Sunday 21 October 2007

SatWav - the new political term you heard here first

A NEW political term is being introduced to the language by this blog today – it is SatWav.
It stands for Say Anything To Win A Vote.
The device has been developed by the Liberal Democrat Party, especially by their members in Taunton Deane, who used it when campaigning in this year’s local elections, resulting in them winning one more seat than the Conservatives on the Deane council.
Although perhaps not obvious to a lot of people at the time, it is now becoming noticed by anybody who drives on our roads.
Because, just six months after the Lib Dems formed their administration to run the council, they are already proposing to put up car parking charges in the Deane.
It a move of breathtaking hypocrisy, the Lib Dems have announced not just an increase in charges – but a staggering 20 per cent hike for many car park users.
In addition, they are ratcheting up the cost of parking permits by almost 11 per cent in some cases.
As recently as May, when the Lib Dems were electioneering, they were complaining that car park charges were already too high and were attacking Conservatives for previous increases.
To me, the Lib Dems’ car parking policy is a tax on people living on the Blackdown Hills who have little choice but to use their cars to travel into town for their shopping and services.
Taunton Deane Conservative Parliamentary candidate, Mark Formosa, told me: “The Lib Dems were elected on the manifesto of lower car park charges but now they are putting them up by 20 per cent.
“The way the Lib Dems have deceived the voting public over car parking charges is to be condemned.
“Even the smallest increase they have put forward in Taunton is still twice the rate of inflation.
“This is a slap in the face for the people who voted Lib Dem and shows the party’s disregard for the public they should be serving.
“Hypocrisy is probably the most polite way I can describe the Lib Dems’ disrespect of the voting public.
“They say one thing during an election and then do completely the opposite when in power in the hope people will have forgotten about it when the next election comes.”

Thursday 19 July 2007

ISiS vote - an historic occasion for the wrong reasons

LAST night, I attended a specially-convened meeting of the full Deane council which I believe in time to come will be seen as an historic moment.
We were being asked formally to support the council signing up to the ISiS project – Improving Services in Somerset.
I spoke against it, and I voted against it.
I was the only councillor to do so, although one of my Conservative colleagues also voiced some concerns as well.
Needless to say, the vote was carried overwhelmingly and the Deane council is now on course to enter a partnership with the global IT giant IBM and with Somerset County Council as a third member of the deal.
It means the councils will pay IBM something like £400 million over the next 10 years to run a number of services better than we do at present.
Of course, by running the services better, IBM will be able to run them more cheaply, and will generate millions of pounds in savings which we councillors can then use to provide even better services to you, the public.
So, the public will benefit twice over. Once, because IBM will be coming up with all sorts of brilliant new ideas for giving people what they want where they want it and when they want it; twice, because it will cost less than it does now and will mean council tax does not need to keep going up like there’s no tomorrow.
Hundreds of staff from both councils will transfer to the private sector to work for IBM.
Their jobs and terms of employment will be guaranteed for 10 years, so they say.
You may well ask, then, why was I so stupid as to vote against it.
Well … all of the above is theory.
I’ve lost count over the past 30 years of the number of stories I’ve read, or even written myself as a journalist, about local authorities entering groundbreaking new partnerships which will revolutionise services for ratepayers and save money.
Those which have actually succeeded can probably be counted on the fingers of one hand.
I do not believe for a moment that IBM will deliver what they promise. I also do not believe for a moment that the Deane council will actually be able to hold them to their promises.
I would be surprised if we don’t see the departure of a lot of the staff who have moved over, as despite what may be promised, working for profit-driven private enterprise is far different than the world of public service.
To me, it appears more of a grandiose, empire building exercise designed to improve the job lot of senior officers who are most involved.
As a fairly new councillor, I’ve come to this at the eleventh hour, after political party leaders on all sides have swallowed the IBM line hook, rod, and sinker, and committed themselves to the deal.
They have been looking at it for something like two years already, so they ought to know a lot more about it than I do.
I do not profess to properly understand the business case behind the deal – we’ve hardly been told a lot about it, and what we have been told is by way of bombastic presentations where figures in the tens of millions of pounds are bandied around and anybody who queries anything is simply told: ‘Don’t worry, we’ll get it right on the night.”
Alarm bells started ringing for me when a presentation was entitled “Improving the social and economic well-being of Taunton Deane, Somerset, and the South West.”
I asked why the South West, why not the UK? The question was taken seriously and they started to explain that we should first concentrate on the area we knew best …
I am told about 30 other local authorities and public bodies of different sorts around the South West are keeping a watching brief on ISiS and could sign up to it later on to share in the glory and the savings.
Well, I am just a poor councillor elected by the good folk of the Blackdown Hills to make sure that their black bin bags are collected on time and that planning applications are processed properly, and that sort of thing.
They did not elect me to start running schools in Cornwall or libraries in Gloucestershire.
Yes, I believe history was made last night. But I think in 10 years’ time we will be looking back and seeing that it was for the wrong reasons.

Thursday 21 June 2007

Standing up for those who need affordable housing

I DO not know whether many people will recall the three key pledges given by us Conservatives during the Deane council election campaign, even though it is still only a few weeks since going to the polls.
One of the pledges was to ‘build more affordable homes to meet the increasing need’.
Unfortunately, of course, we as a party have not been able to form the administration of the council and that role now rests with the Liberal Democrats.
I am, however, a member of the council’s housing review panel and in that capacity I have taken a keen interest in the subject of affordable housing and I recently publicly challenged the Housing Corporation when they tried to present a false picture of affairs in Taunton Deane at a meeting chaired by a Lib Dem councillor (I am not blaming the chairman, he happens to be a friend of mine and I know he is genuine in his desire to do his best for people in need).
I have also attended an affordable housing open day held in the Deane House, where hundreds and hundreds of local people in real need of a home of their own came along (the photograph is of me at the event).
The place was buzzing with interest and our housing enabling manager Lesley Webb and her staff did a brilliant job in organising it.
There was every housing association present that you could think of, and some which I would never have thought of, plus many of the support services which operate locally, such as banks, building societies, solicitors, and estate agents.
The occasion was seen as important enough for the Mayor, Councillor Ken Hayward, to officially open it.
Even the Lib Dem’s housing portfolio holder, Councillor Hazel Prior-Sankey, attended for a while.
It illustrated just how much demand there is for housing to be provided at prices and rents which local people can afford to pay in these days of spiralling property prices and static wages, where people often face having to borrow 10 times their annual salary for a mortgage, which, of course, they cannot do.
How terribly disappointing, therefore, that Mrs Prior-Sankey’s Lib Dem leader, Councillor Ross Henley, is already trying to stop some affordable housing being built nearby in Wellington.
These are desperately-needed homes for local people which were promised by the Conservatives to meet local demand, and which were on the point of being delivered with, I believe, the necessary land having already been transferred to the housing association which was to build them.
But then, along comes Councillor Henley looking to win a few personal votes from people in his Deane ward who, human nature being what it is, do not want houses built next door to them.
Councillor Henley, who, of course covers the Blackdown ward in his role as a county councillor, wants to cancel the development and is doing his best to persuade the Deane’s officers to find a way of doing so.
What a pity, therefore, that I did not see him at the affordable housing open day, when he could have talked to the nearly-500 people who attended in search of homes for themselves or their children.
On offer during the day in various locations in the Deane were 24 shared ownership apartments - for which more than 75 people applied on the day; 36 low cost outright purchase homes being sold at 40 per cent below market value - a discount which will remain in perpetuity - at £75,000 for a two-bedroom house and £99,000 for a three-bedroom house, where the developer was inundated with requests for applications to sign up in the hope of being able to step onto the housing ladder for the first time; and 10 shared ownership homes currently under construction; while details of many other homes in the pipeline were also available.
It was all designed to show local people that owning an affordable home could be just around the corner for them and was not out of their reach.
What a pity, therefore, that the Lib Dems are already dashing some of those hopes for them.
I have made a point of telling parish councillors since the elections in May that I want to work with Councillor Henley and anybody else, regardless of politics, to help improve the Blackdown communities and their environment.
I will not, though, allow Councillor Henley and his Lib Dem colleagues to get away without being challenged when they make disastrous decisions such as cancelling affordable housing projects for purely political reasons to win a few votes for themselves.

