned as both Council Leader and councillor a couple of weeks ago.  He said:

“There has been a lot of speculation about why I resigned as Leader of Harlow Council, as a Councillor, and subsequently as a member of the Labour Party… 

Those who follow my personal social media will know I did not react well to an active campaign against my leadership by a local Momentum organiser (which this individual denies, despite several independent witnesses), being called a neo-Nazi by some Corbyn t-shirt wearing person outside the Labour Party Conference, and events at a national level targeting Labour Councillors and Labour Councils that do not conform to the particular form of ideological purity that seems to have taken a grip of the party, and that will shortly culminate in the output of a party ‘democracy review’ to make Councillors more accountable to a small group of party members (and less to the actual electorate presumably). Councillors, unless formally endorsed by the privately owned company Momentum, seem to have replaced the Parliamentary Labour Party as the focus of the hard left’s ire…

He went on: “the Labour Party was becoming a deeply unpleasant place, I resigned from the Labour Party shortly after”.

What appears to be happening in Labour is that the national party is telling local councillors elected on local manifestos what they can and cannot do.  It’s a one size fits all approach and a direct threat to the general view of local democracy that local councillors should be free to respond to the needs and requirements of their area and residents.

If this trend continues, then local residents in West Lancashire can have no confidence that if they vote for a Labour councillor in May that that person won’t simply have to march, not to the local party whip, which might be bad enough but to a centrally imposed agenda set 200 miles away in London by people who weren’t even in the Labour party 3 years ago.

Part-Time Councillor shouldn’t claim full allowances

My views on Councillor Paul Moon – the councillor who remains a Borough councillor in both West Lancashire and Wyre are well-known (see here and here), but given his recent performance, I am raising another concern.  

His attendance record at West Lancashire is only 33% over the past 6 months (15 July 2017-15 January 2018) having missed 4 out of 6 meetings in West Lancashire.

In July, when he missed the full council meeting in Ormskirk one of his colleagues informed me that he was on holiday.  Fair enough perhaps, we all deserve a holiday.  However, there are only 6 or 7 full council meetings each year – the most important meetings of the council and the dates are known many months in advance.  Councillors are summoned to Full Council Meetings, not invited, and holidays can easily be fitted around this duty.

On 28^th September, he was absent again, this time from the council’s Overview and Scrutiny Committee.  This time the reason was that, not for the first time, he once again had a diary clash with a Wyre council meeting.  He must have felt that Wyre took precedence and attended the meeting of the council there that evening.  I’ve seen no explanation from Cllr Moon to his electors in Hesketh Bank as to why their interests played second fiddle to his electors north of the Ribble.

Quite evidently, Cllr Moon is not able to adequately fulfil his duties to both of his electorates.  His attendance continues to be among the worst on West Lancashire Borough council. 

Last year he took his full councillor allowances from both councils.  If he won’t do the decent thing and resign from one of these councillor positions, he should at least take a pay cut and take only a half allowance from each.  I’m not holding my breath. 

"American politicians do anything for money...English politicians take the money and won't do anything."  Stephen Leacock