Monday 11 June 2007

George goes herding ducks down on the farm

NICK and Ruth Strange held a very successful open day at their Beech Hayes Farm yesterday, which allowed an opportunity for Julia and I to take our son George to see exactly where his bacon comes from.
Nick is Churchstanton's parish council chairman and Julia has been buying a meat box from the farm via the food co-operative which runs at the Rockwell Green Christian Centre.
So it was really interesting to have a look around and to show George the source of the meat he eats.
There was lots to see - and lots of other people went along as well, so I would guess Nick and Ruth must have been really pleased with the way it went.
George tried his hand at duck and geese herding - as you can see from the photo above - that is, until the geese started herding him instead!
We saw the Gloucester old spot pigs which they are well-known for, and the lambs, ducks, new-born chicks - some of which were hatching in front of George's eyes.
No, we didn't manage to do the quiz in full, despite cribbing one of the answers from another visitor.
I thought I knew my beech leaves from my ash leaves and so on, but when put to the test I failed miserably.
Ross Henley, our local county councillor, gave a nice speech to visitors about the importance of local produce and the need to support local producers.
Our only disappointment was not having more time to spend on the farm, as we were due to do a car boot sale in the afternoon as we continue to try to slim down the stack of bits and bobs in our attic.
As it turned out, the car boot sale did not do too well - or, at least, our bit of it didn't, as we only raised just about enough to put the Mazda through the car wash.

Monday 4 June 2007

From Gay Pride to hippies to Pitminster straw boater all in one day

IT was a day of contrasts on Saturday for myself and my wife Julia, as I attended the annual Pitminster and Angersleigh Playing Field Association fete.
While Julia was in Plymouth for the day helping one of our clients - they organise the South West's largest Gay Pride event - I started the day at the Sunrise Celebration festival over near Tintinhull, the organisers of which are also our clients.
Having spent a few hours surrounded by several thousand people from the travelling and festival-going communities, many of whom would be described as hippies, it was a quick change of clothing and a dash across to Blagdon Hill for the annual fete, complete with straw boater.
Yes, there are hippy-types on the Blackdown Hills as well, but the Sellicks Green playing field didn't have the organic loos or the yurts or the tipis or the windmill-powered generators or the horse-drawn transport of the Sunrise Celebration.
The only thing that all three events had in common was the sweltering heat and brilliant blue sky which prevailed all day.
The Blagdon fete was a brilliant event with just about everybody in the community near and far seeming to be there.
What impressed me most was learning afterwards that something like £5,000 was raised from the fete and will be used by the charity to help maintain the playing field for the benefit of everybody.
An amazing result for a small rural community, which demonstrates how there is such a strong sense of community spirit here.
It was good to see the plans on show for the proposed new community hall and I was pleased to able to introduce the committee chairman Duncan Meikle to our Conservative Parliamentary candidate Mark Formosa when he joined me at the fete.
We enjoyed seeing so many different stalls and events being held at the fete, with Mark showing a keen interest in the dog show because he is a dog owner - while I have two cats.
  • The images above show a group of Sunrise Celebration festival-goers taking part in a drumming session, and the Pitminster fete programme.

Thursday 24 May 2007

Voting no to unitary authority and trying to save our rural Post Offices

IT has taken a lot longer than I expected, but I now know on which panels I will be serving at Taunton Deane Borough Council.
I have been appointed to the Housing Review Panel, and to the Health and Leisure Panel.
At the same time, I have the right as a councillor to attend and speak at any other panel or committee which is held, and I am told that is often difficult to tell at meetings who is actually on a panel and who is not.
So, while it looks like the two areas of housing and health and leisure will be my specialist subjects, I will also be able to personally raise any other topic on behalf of the people in the Blackdown ward.
In addition, there are a lot of outside organisations to which the council appoints representatives and I do not yet know on which I will serve.
It is a little like being a phoney councillor at the moment, as I have the title – yes, it is official now the annual meeting has been held (although again I missed it due to work commitments).
However, I am on the case and have already attended the parish council meetings in Churchinford and Pitminster and introduced myself to the parish councillors.
I have also attended the launch of the Keep Somerset Local referendum campaign. You will be receiving a postal ballot during June in order to vote to say whether or not you think it a good idea for the county council to abolish Taunton Deane council and the other councils in Somerset and create one huge authority which will decide everything across the county.
I shall be voting ‘No’ in the referendum, not just because I want to hang on to my seat at Taunton Deane, but because I don’t want to see my council tax bills continue to go up just to fund the tens of millions of pounds it will cost to reorganise.
I also fail to see what Minehead has in common with Frome, or Wellington with Burnham-on-Sea, or Otterford with Dulverton when it comes to deciding planning applications, building affordable housing, etc etc.
You will hear the line from the county councillors that it won’t be like that because they will set up area panels to decide local issues. My response is that we already have an area panel – it is called Taunton Deane Borough Council.
I have also asked our area county councillor for an early meeting to discuss the traffic concerns in Blagdon Hill.
I put it to him that it was up to the county council on which he serves to actually do something about the speed of traffic and weight of heavy lorries using the road through the village, as they are the highways authority. He agreed.
I also put it to him that, given this is a situation which has existed for some years, I was mystified as to why the county council continually refused to do anything about it. He also was mystified – so if he as a county councillor doesn’t know what’s going on, what hope do we have?
I will keep banging my head against the county council wall on this one, and, as some people will testify, I have a thick head, so eventually we should see some cracks appearing – in the wall I hope.
I think some parish councillors may have been a little surprised at my approach to parish affairs.
Now the election is over, I believe we should all be working together regardless of politics in order to achieve what is best for the community, or at least what the community desires, and no, the two things are not always the same.
One area which is topical at the moment where elected representatives believe they know best is the subject of Post Offices.
The Government is telling us that we don’t need 2,500 of the Post Offices we currently have.
In Taunton Deane, that means closure looms in the next 18 months for probably six more Post Offices.
Communities will say they need their Post Offices and on this one I totally agree. It is not a question of how much it costs to keep a Post Office open, it is a question of how much a Post Office is valued in a community.
We only have two Post Offices in the ward at the moment and I will be visiting both of them shortly to discuss with the Postmasters what measures the borough council can take to support them.
It was a subject which came up on the doorstep while I was campaigning and my feeling is that we need to approach it in the same way as we approach farming, where we encourage diversification.
Don’t ask me what POs can diversify into, as I don’t have a definitive idea, although I have one or two small suggestions which may help.
I have been listening to Mark Formosa, who is the Taunton Deane Parliamentary candidate for the Conservatives, and he has a lot of good ideas on this subject and has been campaigning on it for some time.
If anybody has some solid suggestions to put forward, I will certainly be interested to hear them.

Monday 14 May 2007

History will remember my declaration day

I HAVE finally signed my declaration of acceptance of office, and it is a day which will be remembered in history.
At the same time as I was starting my political career at the Deane House, Tony Blair was announcing he was quitting as Prime Minister.
Needless to say, my news was promptly buried under the weight of media coverage of the Prime Minister’s announcement.
Other than a couple of small lines of print in the Somerset County Gazette and the Wellington Weekly News, I suspect my election has so far gone unnoticed by the big wide world.
I notice the County Gazette’s latest attempt to be seen as trendy is to report the news on its website in Polish, and I can’t help wondering if they have covered my story in this section.
I’ve searched for ‘Typowy Anglik CierÅ„ jest wybierany’ but not yet found it, so probably not.
Presumably, the Gazette will also soon have Portugese, Bulgarian, and Romanian sections in order to fully reflect the extent to which Tony Blair’s EU-loving Government has undermined the ability of English citizens to find work in their own country.
A day after signing my declaration, I attended what was called a ‘Welcome Day’ at the Deane House.
It could have been titled a ‘Serves You Right Day’, after we were deluged with presentations, paperwork, and statistics in a marathon session – all this on top of the numerous email reports I have been receiving.
My briefcase was so full of paperwork by the end of the day that I could hardly close it and carry it back to the car.
I have quickly decided that one of the important skills in being a successful councillor is not going to be deciding what to read, but deciding what not to read.
With a day job to do as well, it is not humanly possible to get through everything that is presented to you.
I am not the fastest of readers at the best of times, and have been known to take the best part of a year to read a paperback.
It is going to be a case of feeling my way gently, starting with my choices of the panels on which to serve.
I will be deliberately restricting my choices to two panels, and only stretching to a third if absolutely necessary.
And I am ruling out the planning committee as I appreciate how much time commitment is needed to do this role justice – more time than I have available.
I have already received notice of four planning applications which have been submitted in my ward in my first few days in office, on top of actively investigating the circumstances of a particularly controversial application for gipsy pitches.
Being a planning committee member could be a full-time job in its own right and I will be full of admiration for anybody who serves on it.

Wednesday 9 May 2007

When a councillor is not a councillor - yet

AFTER nearly a week of being the Taunton Deane councillor for the Blackdown ward, I have discovered that I am not your councillor even though I have been elected.
And, until I sign my declaration of acceptance office, I cannot become one.
Even after I sign my declaration, I still will not be a councillor for several more days.
This is because, technically, my predecessor remains the ward’s councillor until the council’s annual meeting on May 16.
I was supposed already to have signed my declaration, but the council suddenly cancelled the appointment while I was en route to Taunton.
It has now been rearranged for Thursday, May 10, exactly a week after you all went to the polls to show your support for me.
If I do not sign the declaration in time, I will not be allowed to attend the annual meeting.
I am not sure at present whether or not I can attend the meeting anyway, as I am working away and will find it difficult to return in time.
For those who are interested in these things, an analysis of the election results has been carried out and I am pleased to announce that all the hard work put in by the Conservative team on the Blackdowns over the past months and years resulted in us increasing our share of the vote to 63 per cent.
There was a 7.2 per cent swing in voting away from the Lib Dems toward the Conservatives in the Blackdown ward, which was the second highest swing in the whole of the Deane.
Although turnout in the ward overall was slightly lower - a fact which I attribute in large part to not having enough parish councillors in any of my three parishes to warrant an election and generate greater incentive for people to travel the sometimes several miles to a polling station - it should be heartening to us that we are continuing to build on the staunch Conservative support which exists on the hills.
Please note, if you previously read this posting and my comments about the Mayor-making ceremony, I have now deleted these references as I have since been informed that I was wrong. In essence, I was given to believe that the public could not attend unless they were a guest of a councillor. I am now told the public can turn up unannounced and attend, even though the ceremony is taking place in a Royal Marines base with all the attendant security. I apologise if, unintentionally, I have misled any readers.

Friday 4 May 2007

What a start - late for my own declaration!

BELIEVE it or not, I missed the declaration of the Blackdown ward result – in fact, I missed the whole day’s counting of the votes in hall at the Blackbrook Pavilion today.
By the time I was about to drive in there, I received a phone c all to say it was all over, the dust had settled, and the fat lady had changed and gone home.
Being self-employed, I have to earn a living for myself and my family and I had a work project which had to be finished today, which meant slaving over the computer all day until it was done.
Having had only three hours’ sleep the night before last, and one-and-a-half hours last night, I was also not in the best of shape for an election count.
I would like to say that it was my dedication to getting out and pounding the beat in my ward to canvass for support which meant I did not have time even for sleep – but that would not be true.
It was actually the same project which kept me away from the count.
However, that is now out of the way and I have had time to reflect on the election results.
For those who do not know, I won the Blackdown ward with 480 votes to the 280 which Sarah Wakefield received for the Lib Dems.
I hope that Sarah does not think I did not attend the count out of any cockiness or intended any slight toward her.
I would have spoken to her and offered commiserations and then looked forward to working with her as one of my three parish council chairmen - in Pitminster – to get things done together for the area.
Brian Simpson was remarkably quick off the mark today, very impressive. The Churchstanton Parish Council clerk had emailed me with congratulations barely moments after I had heard the news myself by phone.
He was not just congratulating me, of course, he was landing the parish’s annual meeting paperwork on my desktop for me to attend on Wednesday – it’s straight down to business now.
I’ve already had a call to sort out the formalities with the chief executive and secretary and solicitor, and there is an induction day coming up shortly after the Bank Holiday.
It’s all downhill now, as they say.
Although I missed the count myself, my ever-supportive and patient mentor, Chris Robinson, a former councillor for the ward himself, was there and flew the flag for us, as was our divisional chairman Ian Irvin.
I would like to say a big thank you to them both, and to Pamela Hankey, for each of them placing their trust and confidence in me to carry the Conservative torch – well, that little green squiggly tree thing as it now is – and to succeed in the election.
Thanks go also to all of my other supporters who have been out there delivering leaflets, putting up posters, raising funding, and generally encouraging others to vote for me, many of whom I have still to meet.
We will be organising a little ‘thank you’ reception for them all very shortly and invitations will be going out in the post soon.
My only sadness was that the Conservatives did not retain overall control of Taunton Deane Borough Council, as some of the seats slipped away from us.
Here is not the place to go into the reasons for what happened, no doubt they will be examined carefully in the coming months and any lessons will be learned.
For now, I look forward to four years of working to preserve and enhance the communities and environment which make up this beautiful and diverse Blackdown ward.

Thursday 3 May 2007

A last chance to talk before casting your vote

POLLING Day has arrived and for anybody who still needs reassuring that I am the person to vote for, there will be opportunities throughout the day to come and meet me and have a chat.
The three polling stations in the Blackdown ward are located in the school at Blagdon Hill, the village hall in Churchinford, and the village hall in Bishopswood.
They will be open from 7 am to 10 pm, but the actual counting of the votes does not start until Friday, at 10.30 am in Taunton, so we will not know on the day who has won.
Please remember, that you can still vote even if you do not have your polling card with you.
All you have to do is give your name and address to the council officer on duty in the polling station.
I am going to be out and about for most of Thursday with Chris Robinson, a former councillor for the ward, and the person who has worked most closely with me to ensure I have visited all parts of the ward.
Supporters, and anybody else, will be welcome to come and meet me outside the polling stations at various times.
At present, the plan is to visit Pitminster school between 8 am and 8.30 am, and again from 12 noon to 12.30 pm, and from 5 pm to 5.30 pm.
I should also be outside Churchinford Village Hall at 8.45 am to 9.15 am, again from 12.45 am to 1.15 pm, and from 5.45 pm to 6.15 pm.
And I should be visiting Bishopswood between 9.30 am and 10 am, again between 1.30 pm and 2 pm, and finally from 6.30 pm to 7 pm.
Of course, you never know what might happen on the day, and the anticipated programme may well slip a little bit.

Wednesday 2 May 2007

On the home straight as polling day approaches

WELL, we are on the home straight with a matter of only a few days before polling day is here and I have been canvassing the ‘urban’ areas of the Blackdown ward.
It is strange to think of Blagdon Hill in ‘urban’ terms, but compared to much of the rest of the area I have been covering, this is how it becomes.
It is heartening to see the ‘Conservative’ posters that have appeared in people’s gardens alongside the road.
They remind me that although for much of the time it has been myself and Chris Robinson on a lonely trek, there are in fact a large team of supporters behind me/us.
Without the support of everybody else, we would not be able to achieve success at the polls and return a Conservative councillor.
It has also been heartening to find so much support on the doorsteps, although Blagdon provided another ‘first’ experience for me on the campaign trail with a door being shut on me rather impolitely before I had even had an opportunity to introduce myself.
I wonder if one day the householder will be in a position where he needs to come and ask for his local councillor’s support on an issue troubling him.
I am not daft enough to expect everybody to support me, but when I am elected I know everybody will expect me to support them!
There are no prizes for guessing the number one concern on the doorsteps of Blagdon Hill.
Yes, it is traffic. Interestingly, though, the more one looks at the issue, the more you appreciate it is not a single issue but a multiple one which varies according to where a person lives in the village.
Just the speed of vehicles is the problem in some parts, elsewhere it is a dangerous bend and junction, and elsewhere again it is the size of the lorries which make whole houses tremble, while other residents are worried about both the speed and size of vehicles.
I know that even going back some years to Chris Robinson’s days as the councillor for the ward he has been trying to implement a village gateway scheme to help ease the problems, but the county council refuses to help.
So, it is not a subject that is going to be easily or quickly resolved, and in my view it is going to need more than one solution.
However, I will give it my best shot and I hope that I can work closely with our county councillor – even though he is with the Lib Dems – to resolve it.
After all, we are all supposed to be doing our bit to help the local community and playing party politics should not come into a matter like this, even though it ism apparent to many that the Lib Dems on the county council like to spend their money in Lib Dem territory in South Somerset rather than in areas which vote Conservative.
But that’s another subject and one which will have to rest until the next county council elections – or will it be unitary elections?
Between the Conservative team on the Blackdowns we have now covered almost every single property in the ward at least twice during the past nine months or so and I have personally met many hundreds of electors.
We will find out on Thursday what those electors think about me.
There may not be time again before the polls to pen another blog report, and if not, then I would like to go on record now as saying a big thank you to everybody who has supported me thus far.

Saturday 28 April 2007

Third time lucky for Stapley residents

IT was third time lucky for Stapley as the weather improved and I finally managed to canvass the hamlet, where, hopefully, I have covered every home - if not, please let me know.
Even so, it took two visits to walk from top to bottom and up and down all those long private driveways where homes are tucked away out of sight.
On the first evening, the rain was still threatening and I had only been to three or four properties when heavy drops started falling.
Nevertheless, I pressed on and the rain lifted, but eventually, as dusk settled in, it became too gloomy to continue. You cannot expect people to answer their doors to a stranger in the dark.
The following evening was a complete contrast with bright sunshine, and on this occasion I was joined on the campaign trail by my two-year-old son, George.
Without transport and without a babysitter, I had to resort to a lift from my elder daughter, which meant putting a child seat in her car and taking George with us.
They waited patiently while I met residents and heard of the local issues which concern them.
Stapley proved as interesting and varied a community as any other I have visited during this campaign, with again the level of Council Tax being a common concern.
It is even more notable in such an isolated community that while residents may be paying as much as those in an urban community, they are not receiving the same services.
In effect, they pay a premium for living in the countryside and being surrounded by some of the finest local environment.
Which, I believe, makes it even more important for the council to provide the best possible service to residents when it is called upon to do so.
Refuse and recycling collections, and the attention of planning officers from time to time were about the only services one could put a finger on as being directly delivered in Stapley.
And each of these topics provided cause for concern on the doorsteps. I won’t go into the planning issue, as it seems this is something that is going to need to be handled after my election. Residents of Stapley, though, will know what I am talking about.
The recycling concerns were again around the recycling of plastic, where I was again able to reassure people that, along with cardboard recycling, the Conservatives are bringing this in soon after the elections.
The refuse concern was similar to comments I have heard previously but with a slightly different twist.
As I mentioned above, there are quite a few long driveways and lanes to reach people’s homes, and few - actually, I cannot think of any – have a flat, Tarmac surface.
This makes it very difficult for some residents to wheel their wheelie bins to the roadside on bin day.
The concern came from a family deeply committed to doing their bit for the environment and very supportive of the council’s recycling programme.
Although they were the first to raise this specific point about the wheelie bins, I am sure there must be quite a lot of others who share the problematic experience every week. The couple also came up with a suggested solution, something which I will look into after the poll on May 3.
Elsewhere, another planning issue has raised its head again, this time involving gipsies – and, no, it is not in North Curry.
One of the difficulties for planning officers in dealing with gipsy matters is that the current Labour Government has a different and less rigid set of rules for gipsy-related applications than it does for ‘ordinary’ planning applications.
Yes, one law for them and another law for the rest of us. I’m not familiar enough with the subject to know if this is another of those situations manufactured by the unelected and unaccountable faceless bureaucrats of Brussels, but I strongly suspect so.
This particular case raises an interesting question: When is a gipsy not a gipsy?
I shall be working with residents in the area to find the answer and to try to resolve the situation as sympathetically as possible for all concerned.

Friday 27 April 2007

Heavy rain disrupts the campaign trail

THE weather, which has been very kind to us on almost every occasion since last October, has finally broken with less than a fortnight to polling day.
Heavy, thundery-type rain set in just as I completed my circuit of Churchinford and its hinterland, forcing me to take a break.
I wanted to visit Stapley as well, but will have to reschedule the hamlet in what is becoming a tighter and tighter timescale as election day approaches.
Churchinford provided a brilliant experience for me, with a real variety of characters and political beliefs appearing on the doorsteps.
Despite being mistaken for a Green Party candidate - we are using the new Conservative logo, the green tree squiggle, on our rosettes (on which I will make no comment here!) - I managed to put across quite a lot about how the Conservatives have been working and what our plans are for the future.
The village also threw up a first on the campaign trail for me, so far - a council tenant who raised the subject of the housing stock transfer.
It is the one and only time the supposedly highly-controversial topic has come up, and it possibly showed how poorly the Conservatives had put across the case for the transfer.
The lady concerned held a deep belief that her home was to be sold off privately to a commercial organisation with the result that rents would double, etc.
I have never actually been much of a fan of the idea, although I thought I understood the principles behind it.
But standing on the doorstep and explaining face-to-face to a tenant how it would have worked made me think about the idea even more intensely and I found myself beginning to warm to it.
No, the houses were not being ‘sold’, they were being transferred; no, they were not going to a nasty private firm out to make a huge profit, they were going to a protected trust run by the very same people whom you presently call the ‘council housing department’; no, rents were not going to shoot up, they would be protected (and the £14 a week the Government takes away and spends in Labour-supporting parts of the country would be kept here to be spent on improving the properties).
The discussion showed the extent to which the Liberal Democrat misinformation campaign had traded on people’s fears, a campaign which has shamefully continued into the election period with gross exaggeration of the cost of an exercise which was ordered by the Labour Government and started by the former Lib Dem administration before they were rightly kicked out of office by the same voters they have now misled.
On a cold evening, there was also cause to appreciate how difficult it can be for elderly people to keep themselves warm.
I heard how heating systems in some homes seem not to be working efficiently, leaving some tenants unable to afford the expense of keeping all the radiators switched on.
Ironically, it appears it was the installation of a new heating system which has caused the problem, while tenants who opted to stay on the old system seem not to have the problem.
I shall be looking into this one more closely once I am elected.
Elsewhere, the subject of the desperate plight of some farmers came up, and here I was pleased to be able to explain some of the measures the Conservative team on the Blackdowns are looking at in order to help.
There were, as always, a few who will not be voting for me and who did not want my leaflets, not even to keep for a rainy evening’s reading.

Saturday 21 April 2007

I counted them all in and I counted them all out

ANOTHER evening canvassing in Churchinford and another set of issues raised on the doorstep, but this time much more local and more in line with what can be achieved at Taunton Deane Borough Council.
It was also an opportunity to catch up with some old friends, one from my days as vice-chairman of the Taunton Sunday Football League - when I helped the new Churchinford team to join the league - and one from my days providing public relations advice in local government circles.
I had not realise that either of them lived on the estate as I knocked on their doors to introduce myself.
After a few rebuffs, some polite, some less so, it was nice to be greeted by friendly faces and to chat about old times.
I won’t name them, for fear of embarrassing them, as politics can sometimes cause people to change their opinions of others.
I actually have friends from (just about) all political viewpoints and I have no problem with people who do not want to vote for me – even some of my own family would not vote for a Conservative, so I quite understand the feelings.
However, I will be a councillor for them, whether or not they vote for me, and I will still do my best to represent them and take up issues they need resolving.
One common thread this time on the doorsteps was the lack of play facilities for children aged eight years and older.
Yes, there is the sports field where the football club play, but that is a long way out of the village and I certainly would think twice before allowing a nine-year-old to go there on their own or even with another friend.
I was told that several attempts had been made at finding a suitable site for a play facility but all had come to nothing.
Nobody, though, knew why all the efforts to date had failed.
It is something I will certainly be looking into and, starting with the parish council, asking what has been tried, why it did not succeed, and what more can be done.
I regularly ask people what their local concerns are as I chat with them on the doorsteps, and on this occasion I was surprised to find one chap’s concern of the moment was that he did not have any trousers.
Yes, he chatted away in his boxer shorts as he prepared to go out for the evening.
And he threw up a very interesting point about electioneering.
Quite a lot of people do not actually understand what the different councils do. I can explain it when I am talking with people, but for those whom I miss, the leaflets are all about what has been done and what is being promised, but they do not really explain the fundamentals of local government.
It was food for thought and something may have to change with future leaflets to help people understand the differences between the layers of local government.
Unless, of course, the Liberal Democrats get their way and there is only one council and everything will have to be done their way, anyway.
By now, everybody who has requested a postal vote should have received their paperwork and can start to submit their votes.
They will also have received an election address from me in the post at about the same time, which I hope they will read before casting their vote.
There were 142 households in the ward who requested postal votes, which accounts for about 200 voters.
I know, because I counted them, because I had to stick the address labels on 142 envelopes, put stamps on 142 envelopes, and put election addresses in 142 envelopes, as the photograph taken above shows. I counted them all in and I counted them all out as they went into the post box.
It was early morning and I undertook the task before getting down to the rest of the day’s work, which is why I do not look at my best, not that I really have a ‘best’.
Still, I consoled myself with the thought that a few years ago this could have been a photograph of Tony Blair or David Cameron, but then again, perhaps not as they would not have had postal votes in those days – didn’t they have it easy then!

Wednesday 18 April 2007

Spanish trawlers, 4x4 taxes, index-linked pensions, and the powers of Deane House

IT is interesting to discover through canvassing and meeting people just how much some voters believe a Taunton Deane councillor can achieve.
The usual issues which come up in the doorstep include Council Tax - “It is too high and keeps going up and we can’t afford it”; the state of the roads – “They (Somerset County Council) keep patching bits where there are potholes but it doesn’t last and they have to keep doing it when they should be resurfacing the whole road”; heavy lorries – “The roads are not good enough standard to take them and they destroy the verges and gouge out the surface”; recycling – “Why can’t we have plastic recycled as well”.
I agree on the Council Tax – I have to pay it as well, and I can only afford it with difficulty – and I point out that they are only paying £1.47 a week to Taunton Deane, while 90p in every £1 goes to the county council, and if you look at the record you see the Conservatives have kept any increases at well below half of the whopping hikes imposed each year when the Liberal Democrats were running the council into the ground.
I agree on the road maintenance, and although it is a matter for the county’s Lib Dems I will be seeking to understand why they throw away money like this instead of doing a decent job first time around which will last. It seems rather like having a leak in your roof and hiring a builder to come and replace a slate, and then getting him back to do another slate, and another, etc, rather than replacing the worn out roof.
I agree on the heavy lorries. It does not make sense to ban the lorries from the Corfe road and then send them up Blagdon Hill when the hill has the same geological profile and weaknesses as they have at Corfe. Why not at least share the burden rather than dump it onto one road.
I agree on the recycling – and take pleasure in telling people “Yes, you can, and cardboard as well.” The pledge is in the leaflets I hand out to residents. When the Conservatives get back in, plastic and cardboard recycling is also coming in. There are, of course, reasons why it has not been done earlier, which my opponents will not explain to you. But if you look what happens with plastic, it is in reality not so green a process when it is recycled. Nevertheless, it is a step we need to take and we can then address the issue of making the process more green.
However, when canvassing in Churchinford, there were a few issues on which I found myself out of my depth.
Yes, I understand them and can discuss them, but there is not a lot I am going to be able to do from the Deane House about taxes on deep sea fishing, nor about the Spanish trawlers which breach European Union fishery laws and pinch UK fish stocks.
And I will not be able to do a great deal about the issue of higher taxes on 4x4 vehicles which many people in the Blackdown ward rely on for transport, especially in the deep of winter.
Nor will I be able to make the Labour Government index-link pensions now instead of 2012 as they say they are going to do.
Neither can I “take the UK out of the EU tomorrow” as many people would wish, including myself.
I also, unfortunately, cannot create more jobs locally in the NHS to help those who have to travel far and wide to find work.
But, yes, I can help to get Tony Blair and Gordon Brown out of office and bring in a change of Government.
Because every vote I receive at the local election on May 3 is a Conservative vote and every one counts towards the opinion polls and forecasts which show David Cameron is going to be the next (elected) Prime Minister.
The more support the Conservatives receive now, the greater will be their support when the General Election comes, as voters will have more confidence in voting Conservative and actually seeing them take power in Westminster.
So, one small vote for me on May 3 is one giant leap forward toward a Conservative Government.

Tuesday 17 April 2007

Llama on the loose

AFTER visiting the parish exhibition in Pitminster to show off the plans for the planned new village hall, I was able to put in my longest canvassing stint so far and came across the strangest sight yet - a llama galloping along the road.
I suppose I should not be too surprised, as these days there are all sorts of exotic creatures being reared on the Blackdowns, llamas, alpacas, bison, and so on, as well as more traditional ones returning, like longhorn cattle.
The llama (pictured), though, did catch us unawares as we turned out of one road and must have startled it into galloping toward us.
I jumped out of the car to try to usher it to the side of the road so I could perhaps call the police for advice, and again I was surprised at its turn of speed as it raced past before I could do anything and disappeared around a bend in the distance.
All we could then do was alert a nearby farmer, who had a good idea to whom the animal belonged and promised to pass on the alert.
Earlier, the village hall plans attracted around 100 Pitminster parishioners to the Queens Arms to look at some of the detail of what is being proposed and to have their say on it.
The village hall committee have worked wonders to progress the project and it is a great example of a community working together to achieve something which will bring benefits to many.
There are, naturally, issues about which some people will not be happy, such as the impact of a large new building on nearby residents and it is something which will need to be given some extremely careful consideration.
But the bottom line with the village hall plans is that this is a desperately-needed community facility for which everything possible needs to be done to ensure it is provided.
I was pleased to meet some of the committee members and I am looking forward to being able to do my little bit to help them be successful.
The photo shows me looking at the plans, with in the background Chris Robinson, who used to be the ward councillor and who has played a big part in the community consultation.
The opportunity was also taken at the same time to allow people to have their say on the war memorial issue in Blagdon Hill – should it stay, or should it go?
Quite a lot of comments have been made by people, some in favour of keeping it where it is and perhaps doing more to encourage people to use the area, some wanting it moved to a more accessible location, and some wanting a bit of both with a new memorial in the village while leaving the existing one as it is.
Afterwards, I continued my safari canvassing around some of the more remote areas of the ward, where you drive half-a-mile or more between properties to meet residents who have not seen a local candidate for many years, if ever.
There are as diverse a range of people living on the hills as there are animals being reared on them.
But many of them have shared values and concerns, with worries about how they can afford Council Tax, fear of crime, complaints about the state of the roads and speed of traffic, and delight that the Conservatives are bringing in plastic and cardboard recycling.

Thursday 12 April 2007

Discovering a Deane microcosm in the Blackdowns

IT is a lovely place, and I met some lovely people as I finally managed to canvass homes in Bishopswood, a day later than planned.
There was also the bonus of all that walking up and down the hill helping to improve my fitness, which has been suffering badly as I have not been able to do any football refereeing this season for the first time in 17 years.
Bishopswood turns out to be something of a microcosm of the whole ward, probably of the whole Taunton Deane as well.
There was the ‘staunch Labour’ couple - only the second I have actually met in the ward - but unfortunately for them, Labour does not have a candidate here. Their choice would presumably have to be the Lib Dems, because they are more Left than New Labour.
There was the lady who ‘does not vote anyway because they are all corrupt’ - I have met quite a few more of those than I have Labour supporters - but at least she accepted local council work was rather different from Parliamentary affairs and so she agreed to have a read of my leaflets and have a think about it.
I hope she does vote one way or the other. Everybody should at least have their say in a positive way about who runs the council rather than accepting by default whomever their neighbour has voted for.
There was also the ‘no point, we are voting UKIP’ lady - a first for me in this campaign. However, I had to break the news to her that she cannot vote UKIP because they are not putting anybody up.
I believe they might have one candidate somewhere in the whole of the Deane. But even if they ran the council, I find it hard to believe that Taunton Deane Borough Council would be able to pull the UK out of the European Union.
Still, I fully understand the sentiment, and, as a very long-standing Democracy Movement member and even (I say it quietly, in case I get into trouble with my Party bosses) having voted UKIP in Euro elections, I strongly share the sentiments.
So, for any UKIP voters out there, believe you me, I am the closest thing you have.
There was the lady who has built her own home single-handedly with her bare hands, who puts me to shame as my DIY skills are legendary for all the wrong reasons.
There was also a fellow blogger, but in my desire to impress him with political know-how, I forgot to ask what was his blog site. Perhaps, if he reads this, he will forward the address for me to have a look.
I found a great mix of people living here in Bishopswood, which must contribute hugely to the dynamics of the community and I look forward to learning more about them.
Only one resident point blank turned me away from their doorstep, using polite hand signals and a brief ‘no, thank you’, not even accepting the leaflet which will tell him how to get hold of me if ever he needs my help.
Others, even those who I cold sense are unlikely to vote for me, at least took the trouble to look at the literature which will tell them more about who I am.
With the election campaign now in full swing, I have been inundated with literature to give out to voters - two different Conservative newspapers, two different leaflets, and a slip for those who were not in to let them know I was sorry to have missed them.
I could not help noticing that this morning is recycling day, and almost everybody was putting out their green recycling bins.
The thought did occur that if I came back in the morning and had a look, I could find some of my literature had quickly made its way into the green bins.
If so, would it indicate the residents of Bishopswood have taken speed reading lessons, or that, rather like me, they do not have the time for all this ‘bumf’.
I try to read all the leaflets that the different parties deliver to my home because I think I should be able to understand what different candidates stand for before I cast my vote, but unfortunately even I have a rather large pile of them which I have not gotten round to finishing over the years.
It is easy to see what the Lib Dems stand for, having read some of the leaflets they have been delivering in the ward – ‘no’ to this, ‘no’ to that, ‘no’ to the other, and ‘yes’ to all the things the Conservatives are doing anyway.
I see they are even trying to claim the credit for the green recycling boxes, which the Conservatives introduced anyway. They want plastic recycling – the Conservatives are giving it to them.
They also rather deceptively complain about the things that their Lib Dem chums who are in charge in County Hall actually have responsibility for – not the Deane Conservatives - and which they could resolve if they so wished, such as speed limits and quarry lorries.
I have a good mind to fill out their ‘grumble sheet’. It would read something like: “Dear Lib Dems, why not try to do something constructive, why not try to be positive, why not tell people what you have actually done for them.” I already know the answers: “We can’t, we don’t know how, we haven’t.”
Perhaps my Lib Dem leaflets will quickly reach the recycling box instead.
At least the Conservative messages I have been delivering to people are positive and constructive – we have kept down the Council Tax, we are bringing in plastic and cardboard recycling, we are building more affordable homes for local people, we are supporting vital rural services such as Post Offices.
And as I trekked up and down the hill in Bishopswood, these were all issues that came up on the doorsteps time and again.
As dusk fell, I had to call it a day and realised I had left no time to take any photographs, as my gloomy photograph above shows.

Wednesday 11 April 2007

Parish council election results announced a month early

MY first Otterford Parish Council meeting, and what a pleasant one it was.
After a stressful day handling a work crisis in West Somerset, I was running late and found no time to actually canvass in Bishopswood ahead of the meeting as we had planned.
Instead, it was a mad dash just to get to the village hall on time.
But something appeared to be not quite right, as the hall was filled with young children, mostly girls, aged around eight to 10 years, enjoying quite a loud birthday disco.
Not being familiar with the building, I ask if there is a separate room somewhere for the local councillors to meet, although I cannot believe a meeting can be held anywhere in the vicinity against the thumping background of some ageless disco favourites.
The answer is negative, so I reach for the mobile to ring the council chairman, Cllr Tony Beaumont, only to discover that, once again since switching from Nokia to Motorola, I do not have a signal and cannot make a call.
Then, a lady appears who, not being unkind, does not look like mum collecting a daughter and who is clutching some paperwork and a large torch, indicating she may be arriving for a meeting which will finish post-dusk.
She turns out to be Cllr Rosemary Viant and she leads me to a committee room to the rear of the hall where other councillors and some members of the public are already waiting.
I have attended parish council meetings of one sort or another, of various sizes, in all sorts of isolated communities across the Westcountry, and wearing a number of different ‘hats’, for the past 30 or so years.
So, although I am a new face for Otterford, I know my stuff and hope to be able to work closely in support of them long into the future.
It turns out they do not have a public participation item on their agenda, in Otterford they call it ‘community time’, which I quite like.
A few verses of ‘Happy Birthday’ are sung in the adjacent hall and the disco then fades away for the parish council business to begin.
I take the opportunity in ‘community time’ to raise some of the parish issues which have been coming up on the doorstep and I am conscious that although I am coming to such matters fresh, the parish councillors will no doubt have heard them time and again.
I am correct - the danger to horse riders from speeding traffic, the absence of pavements to shelter pedestrians from speeding traffic, the problems of heavy lorries on unsuitable roads, have all earned the councillors the proverbial T-shirt in the past.
The ‘I’ve stopped because it hurts’ feeling is common among parish councillors everywhere after they have spent a long time banging their heads against the wall.
However, to their credit, the Otterford councillors do agree to again look into the issue of warning signs for drivers to alert them to horse riders.
They also throw some light on the mystery of the missing signs which ban heavy lorries from a stretch of road, as it turns out there is no ban.
It seems the county council have only told quarry lorries to use a diversion, and in the absence of formal prohibition they cannot put up any signs.
So it is a completely voluntary arrangement. I am not sure why the county think only one type of heavy lorry might be a nuisance and why, if those should use a diversion, others should not.
No doubt I will discover more in time.
The results of the May 3 local elections are announced. Yes, it is only April 10, but all five candidates for the five vacancies in the parish have been returned unopposed.
In fact, there will be no elections in any of the Blackdown ward’s three parishes, as it is the same story in Churchstanton, where seven vacancies have been filled unopposed, and in Pitminster with six candidates for six seats.
So, the only vote local residents will have on May 3 is whether or not to elect me as their Deane councillor.
What it says about local democracy, I am not sure. I know the picture is the same across large parts of the Deane, with only a handful of parishes being contested.
It is not the fault of the candidates, all of whom I am sure have the best interests of their communities at heart.
But if anything is to be done to address the issue of falling participation in English democracy, especially when it comes to a General Election where Governments are elected to decide on issues such as going to war in Iraq, Iran, Syria, or anywhere else, it surely needs to start with healthy competition at the grass roots of democracy.
It turns out to be a last parish council meeting for Cllr Irene Campbell, who is not standing again. Her place is being taken by Charlie Field.
There is some food left over from the disco, so it is passed through at the end of the meeting to accompany a couple of bottles of wine which have been brought along to toast Cllr Campbell farewell.
Being a journalist by profession, I spot the community news potential for the local newspapers and - not because I am invited to share the refreshments – I grab my camera and take a photograph of the occasion, which I will send to the papers shortly.
The photo (above) shows Cllr Campbell seated (right) beside Cllr Viant with (standing, left to right) Cllr Beaumont, Cllr Paul Williams, and the council clerk, Barbara Simpson, whom I have already met as she is (and will be again) a parish councillor in Churchstanton, where her husband Brian is the clerk.

Tuesday 10 April 2007

Diversity is alive and well on the natural Blackdowns

A FINAL evening canvassing on the Blackdown Hills before Easter and the weather has continued to be kind with sunshine following us wherever we go and enhancing the beauty of the environment here.
One of our first stops of the evening throws up a fairly widespread issue with concern about the speed of modern traffic on a rural road.
This time, it is the road which runs past the Holman Clavel public house and, as we are canvassing at a time when quite a lot of people are driving home from work, I decide to walk part of the road to experience the problem for myself.
Scary!
Walking just the short stretch from the caravan park to the public house with cars, lorries, and a towing caravan flashing past not too many inches away from my shoulder is a steep learning curve.
It is all very well listening to people telling you how dangerous something is, but when all you do is drive or stand and watch from a safe vantage point, you just do not feel the real danger people are exposed to.
And that was in the early evening when the light and visibility was excellent for drivers to be able to see me as I dodged on and off the little strips of grass verge which kept me out of harm’s way.
I am not going to be on the county council, which is responsible for the roads and pavements, but I shall certainly be taking every opportunity to let the powers that be know of the safety issue here.
If every highways engineer lived in a rural community and had to walk to his or her local pub, I am sure there would be more money spent on providing pavements for pedestrians.
Only a few minutes later I come across a bizarre situation where the highways people on the county council have banned heavy lorries from a stretch of road - but they appear not to have told the drivers of the heavy lorries.
As I stand at the side of the road and chat to a local resident about to walk his dogs, a large tanker trundles by. I say trundling, but the slipstream seems more like a train rushing by.
It is pointed out to me that such large vehicles are not supposed to use this road but should use a detour.
I ask why drivers who ignore the signs are not pulled up for this by the enforcement people and discover that there are no signs.
It seems hard to understand why, but anybody who has experienced the layer upon layer of county council bureaucracy involved in doing anything, even putting up a simple roadside sign, will have a good idea of how such apparent cock-ups happen.
The Lib Dems on the county council are currently trying to abolish local councils and seize all local government power for themselves with a unitary authority which they say will save us all money.
If they want to save money for Council Taxpayers, there are plenty of ways they could do so at the moment just by taking a look at how they themselves actually work, or do not work.
I tend to think that any money they think a unitary would save, would actually just go into the pockets of Lib Dem councillors who would want even bigger pay allowances than the tens of thousands of pounds they are already paid from the public purse.
The diverse nature of communities and their issues on the Blackdowns is illustrated in just a few hours this evening, as we move from running a caravan site and battling traffic to speak with couples who are retired, couples with young families, elderly people living alone, people who have only recently moved out from Taunton seeking a quieter lifestyle, and others.
There is the farmer who has had to move out of dairy farming because of the dire state of that agricultural sector despite what Tesco might tell you about the price of a pint of milk.
‘Out of the frying pan and into the fire’ comes to mind as he tells how beef and arable farming is hardly any easier.
A possible planning application for a house on a plot of land seems to be the only way out of the financial mire, but I cannot help wondering for how long it will help.
Farmers need to be able to sustain their living and not rely on generating lump sums from property development every so often. Sooner or later, there will not be any room left for such lump sums, but the need to look after the countryside and manage the environment will still be there.
Then, we meet a remarkable elderly couple who are trying to restock the River Otter with salmon.
They tell me how they hatch thousands of baby salmon - parr, I believe, is the technical term - which they distribute at different points in the river and how the water here is full of the foodstuffs baby salmon love.
There is something about the thought of salmon in a river which creates a feel-good feeling, if there is such a thing.
‘Salmon’ equates to pure, clean waters and the natural cycle of Mother Nature, so it must mean a better environment for us all.
The trouble is, the young fish have been killed by pollution which apparently came downstream from a farm some distance away.
Now, they are trying again with a new batch of salmon eggs and hope eventually to be successful.
I sincerely hope, too, that they do succeed and that I will be returning later as their borough councillor to see how they and the salmon are getting on.

Tuesday 3 April 2007

Living life on the edge

ON a windy but warm and sunny evening, I discovered more yesterday about living life on the edge.
The edge of Taunton Deane, that is.
With former Blackdown ward Conservative councillor Chris Robinson as my chauffeur, I continued with my recent visits to homes along the very boundaries of the ward.
I have already met and spoken with residents who have one foot almost in Mid Devon or East Devon districts, and last night it was the turn of those around Bishopswood who have South Somerset district outside their back doors.
It makes for some strange orienteering when we drive along a road to knock at the door of one house where the occupants have an opportunity to vote for me, yet their next door neighbour lives in a completely different local government world.
People up here on top of the Blackdowns are probably as far away from Taunton as they could be and yet pay their Council Tax to the Deane council – 90p in every £1 of which, of course, is snatched by the Lib Dems at County Hall, which is why the bills are so high.
Council Tax was a major issue for one gentleman I met, who was in business and who probably was not a Conservative sympathiser.
It is perhaps understandable that because the Deane council has the job in law of collecting all of the Council Tax bills - and has to pursue those who do not pay - that he should blame the Deane.
The allegation was that ‘none of you lot can ever have been in business the way you put the Council Tax up every year’.
Being self-employed and running a business with my wife, I was able to reassure him that I, at least, understood the issues and that I was as sensitive as anybody else to the challenges of meeting ever-rising bills.
I’m not sure whether he took the point that under the Conservatives the Deane council’s share of Council Tax has risen an average of only four per cent in the years since they took charge in 2003, whereas in the 10 years of Lib Dem rule previously the Council Tax had gone up an average 800 per cent.
At the same time, the Lib Dems were raiding the council’s bank savings in order to spend money on their ineffective pet projects without increasing the bills even more, leaving the council in a very precarious financial state by the time the Conservatives came into office.
The Conservatives through prudent financial planning and controls have since managed to restore the bank balances and keep down Council Tax rises.
All the public opinion polls show that this is the right course to follow, as people time and again say they want to see low Council Tax and that people should instead pay for those services they use, such as a motorist paying for car parking.
Not far away from this gentleman, I met another who was a strong Lib Dem voter. He politely declined to take my leaflets on the basis that there was no way he would vote for me.
That was fine, but I did make the point that if I was going to be his councillor anyway, one of the leaflets contained my contact details in case he should need anything taken up on his behalf, because I will be a councillor for everybody regardless of how they actually vote.
It made no difference. Some people, it seems, cannot be helped.
Elsewhere, in fact nearly everywhere else, I was warmly welcomed by residents who not only want to see me elected as a Conservative councillor but also want to see a Conservative MP and a Conservative Government.
‘We have to get this lot out and have a change’ was a frequent theme on the doorsteps.
But at the same time, some people are not sure if they will even bother to vote.
I perhaps should not say it, but I do tell them that even if they do not vote for me, I would like to see them vote for somebody.
Everybody should have their say at local elections. If they do not, then they are effectively leaving it to their neighbours to decide how much Council Tax they will have to pay and whether their refuse will be collected this week or not, and so on.
The issue of recycling was raised on more than one occasion, with one resident in particular explaining how the Deane council has no idea of the problems people such as he face living out on the edge of the borough in a rural setting.
I tended to agree with him, having seen over many years the difficulties faced in even more remote parts of Exmoor.
How do you wheel a wheelie bin around the back of your house when there is a deep layer of gravel? How do you position a wheelie bin at the roadside when the road is not wide enough for a vehicle to pass by before it is emptied? How do you leave out biodegradable bags when foxes, badgers, even neighbouring dogs, rip them open?
Another frequently-raised topic is the speed of traffic, especially as many of the minor roads on the hills are relatively quiet and straight in places, which seems to encourage motorists to put their foot down.
For one lady, the traffic whizzing past her home at around 70 mph towards a bend with an advisory limit of 40 mph is a particular problem when she and her children try to go horse riding.
I have already met elsewhere families who no longer allow their children to ride along the road near their homes for fear of - and through actual experience of - being hit by a car.
It has been one of the surprises of getting to know the ward better, that I have found there are not more measures in place to alert motorists to the fact they are driving through an area where there are many, many horse riders.
In this particular instance, it was Chris Robinson in his time as a Conservative councillor for the ward, who persuaded the highways people to install the 40 mph advisory signs and chevrons.
I will be taking up the issue with Otterford Parish Council when it next meets on April 12 to see if we can look at further warning measures for motorists at this spot, with signs to alert them to the riders who may be crossing the road ahead of them.
Watch this space!

Monday 2 April 2007

Campaigning is underway in earnest

WELL, the local elections for Taunton Deane Borough Council to be held on May 3 have been officially called, and campaigning for most candidates starts in earnest today.
For me (this is me, pictured here, for anybody who does not know me), it is a case of continuing with the work I have been putting in for quite a long time now.
I have actually been out and about on the Blackdown Hills meeting local voters and hearing about their concerns since last October.
I have already attended and spoken at meetings of Pitminster and Churchstanton Parish Councils and have been raising issues of concern to the people I have been meeting on the doorsteps, and I will shortly be attending Otterford Parish Council as well.
I am indebted to the many people in the ward who have been kind enough to deliver leaflets on behalf of the Conservative Party and myself in recent months and weeks.
As a busy person myself, I know how difficult it can be to find the time to help with even small things, but no matter how large or small the contribution, I am very grateful to everybody who has and who continues to help our campaign.
I do not especially like to pick out individuals for fear of offending those who are not mentioned by name, but I have to make a special mention of Chris Robinson.
Chris served the Blackdown Ward well as a councillor for many years and he has been absolutely invaluable in helping me and showing me around areas of the ward which I did not already know so well.
I have been amazed at how he seems to personally know anybody and everybody in the area, and he continues with a passion to hold a grasp of the day-to-day issues which are close to everybody who lives and works in the ward.
With the help of Chris and others, I have been building on my own familiarity with the Blackdowns and I have travelled the length and breadth of the ward meeting people from all walks of life.
I have already tackled issues such as a roadside hedge in Churchinford which the Deane council had been neglecting to cut back for some years and which was really causing a nuisance to one neighbour in particular.
Speeding cars in Angersleigh and in other locations; flooding in Lowton; roadside litter at Fulwood; anti-social behaviour near Shoreditch and in other areas; planning issues in Fosgrove and in Duddlestone; the debate over the future location of Churchstanton Primary School and whether there should be more housing in the village; the project to create a village hall at Sellicks Green; these are all issues which I have been following or have been involved with.
There are many, many other issues which have been coming up as I talk to people in the ward.
Many of them are actually the responsibility of Somerset County Council and I will do my best to try to make them do something to help.
However, it has to be appreciated that the county council is run by the Liberal Democrats, whose idea of helping people tends to be just to say the things they think you want to hear so you will vote for them.
The Lib Dems will promise you the earth if they thought it would make you support them - but, as many people in the ward have already discovered, they rarely, if ever, deliver.
They seem to like to play on people’s fears: ‘Be afraid, be very afraid – and vote for us’ seems to be a Lib Dem motto.
While at the same time they stoop to downright deceit. I have heard of a case nearby in Wellington where a Lib Dem councillor has been telling people she lives in Wellington, when she actually lives miles away in Devon and is more qualified to be a Culmstock parish councillor or a Mid Devon district councillor, than a councillor in Wellington and Taunton Deane.
If you cannot even trust the Lib Dems to be honest about where they live, then I do not believe you can really trust them on anything.
We will discover at noon on Wednesday who else is standing for election in the Blackdown Ward, as the nominations officially close at that time.
I will look forward with interest to finding out with whom I will be ‘sparring’.